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WELCOME

We would like to welcome everyone with an interest in interior design to RISEN. All Rhodec students, and IIDA student and professional members, are particularly encouraged to participate. Enjoy!

JOIN US

This is a public web log and all posts and pages may be read by anyone.

However, we have set up a members-only Forum, for Rhodec IIDA students,called the RISEN CyberCentre.
To join us, simply go to the Forum, sign up and your registration will be processed by the Administrator.

See you there!

Chapter News

Check out the IIDA Sustainable Design Student Competition 2007 - deadline April 2 2007. Prizes include a travel scholarship to USGBC's GreenBuild Conference 2007, cash awards, and consideration for publication in metropolis magazine.

Chapter News Archive

Links

Great Products

For the launch of RISEN, we thought a feature on a new CAD product would fit the bill! Martina MacGreevy from Belgium contributed the following:
I use TurboCAD Professional/Floorplan V10.5 but find that its CAD symbols’ library is pretty poor and I’ve just about imported every free symbol and mesh available on the web. As I’ve only managed to create a simple 3D table in TurboCAD to date, I decided that additional libraries were urgently required. With a budget of EUR 50, and with plenty of 3DS and mesh libraries to choose from, I found it difficult to decide on the best option, so I bought another CAD program. Read on to understand my logic!
The software in question comes from the creators of Chief Architect, and is called Better Homes and Gardens Interior Designer. It retails on Amazon for GBP26.99 (EUR 40) and has a library of 5,000 items.Its main disadvantage is that it is not compatible with the industry standard (3DS, DWG, DXF), so items and objects cannot be exported to or interchanged with AutoCAD, TurboCAD, etc. Materials and finishes, however, may be imported and applied to items.

Interior Designer is not a professional package, but it does enable the user to quickly and simply draw plans and 3D interiors for the residential market.I created my first interior space within a day of using it. Its rendering (Final View with Shadows) is almost non-existent, but the image can be enhanced greatly by using photo manipulation software.In just half an hour, I created a basic interior in Interior Design and rendered it in PhotoShop Elements. Click here to see it.

I think you’ll agree that for under EUR 50, it’s well worth the investment.

Photo Albums

Book of the Month

The Surface Texture Book from Thames & Hudson is a great little book and one that you will carry with you on every project.

The handy A5-size spiral bound book provides colour swatches of over 800 textures and surfaces, and briefly describes the aesthetics of each main category.The swatches are small (up to 9 on a page), but big enough to see the texture and to compare one surface with another.They are great for scanning into CAD drawings or for using as a guide for sketching various textures.

12 surfaces are covered in separate chapters – Carpets & Rugs, Paints, Paper, Textiles, Leather, Wood, Stone, Clay, Glass, Metal, Durables, and Site Surfaces – and each chapter is further divided into subcategories. The chapter on Wood, for example, has subcategories on softwoods, hardwoods, blocks & parquet, antique & reclaimed, decorative finishes, and processed boards. Each swatch references a supplier and a full list of international suppliers is found at the back of the book.

Finally, the author (Cat Martin, a successful architect), provides some practical advice for each surface category, which covers tips on installation and maintenance.The book is available from Thames & Hudson directly, or through Amazon. Prices vary from around 11.00 - 17.00 GBP (17 - 25 EUR).

Contributed by Martina MacGreevy

January Book of the Month - Portfolio Design.

Books

« 2006-03 | HomePage | 2006-05 »

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Reach Out

Rick recently asked me if I would contribute to RISEN this month, and in my enthusiasm to catch up with you all, I agreed. Then it hit me today, the day I have to submit something – what on earth of interest will I contribute?

The creative portion of my brain has all but disintegrated from the daily routine of executive tasks, which chain me to my desk the first week of every month. Inter-office reports of the month past and projections for the month ahead don’t make light reading or inspire creativity. So what can I share that’s remotely interesting? I can’t even share mild gossip as many of my colleagues are across the Atlantic and only a couple of our tutors are local, and the routine exchanges mostly consist of administrative news anyway. Suddenly it all feels so… remote and pretty lonely in here and out here.

Then I remembered the congratulatory email I sent to a recent graduate this morning. Perfect, I’ll write about Heidi Bateman!

I genuinely remember when Heidi enrolled three years ago. The US division of Rhodec was still relatively young and we had only just started introducing our students to the newly recruited US tutors. Heidi, like many studying with Rhodec, met challenges along the way. The usual and inevitable ‘hiccups’, which non-traditional learning induces. You know the kind of thing, right?! Fortunately Heidi addressed these with us, we did what we could to help and she overcame them and continued her studies, graduating last month.

As I followed up with her again today I remembered her early years and that wonderful sense of accomplishment (I know, I know, like I’m the mother of dozens of children?!) that we all felt. ‘We’ being Heidi, the dedicated tutors that guided her through her studies, the Rhodec staff and (like a proud mother) me! I asked her if she would mind being the highlight of my article and thankfully she agreed adding:

"As an aside, I have opened a design firm in Seattle called "Swank Design" with a partner who is a designer/graphic artist. We are focusing on designing interiors and finishes for vacation homes in the San Juan Islands (north of Seattle) as well as homes in the city itself. Our website http://www.swankdesign.org/ will be up and running soon for anyone who is interested in seeing what a Rhodec grad does after finishing that final test.

