How To Discover Your Interior Design Style & The Art Of Studying Design Through Images

How To Discover Your Style

To start, I would challenge you to go on Pinterest and search for interiors that you like. These will serve as your inspiration for discovering your style. Try searching “interior design home” or “moody living room” or “bright kitchen” or “colorful bedroom.” If you’d like, fine tune your searches to “modern living room” or “colonial dining room.” From there, scroll through the images that pop up and save the ones to your account that catch your attention. You don’t have to like everything about the rooms, but if a room catches your eye, it’s for a reason. Save 5-10 images!

Now, to discover your style, you’ll need to study the images you saved.

SHOP MODERN STYLE

The Art Of Studying Design Through Images

Discovering your style takes time. Current trends will attempt to tell us what is and isn’t beautiful, but if you strip all that away, what is *your* style? It took me years of studying designer portfolios before I was able to categorize all the styles I loved. It took a few more years for me to pinpoint what my personal style is. And it took another couple of years to learn that the architecture of a home should be a guide for the style of the interior. But it all started with studying design through images.

‘Studying’ makes it sound like school work, but it doesn’t have to be complicated or boring. Let’s go back to the images you saved on Pinterest. Pick one photo to study. Look at the photo and write down all the things that you like about it. Maybe it’s the blue wall color. Maybe it’s the couch. Maybe it’s the layout. Get into into the nitty gritty! Write down every little detail that you like…even if it’s the color of the light switch covers.

From there, pick one of the things that you wrote down and let’s figure out why you like it. Let’s say you like the sofa. Do you like it because of the shape? Did it catch your eye because of the feet? Did it grab your attention because it pops against the wall color? Decide what it is about the sofa that caught your eye and write that down. Continue this process with all the things you liked in the photo. This may take some time to train your brain to think about design in a more detailed manner, but the more you practice this, the easier it will become.

By doing this exercise, you are slowly discovering what you like, why you like it, and ultimately what your style is.

Defining Your Style

Many people will try to define their style in a few short words and that is a great way to give yourself direction with every design decision you make moving forward. Other times you may find that there are no words that truly define your style. That’s ok too. You don’t need to define your style to know what you like.

You don’t need to define your style to know what you like.

Now it’s one thing to know what you like and why you like it. It’s another to translate the idea of your newly discovered style into physical form.

SHOP TRADITIONAL STYLE

How To Shop For Your Style

Now that you have a list of characteristics that you like and you understand why you like them, you can begin to look for furniture, rugs, paint colors, and artwork that carry those same characteristics. Either you can start the search journey on your own, or you can use the original images you saved on Pinterest as a starting point.

Shop On Pinterest

Since you already have the images saved on your Pinterest account, you can use Pinterest to find similar pieces for sale.

HOW TO SHOP ON PINTEREST:

1. After clicking on a photo (also called a Pin), hover your mouse over the image and white dots will appear over furniture and decor in the picture. Click on one of the dots.

2. Similar products will pop up that you can then purchase!

Shop With Reverse Google Image Searches

Another way you can shop for pieces similar to the ones you love is by doing a reverse google image search. Take a screenshot of the home you love and drag it into Google images or Google Lens.

From there, Google will show you similar options. Keep in mind that not every option Google populates will be an item for sale. It may include photos of homes or articles that Google deems as similar so you’ll need to sift through the recommendations Google shows. But this is another great way to find furniture, decor, tables, etc that are similar to the one you love.

HOW TO SHOP ON GOOGLE LENS:

1. On the Google home screen, click on the camera icon in the search bar.

2. Drag and drop your image or upload a file.

3. Google will find similar photos/products for you. You can move the cropping tool in the photo to the product(s) you’re interested in shopping for and Google will automatically populate similar products.

SHOP ENGLISH COTTAGE STYLE

How To Incorporate Your Style Into Your Home

At this point, you’ll know what you like, why you like it, and how to shop for your style. Now it’s time to implement the things you’ve learned into your own home. For some, this is the scary part. For others, this is the exciting part. The key to replicating what you like about a home is really quite simple – repeat what you see.

Refer back to the images you saved on Pinterest. If you’re not sure how to layout your furniture, look at the photos and repeat what you see. Perhaps you can’t decide how many pillows to put on the sofa, refer back to the images and do what they did. If you can’t pick between curtains or shades, refer back to the photos and follow their lead.

I encourage you not to copy an entire room verbatim (more thoughts on that below), but do use the home as a guide. And when you start to feel comfortable, add your own flair to it.

It will take some practice. You’ll inevitably have returns. And when you’re feeling stuck, refer back to the images you loved to remind yourself of the direction you want to go.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON COPYING:

While designers and homeowners appreciate the love that people have for their homes, they don’t love when their work is copied verbatim. There’s a quote from Oscar Wilde that is used frequently in the creative world, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

While I can’t say I agree with this sentiment, I can understand the intention behind it. When someone’s work is blatantly copied, it’s because it was loved by the viewer or seen as successful. But copying someone’s work top to bottom isn’t acceptable nor is it appreciated by the originator. Beyond that, copying someone else’s work verbatim doesn’t allow your home to be a reflection of you. It’s a reflection of someone else.

Using a home you love as a starting point and a guide rather than a mirror image of what you’re trying to accomplish is a much better approach to take!

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