Free Your Mind
Hello there !
Thank you so much for joining me today. Do you know what your style is? Do you have yourself branded? Could you put a name to it? Could you pitch it to Walmart for millions of dollars? If not, I have to tell you, that's probably not a bad thing. I see so much emphasis on finding a “style" that works in your home. And while this in theory is fine, especially if it’s working for you - and please note anything that works for you is awesome, and this is just my opinion as an interior designer and the things I see my clients struggle with. What I see happening to so many people is it actually creates more of a trap. Trying to confine yourself into a particular time period or trend creates more problems than it does solutions. And interior design is all about solutions. so that is no bueno.
One of the major fears and insecurities I hear from the people in my life is that something they will select for their home won't "go" with everything else. Most people who say that don't know what it means to "go" and they’re the first to admit that. They know enough that they know matching is out, matching is over, the days of room sets are over. But the theoretical idea of "going" together, is that things need to work together, they need to play nice together. It might not all be the same color or texture, in fact I think there is an inherent understanding that there should be a variety of those things, but if it doesn't “go,” the fear is- you're gonna look like a fool. That's scary, right? It's going to look unorganized, it's going look stupid, nobody wants to look like a fool. Even when it comes to something as private as home interiors.
But here's the thing, if something doesn't “go" it's not because it's from a different time or you have too many styles. It's because one of the five elements that we're going to talk about today is out of whack. This is juicy stuff, okay. You are basically taking a day of design school by listening to this episode. If you enroll to become any kind of a designer really, whether it's an interior designer, graphic designer, fashion designer, or web designer; you're going to learn this stuff like the first month or even the first week of school. So this is a real lesson and if it seems conceptual that's because it is! These are big bucket concepts that eventually become second nature to all designers. So when you see a designer working and creating and their gears are turning and you wonder what's going on? What are they thinking? This is it. These are the things. This is how designers see the world and they do it so intuitively that some of us couldn't even explain it to you. They they just do it, they're just doing it. But, I think it's really important for you to understand this because I see so many people struggling to make decisions about their home and feel good about the decisions they do make in their home, and so much of that struggle and energy is focused on the wrong thing. Is this mid-century modern? Is it farmhouse? Is it traditional? Is it contemporary? Is it transitional? It’s time to leave that behind.
And I get the gravitation towards trying to label what it is that you like, because developing and using language around interior design when you don't have experience with it, is really challenging! If someone's like, “what kind of interior design do you like?” If you don't say mid-century modern or French Country, what are you supposed to say? I get it. But consider saying things that are more descriptive. I think about the comparison of interior design and fashion a lot because I think since we all wear clothes every day, we're all actually a little bit more fashion savvy than we are interior savvy. You shop for clothes a lot more often than you shop for furniture, right? And so if you were going to describe your clothing style, I can't imagine the average person saying “I only wear clothes from the 1950’s” or “I like the farmer aesthetic.” To be fair, overalls are coming back in style, but if you wear them it's not such a literal reference. You're not like “oh, but should I wear a big straw hat too? Should I carry a pitchfork? Is it OK to drive around in my car or do I need to get a tractor?” You just where are the overalls and have fun in them. There's no theme that you're trying to force. Fashion is so much more about what looks good on your body. What shape, fit, and colors flatter you? But I would argue that interior design is like that as well. Working with the space that you have. You can shape and mold and emphasize your room to make it look the best that it can, and then you pepper in the things that you love. Someone asks you “what's your fashion style?” I think answers that I hear are more like “classic” or “I wear a lot of neutrals” or “I like to have fun and mix it up”. You might also hear someone say, “everything I wear is from Zara.” And you'll hear that too with interior design, you'll hear people say “I love crate and barrel, half my house is from there.” And that's OK if you found one store that just hit it out of the park for you every single time. That's cool.
I almost always say that my style is eclectic. If you work with me as a designer you're going to get the eclectic look. Because if you're following the design principles we’re taking about today, it doesn't matter where a piece of furniture came from, when it was made, what you would classify it as - it doesn't matter. Again, If you’re having fun with a style, that’s great. Keep going. But outside of this concept of a “style, ” what really matters is when you create a story for yourself. I talk about this in episode one of the podcast because this is the most important thing about interior design. That's why it was my first episode. It's not about what color you like today or what you saw on HGTV last night. And it's not about what your friends do either. That's a tough one, because I talk to a lot of people who are really hung up on getting something that's similar to what their friends did in their home, but just different enough to not be completely copying. But in that case, the goal becomes having the friends come over and be really impressed. But it's not about that, it's about you. This is your home. This is your space - maybe it's your office or your small businesses’ first brick and mortar store. This is you. This is your story. Using your unique experience and your individual life is what makes a space truly interesting and what makes you love it forever. Your friends are allowed to not like your home. You can handle it. And if you’ve got this like, frienemy competition thing going on, that's a terrible reason to renovate your kitchen. You've got bigger problems frankly, like maybe not surrounding yourself with supportive people. But that’s above my pay grade. So let’s stay in our lane, and get into the design stuff. We are looking at the five basic principles of design today and how you can apply each one to the choices you make in your home.
