Interior Design Course?

[kasi]

Hello not sure where to post this but I had an idea! I wondered if some of you Great House Builders would like to host an Interior Design Course. So that the less creative of us can get help in this area.
Rather than design tips which are great by the way. :howdy:
Perhaps you could take some pictures of lesser design and teach us how to improve the design on it. It could be an ongoing thing like this week the kitchen next weeks class the Living room etc...
Or kitchen lighting and then space etc...
Hope this makes sense!

[HystericalParoxysm]

Why not just google "interior design tips"? The best sim interior designers usually tend to create rooms that look a lot like real ones - it's the realism that generally grabs you... the use of colour and style. You may not be able to faux-finish an end table the way you can in real life, but you certainly could... make a recolour of one.

And there's nothing stopping you from getting tips without being told them too. Why not go check out the "Favourite Rooms" thread in the Sim Pictures area here - there's TONS of pics of great rooms, beautifully decorated... You don't have to have someone tell you how they did it necessarily to learn from it. When you see something you like, just try to identify what, exactly, it is that you like about it - is it the combination of colours, or the justaposition of natural colours with very modern forms, or the bold patterns, or... whatever... Try to break it down to exactly what you love about it, and then keep that in mind when you're doing a room.

That being said, if An_na wanted to do a decorating course I would totally love to see it. ;)

[broo_SC]

Lessons won't help you, it's practice what makes things perfect. You can't learn how to be creative, you must either be creative or try to be as hard as you can. I am of those uncreative but I do my best and am getting better. I took house plans from plasticbox's Backdoor Lane houses and rebuilt them making small changes each time. This way I ended up with about 20 variantions of the same lot. The houses weren't too similar but matched each other. I'm currently decorating them using the same method (mix and match :D?) and I'm very happy with the improvement.

[kasi]

Thanks for all your advice guys, much appreciated.
I was meaning though.... to have this as a kind of competition but not! Although it could be a good idea for a competition! Showing the steps the sims interior designer goes through with the room!
Like room space and then furniture placement, then lighting, then finishing touches.
But kitchen this week, bathroom next week etc..
So the designer can talk about what they are doing as they go along.
And many good interior designers can enter!
I will still keep muddling along with my OWN interior design! :Slap:

[soapstar]

i thought it was a good idea, one at least worthy of being considered, instead of being so patronizingly dismissed.

some people are very visual learners, they can do a google search for real life designs and create something fantastic using them as a base, others need to see in-game designs, and still others may enjoy reading about it and going more in depth about what constitutes good design from bad. telling someone "lessons won't help you" doesn't take various learning styles into account. it presupposes that there is a single, standard way to learn interior design, which in this case is, apparently, visually & hands on intensive; and that is just about the most ridiculous thing i've ever read.

the fact is there are plenty of RL interior design courses that are very successful. why? because for some people they work better than buying 100 design books and flipping through the pages. a course can teach the skills necessary to improve upon poor design in a creative, open to interpretation kind of way, while to some, pictures and practice may result in getting stuck in a rut of mimicry and redundancy.

[broo_SC]

Yeah, sure, someone can order you where to place your sims bed, table, dresser, everything in the room.. And you are going to think it's your creation, because it's your hand what placed the things but it's not. And if you really wanna play this game and prove me that it's really possible to learn design from just reading a manual, you better start doing that soon 'cause here's how I see it now: if you can learn design from a manual, you can also learn acting from watching a movie, singing from the radio or cooking from tv shows about cooking (like sims do).. Well, yeah, maybe you can learn some things from them but you will never get good enough without practice. So what I mean is that if you really want to learn, run a game and start learning by doing it (recreating real designs, makeovering existing houses, etc.), don't wait till someone will do it for you.

[soapstar]

Yeah, sure, someone can order you where to place your sims bed, table, dresser, everything in the room.. And you are going to think it's your creation, because it's your hand what placed the things but it's not. And if you really wanna play this game and prove me that it's really possible to learn design from just reading a manual, you better start doing that soon 'cause here's how I see it now: if you can learn design from a manual, you can also learn acting from watching a movie, singing from the radio or cooking from tv shows about cooking (like sims do).. Well, yeah, maybe you can learn some things from them but you will never get good enough without practice. So what I mean is that if you really want to learn, run a game and start learning by doing it (recreating real designs, makeovering existing houses, etc.), don't wait till someone will do it for you.

i don't think you understand that there's a fundamental difference between a manual and an instructional course. in school they don't just hand you a textbook with facts and then give you a diploma. they teach you the skills necessary to take what's in a manual or textbook and practically apply it. similarly, a course presents a mix of tips, information, creative methods and the way to apply them to any situation. and there's lots of people who might benefit from something like that.

i do agree that practice is important, but practice without any instruction or starting point can be frustrating or even pointless for some people.

[broo_SC]

Isn't that a reason why people share tips/tricks regarding building and decoration? I don't think there might be a further way to help someone improve his/her skills without getting involved into the project. What thread author was asking for is an actual tutoring. BTW, I wish I could help but I'm only good at real interior design rather than designing by tiles (I'm still shocked after my last attempt at building my RL flat. How's that sims can't use 6x2 tiles sized bathroom???)..
P.S.: I must say we went to very different schools..

[Simtastic-Sims]

I know this isn't much help but I thought I would mention that Poppea had originally made a tutorial on "How to furnish realistically". It was on her site "Pepsi Sims2" but now that that's closed it's obviously not in existance..... Really it talked about using clutterful objects and stuff.