So, while we don’t bump in to you down the hall, or in the pub after class, we do feel we know you. One of us, somewhere around the world has more than likely just virtually bumped in to you. It could be that your tutor just read an email from you, or graded your test, or someone in the office has opened your file and entered that grade. It’s often me too, just checking in and wondering how my ‘first-borns’ are doing.

Now if that doesn’t make you feel all loved, warm and fuzzy, I don’t know what will. What does mother Rhodec want to see in return? More!

I want to brag that ‘my’ boys and girls have done better than anyone else’s. I want graduations, work experience, successful NCIDQ exam results and the pitter-patter of ASID or IIDA professional memberships!

Contributed with pleasure by:

Susi Santorelli

IDEC, IFDA, IIDA Industry Partner

Faculty Advisor Rhodec/ASID Student Chapter

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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Trade Show

 

Report from the International Window Coverings Expo

by Sheree Ammirata Schold

Place: Tampa Florida, USA

Date: March 29-Apr 1, 2006

Associated Group: Window Fashions Certified Professionals Program

My Personal Expo Goal: Learn as much as possible about this industry!

Day 1

I attended Lavelle Pinder’s session titled, The Design Parade. She is a fabulous speaker and motivated me to think more creatively about window fashions. She showed slides, provided a nice handout, and did a wonderful Houdini in getting an unbelievable amount of real window treatments up for us to see!

We saw great window treatment designs from some of her books -such as the classic and beautiful drawings in ’Antique Parisien Curtain Designs’. We heard about her own inspirations for many of her personal sketches - like the tropical fish that inspired an interesting twist to one of her valance designs and the airline magazine advertisement sporting a fabulous red dress along with her recent enjoyment of the book, “Memoirs of a Geisha’ that inspired her Geisha design.

It was great to see and experience one of the industries star window fashion designers and learn how she thinks, works, and creates.

The “Window Fashions Certified Professional Program” gives credits for sessions that go towards certification levels. Learn more at www.wfcppro.com

 Day 2

I barely made it through the downtown traffic and into the parking garage in time for my SUPERSESSION, Photography that Works: Creating Great Image for Marketing. I am thankful I did not miss a minute of this session! Brett Drury, the session leader, is trained as an architect and grew up in a professional photographer family. He combined the two and now travels far and wide capturing great images for our related professions.

Of course, if we can, we should hire a professional photographer to capture our work. But for smaller projects and low budgets, Brett’s tips on taking photographs and using them for marketing are invaluable! He covered much ground and offered ideas and help in a variety of ways. Did you know that many times your best interior shot may be at night taken from outside through a window? What about photos with some plain uncluttered areas in them that are perfect for adding words and information to use on your website or on your brochure?

I learned about Photo credits, how professional photographers like to work, licensing/usage agreements and much more. I found myself, camera in hand, outside my windows this night trying out some of the things I had learned. The above photo was taken from outside my house and gave me the volume of this space I had been unable to capture before. It also provided me with an area of ceiling inside the photo for placing information or description to use on my website and brochure without loosing the ‘volume‘ I want to portray. My next photo of this space will look a bit different as I will follow more of Brett’s advice and think of the view as going from 3D to 2D - I’ll move some things, get better overall 2D composition with lines and form, negative and positive space and so on. And I can’t wait!

If you ever have the opportunity to take a design related photo workshop -DO IT!!

Day 3

What a busy day as there were so many exhibitors to check out and fabulous window treatments and source ideas to take in. Did you know ‘DoFix’ makes iron-on tapes and materials for just about every window treatment fabrication there is? That ’Adaptive Textiles, LLC’ will digitally print your design in any color-way onto fabric for you to use? That there are an unbelievable amount of sun screen type shades now available to fit any design need? That Dream Draper not only makes it easy to design window treatments and give you perspective drawings but that it will now do quotes and invoices and compile the needed information into “Quick Books” for tax purpose? Or, that many fabulous window treatment patterns can be purchased and charged to the client for whom you will have them made? That ’Minutes Matter Studio’ window treatment design software provides treatments as scaleable components for your own creations as well as quick treatments for fast client feedback? - and with your scanned fabric or jpegs? That acrylic flat face chairs made in France by ’Dare Deco’ can have any design on them you create? That online fabric companies are making it easier and easier to find fabric with true colors online? - and that you can order a memo/swatch with ¼ yard as the minimum purchase? That ‘Wall Words’ will print your word needs in just about any color, size, and font? -and they can easily be removed too?

Attending these types of Expos are more useful in many ways than tons of design program credits. The exhibitors answered all my questions, offered literature and samples, told me of minimums, hooked me up with distributors, showcased new products, told me about local work rooms, offered advice on setting up accounts as a young business, and so much more! Check out the Exhibitors and find their websites at the International Window Coverings Expo via www.windowcoverngexpo.com

A ‘Fashion Dinner’ -Materials Heart And Soul- ended the day. The guest emcee, Sally Morse of Hunter Douglas, brought ‘Heimtextill’ 2006/2007 trends to us in a feast of fast, fun, and fabulous ways! ( http://heimtextil.messefrankfurt.com/global/en/home.html ) The Fashion Dinner theme, Inspiration Found, came through in dazzling colors, materials, and creative ‘heart and soul’. The event is sure to twist things around a bit and have the Design Industry influence the Fashion Apparel Industry for trends instead of the usual other way round. Below is just a sampling of creative ‘Window Industry Fashion’ from each trend category: Reflections in Metal, Emotions in Wood, Dynamic in Plastic, and Elegance in Textile. Such great fun it was!

 

 

 

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