All five of these concepts are super important and need to be factored into your home to make it look sharp. But I want to start with the principle of Hierarchy because I think this is the one that is most forgotten. This very much a concept that is happening in the background, no one is going to walk into your home and exclaim what excellently clear hierarchy you have, unless maybe you have me over. If you’re not familiar with design terminology, you may have heard this word in reference to politics, corporate structure, and even family dynamics. It’s the opposite equality, there’s a pecking order. One thing has the most power, a few things have slightly less power, a few more things have even less power, and most things have very little power. Diagrammatically, it’s like the old food pyramids from the 90’s or like a multi-level marketing scheme!
While you and I might have a variety of feelings abut hierarchy in other instances, in design, it’s always a good thing. Imagine an accent wall. No matter what you’re level of experience with interior design, we’ve all come across the concept of accent walls. This is one wall in the room, usually selected due to its location behind a headboard, TV, or sofa - that is painted a distinctly different color than the other walls. This is hierarchy in its most basic form - highlighting something, giving one particular element more emphasis, more power, more dominance than anything else around it.
There should be one element in your space that grabs the eye’s attention the moment someone walks in. Whether that is done with color, shape, size, or texture is up to you. From there, a handful of elements should be slightly watered down versions of the eye catching element. If you have an accent wall and that’s going to be your big statement for the room, repeat lighter and less saturated tones of that same color in other elements - the furniture, art, and decor. These are like the back-up dancers to the Beyonce that is your accent wall. There can only be one Beyoncé in the room, but she has team to support her. Then you’ll have another layer of even more items, that are another step down in visual dominance - more neutrals, but still in the color family of the accent wall. And then the majority of the other features in the room are quieter - the floors, the ceiling, the remaining walls, are all neutral, quieter players, almost behind the scenes.
The reason hierarchy is so important, is that when a human eye looks at a room, or anything visual really, it needs guidance on:
Where exactly to look
When to look at it
How long to look
Lack of hierarchy results in the eye not knowing:
Where to look first
When to look at somewhere else
Where to pause and rest
When you emphasize clearly and systematically using a hierarchical structure in your design, the eye has something to look at right away - your accent or feature. Then the eye bounces around to the lower tiers momentarily; and finally rests in a neutral area. And all of this happens without anyone having to explain anything. It’s just automatic, human behavior. If you don’t like something, and you can’t say why - ask yourself if your eye is having a hard time knowing where to rest - that’s how you know the hierarchy is or is not working.
Closely related to Hierarchy is the idea of Balance. This is a broad category that includes the related concepts of symmetry, asymmetry, and randomness. Balance refers to any aesthetic composition’s (aka a room’s) arrangement. A balanced arrangement appears properly distributed. Symmetry is a popular form of balance because it’s the most straight forward - what’s on one side is mirrored on the other side. But symmetry can be a little limiting and unrealistic in many situations, so it’s important to understand the idea of balance outside of this context and learn about balanced asymmetry and even balanced randomness. This concept is actually best visualized if you think of an actual scale. Yes, you can put three oranges on both sides of the scale and it will be balanced (symmetry), but you can also put three oranges on one side and 50 cherries on the other side. Or you could have a giant bunch of spinach on one side and a single plum on the other. Jumping from produce to interior design, if there’s an accent wall in the space, the opposite wall would benefit from a large piece of artwork or even a mirror. Or if you have a large neutral colored sectional in your living room, you can balance it out by adding an accent chair that’s a unique shape, color, or pattern.
