Visual Presentation Skills for Interior Designers

 

As an interior designer, you'll be creating visuals that your client is going to judge you upon, but are your visuals good enough? Are they serving you well?

In this blog, we're going to look at all of the different brand visuals that you need to be creating and how to make sure that they are "on point".

More than any other business, your visuals that you project out into the world are super, super important, when you're an interior designer.

If people are considering hiring you as an interior designer, they are going to judge you on how well you can design your brand visuals.

Now, it doesn't matter whether or not you have any graphic design experience. Whatever you put out there into the world is what people are going to judge you upon.

First impressions matter, and so you need to make sure that whatever you're putting out there, whatever marketing material, whatever it is that customers are seeing has to be absolutely on point, professional and showcase your brand.

Sound scary?

It doesn't have to be! Let's dive in and look at the types of visuals that you need to be creating and how you can make it easier for yourself to make sure that all of your visuals are absolutely beautiful and representing the brand that you want to show to the world.

A massive part of the visuals that you're going to be putting out there are your brand visuals. And what I mean by that are things like your logo, your website, and you want to make sure that you've got consistent branding across all of your social platforms, your website and any materials that you put out there.

Now you don't have to be a branding expert to get this right. There are loads of resources out there that you can use to help you to get your branding on point.

One of the people who's an absolute guru at branding that I absolutely recommend is Fiona Humberstone and you can follow her on Instagram and you can go and have a look at her website and she's got a couple of books that are fantastic: "Brand Brilliance". and "How to style your brand". So if you are doing your own branding, I thoroughly recommend that you get yourselves a copy of those books and start following her because she is the queen of branding.

So you need to make sure that you've got a clear brand that is consistent, that is cohesive across all of your brand channels and also that your brand is representing the values that you want to put out into the world.

So if you are a happy-go-lucky brand, you want to think about using these bright bubbly colours. If you are a more serious and sultry brand, you want to be putting out those perhaps moodier darker colours. If you're a luxury brand, do you perhaps want to be thinking about using metallics and you know, colours like purple and things like that.

So your brand colours, and the way that you represent your brand speak volumes about the type of design that you're going to do and the type of service that you're going to deliver.

Now, if you are terrified about creating your brand, of course you don't have to do that yourself. You can pay a brand specialist to come in and help you to develop your brand.

Secondly, where is the place that people go to, to suss you out before they decide to give you a call or drop you an email or decide to hire you?

They're going to look at your websites and whatever you do, you must make sure that your website is as visually attractive as possible. And what that means for an interior designer is having good photography.

I teach people how to set up interior design businesses and I teach people not to spend an absolute fortune in the beginning, but one thing that I do tell people to invest in is good photography.

The photographs that you put on your website, are the showcase of the work that you do and hiring a photographer for half a day. Yes, it's an investment. Yes, it's going to cost you some money, but the returns on that investment in terms of how you present yourself visually will be worth it.

The photography on your website is much more important than the words that you use. Because in a visual business like interior design, people are going to be judging you on what those photographs look like.

So that's one area that you absolutely must invest in. Again, linked to that, you need to make sure that all of your social graphics are on brand and that they also communicate your brand message.

So you need to create for yourself a brand board that can guide you when you're creating visuals for all of your platforms. So if you're sharing something on Pinterest, if somebody lands on your Facebook page or if they go over to your Instagram account, they know instantly that this is you and that this is your brand. So you have a theme that runs throughout those visuals.

And it's the same for your client facing literature as well. So if you have business cards, if you send out a welcome pack or a new customer on-boarding pack, you need to make sure, again that all of these visuals are consistent across all of the different things that you use, all of the different materials that you put out there for your customers.

You want to communicate those brand messages. And you want to make sure that you have a visually cohesive brand. Now, aside from having a solid, clear, consistent brand and having good photography on your website, you also want to make sure that the design visuals that you are creating are really pristine as well, so you're going to be wanting to showcase your 2D sketching skills, your CAD skills, your rendering skills.

You're going to be wanting to show people that you can create floor plans and elevations. You're going to be wanting to show people design boards that you've created, concept boards, mood boards finishes boards, and again, all of these visuals that you put out there have to be really good quality and to showcase the best of your brand.

Sometimes that can really worry people because if your CAD skills aren't up to scratch or if it's been a long time since you made a finishes board or you're not really sure how to create a concept board, then there's tons of help out there for you.

Over in our hub we have lots of training and information so you can really up-skill yourself and make sure that you've got the tools, the experience that you need to create those stunning design visuals. That's what's going to convince those customers to buy from you.

You have to make sure that the visuals you're putting out there are absolutely pristine, industry standard and as professional as they can be.

Again, you can practice those skills. Just take an hour a week and practice your SketchUp skills, for example, or take an hour a week and have a play around with creating flat lays, whatever it is, dedicate some time to it. If you practice it, you will get better.

And the other thing that I say to my clients as well is that you don't always have to create all of these visuals yourself. There is a whole industry of 3D and 2D visualisers out there whose job it is to create beautiful graphics for you.

Yes, again, you have to invest in it. Yes, again, you have to pay for it. It's a really valuable service, but when you're trying to showcase the best of your brand, you want to make sure that these visuals are absolutely on point and as good as they can be.

So a quick recap: for you as an interior designer, your visuals are super important, more important than they are for any other type of business.

When you work in a visual business, you have to have great visuals.

You have to make sure that your branding is on point and communicates your messaging. You have to make sure that your website is clear and consistent with your branding and that it showcases your best work through high quality photography and also through high quality 2D and 3D visualisations.

All of your social media posts need to be consistent across your brand and any literature that you put out for your customers in terms of business cards, welcome packs, invoices, even all need to be within that same brand.

They need to be cohesive with everything that you're doing so that the first impression that you put out convinces your customer that you are the right choice.

We are talking about interior design visuals over in our Facebook group. So if you'd like to come and join the conversation, then come and head on over to our private Facebook group >here<.

 

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