Sorry to not be of help.

[SimsArtThat_SC]

Hello not sure where to post this but I had an idea! I wondered if some of you Great House Builders would like to host an Interior Design Course. So that the less creative of us can get help in this area.
Rather than design tips which are great by the way. :howdy:
Perhaps you could take some pictures of lesser design and teach us how to improve the design on it. It could be an ongoing thing like this week the kitchen next weeks class the Living room etc...
Or kitchen lighting and then space etc...
Hope this makes sense!

I actually think it's a great idea, and I'd contribute happily :) I just don't know how an actual "course" would work on this forum. Personally, I think designing with this game is more fun that CAD or almost any other professional software lol, even with the limitations.

Hey Kasi, if you just want some general input and some basics about space planning etc, just pm me. You obviously have a love of design and I'd be glad to help.

And you could always host a contest with your idea! :)

[kasi]

I actually think it's a great idea, and I'd contribute happily :) I just don't know how an actual "course" would work on this forum. Personally, I think designing with this game is more fun that CAD or almost any other professional software lol, even with the limitations.

Hey Kasi, if you just want some general input and some basics about space planning etc, just pm me. You obviously have a love of design and I'd be glad to help.

And you could always host a contest with your idea! :)

Thanks for your help. I wouldn't know the first thing about hosting a contest? However if anyone else who has the experience would like to host this idea as a contest/course I would be more than happy.

Thanks for everyones input I didn't mean this to get in to a discussion about learning behaviour... however I must admit I DO learn better visually in that I mean I can remember a list because of how the words were written not the actual words. And I am sure that if this were to become a course lots of others would benefit from it as well.
Perhaps the designers themselves would get ideas from other designers that they didn't think about when they set out to design a room.

[soapstar]

Isn't that a reason why people share tips/tricks regarding building and decoration? I don't think there might be a further way to help someone improve his/her skills without getting involved into the project. What thread author was asking for is an actual tutoring. BTW, I wish I could help but I'm only good at real interior design rather than designing by tiles (I'm still shocked after my last attempt at building my RL flat. How's that sims can't use 6x2 tiles sized bathroom???)..

i agree it can be difficult to distinguish between telling someone how to design and teaching someone the skills needed to design well, especially on a message board. i imagine that a course on here would work similarly to an intimate class lecture where there are one or two people explaining verbally or visually a design concept (probably a combination of the two) and then a group of people posing questions and completing small assignments and receiving feedback. that way it would be both hands-on and instructional.

P.S.: I must say we went to very different schools..

yeah. thank god for that.

[HystericalParoxysm]

If someone were to do this, the best way I think to do it would be to post the parts as wiki articles, on sims2wiki in the Tutorials area (so you could do, like, www.sims2wiki.info/Tutorials:Interior_Design_Course) and then we could have a discussion thread in the main Sims 2 Chat area, or over in the build area on MTS2 in the Create section (where it might be more appropriate, being creation related) for questions and stuff.

[macthekat]

I am running a graphic crash course on another forum and it seems to work pretty well. I see no reason why one couldn't do the same with interior design.

What I do is give the ones in the course assignment and some guidelines to how to make a good graphic design. Then they had in their assignments and get feat back - pretty much like then you do a paper or a school project. Then they have to remake their assignment with the feat back applied. No scores are given. It seems to work - I think one could do the same with interior design. I don't have time to host it and I think that one moth is to short a period for this as the counsellors takes forever to give feat back. But someone else might be able to do it.

[broo_SC]

i agree it can be difficult to distinguish between telling someone how to design and teaching someone the skills needed to design well, especially on a message board. i imagine that a course on here would work similarly to an intimate class lecture where there are one or two people explaining verbally or visually a design concept (probably a combination of the two) and then a group of people posing questions and completing small assignments and receiving feedback. that way it would be both hands-on and instructional.


OK, I see your point.. Now I wish someone would do that.

yeah. thank god for that.

Hey :handbag: It isn't that bad :D Just educational system is very different in the country I went to school in. To be exact teaching there ends on giving a book and ordering which pages you have to read and learn.. :einstein And if you don't understand something it's kind of your personal problem.. OK, maybe it is bad after all.. :banned: Thank God my kids won't need to experience that.

[kasi]

So anybody up for the challenge to host this course? Like I said I wouldn't have the first idea how to do this but I would be willing to help however I could!

[leighthesim_SC]

so do you mean i bit like master chef on the tv?
if so i get what you mean but it is lot easy to go to the build mode section of the creat section of modthesims 2, and also look for collections of stuff, and add you own little bits that go, alot of it is trial and error,

i would more then happy to open some kind of website where we can put little sims courses on, and if anyone wishes to add some stuff then met me know and i can sort something out.

[soapstar]

so do you mean i bit like master chef on the tv?
if so i get what you mean but it is lot easy to go to the build mode section of the creat section of modthesims 2, and also look for collections of stuff, and add you own little bits that go, alot of it is trail and error

i've seen plenty of sims2 creators who don't know the first thing about interior design. so i'd just recommend choosing your sets carefully if anyone was thinking about trying this.

i still don't advocate this whole trial and error thing, especially with sets. it teaches reliance on pre-made sets rather than complete creativity.

[Eadoin]

I'm not good at decorating. You can look at my bedroom. (The almost hole in my ceiling adds a great touch!) What I try to do is set a mood and style. And focus on two colors. Try to match the woods in your room too.