Speaking of unique, Contrast is our third design principle, and boy oh boy! Is this a fun one. I’ve mentioned this on previously episodes but contrast is the spice of life. If you think about a delicious fresh hot french fry - it’s outside is CRISP and crunchy. And conversely, the inside of the french fry is perfectly soft, almost creamy potato. It’s the ultimate contrast, and experiencing these two very different textures in one bite brings JOY to most people. Unless you don’t like french fries and if that’s the case, I see you. But this concept of contrast brings joy in interior design as well. Whether it’s the fluffy texture of a throw blanket on top of a buttery faux-leather sofa, or a dark black stained wood floor with soft pastel furniture on top of it, contrast equals drama. One of the things that can make a room look boring, flat, or even worse - dated, is when things get too matchy-matchy. Everything is beige, or a color scheme is too rigid. There has to be some unexpected twist, but make sure it’s just that - a twist. A slice of citrus on the rim on the glass of your room. If contrast is everywhere, it can get disorienting, overwhelming, and stressful. Stick to the 80/20 rule - 20% of your space should have contrast, the other 80% can play it low-key.
Speaking of percentages, Proportion is perhaps one of the most misunderstood design principles. Although seasoned designers can configure proportional relationships by eye, they are actually exceptionally mathematical and based on equations and relationships established in Ancient Greece and Rome. Many trusted design proportion ratios are found in nature as well - the golden ratio, the Fibonacci sequence, classical architectural column proportions. These concepts are woven through out history, and for many of us nerds, researching and talking about geometry in design is endlessly fascinating, but I want to try and make it as simple as possible today because we are trying to keep it easy to digest. Here’s the big idea - everything has a relationship to everything else. It’s all connected. When you start to think of all the sizes of the furniture in your home, the art on the walls, the height of your kitchen counter, how wide your closet doors are - in a designers perfect world, these are all variables multiplied by the same number over and over again. Everything is united, but still varies. One of the most important things to consider is the proportions of the room itself - the ceiling height, the size of the windows, the overall size of the room. The idea is you want to fill the space, and you want to provide enough objects and sizes that nothing seems like a big jump. If you have lots of super low furniture in a room with high ceilings, it will feel empty and cavernous. If you have super tall furniture in a room with low ceilings, it will feel crowded and claustrophobic. A good rule of thumb is the rule of thirds that’s often used in photography - every wall, room, and surface can be divided into three sections with imaginary lines, and each of these three sections should have visual interest to them, and the most visually dominant items should be placed along the borders of each section.
Okay last, but not least we have Repetition. This might be one of my favorite design principles because it often simplifies what seems like a complex design problem. We’ve talked a lot about variation so far, but the idea that ties everything together is repetition. I’ve worked on corporate office jobs where the team ended up doing every pantry, every conference room, and every floor something totally unique, different themes, different color schemes, different look and feel. And they would usually weave it together with some kind of esoteric narrative, but at the end of the day the spaces felt completely disjointed and like different galaxies. Good design has commonalities, even subtle ones, woven through out the entirety of the whole building. You can do this with color, pattern, and even with furniture. Let’s look at this on a small scale. If you have a vase on a shelf - I’m sure that looks very nice. What will make it look like a design element is having three of the same vase all in a row. This creates repetition and it starts to achieve this feeling of intentional decision making through out the whole space. Anyone who comes into your space and picks up on the the repeated elements will get a sense that this is a space that’s been planned with care. This wasn’t just slapped together. Now when balancing variation and repetition, I like to think of it like cooking. You’ve got a little bit of salt and pepper in everything, but you’re still serving different dishes. So you’re not just serving a big plate of corn on the cob with salt and pepper. You’ve got a huge variety of summer vegetables. Maybe even some breads, chips, and dips, but they’ve all got that salt and pepper in them. And, when you’re repeating objects like the vase examples, always go with an odd number, it just looks more complete, I wish I could tell you why - it’s just that design magic.
So that’s it - those are the five big design principles for you to integrate into your home. Think of them each as an instrument, they work together in harmony to create music. And this is big pants designer stuff so if you start working with these concepts and it feels confusing or you make a mistake, that’s part of the learning process. Mistakes are the best way to learn, so get your hands dirty and start problem-solving. You have the tools, you have the brains, and you have energy. If you’re not sure where to start, you can go to my website softlandingstudio.com and download the totally free guide to getting started quiz - this is a very cute, very fun, and very fast PDF that you get to keep forever, and it will help you figure out what type of project will help you meet your goals. You might need to add some accessories, you might need to paint a wall or two - this quiz will let you know. Besides that, if you like this podcast please consider sharing it with a friend, sharing it on social media, and giving it a five start rating on Apple Podcasts. This really helps keep the podcast going and all I want to do is make podcast episodes for you my dear. Until next time, I hope you have a fantastic day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.
