Interior Designer Resources Directory :: Interior Design Article
"Decorators Name Names" Review of Wall Street Journal Article
Has the Internet changed the way you do business? Recently the Wall Street Journal posed that same question to us. They wanted to know what we thought the Internet had changed in the practice of Interior Design. They were doing an article, they told us, geared to the public about this question.
Immediately I said that, in my opinion, it had not significantly changed the profession of design at all. Primarily it had not changed the way we practice because the majority of designers still do not use the Internet as a major resource and they do not buy over the Internet. Why do you suppose that is, they wanted to know? The simple answer is that "It's not all there".
A number of years ago (1998 as a matter of fact), I was on a panel the topic of which was the Internet and technology and its effect on design. A designer in the audience asked when the panel thought that designers would use the Internet as a main resource. One of the panelists said, "When it is all there". I thought at the time that it was a very profound statement and it is no less viable today. It is an enormous task to put all our resources on the Internet and while companies are working feverishly to do just that, it is a long way from being the same resource that we are accustomed to using in a design center or even our own libraries. Therefore we dismiss it still as being incomplete.
Nothing pointed this up to me as much as the final article from Wall Street Journal titled “Decorators Name Names” appearing on March 3 in the Weekend Lifestyle Section. The thrust of the article concerned telling the public the websites that the profession uses.
They started out by asking consumers how they used the web to shop for interior products. What they found was that consumers are so overwhelmed by how many virtual resources there are that they end up using the tried and true sources they use in the physical world…Home Depot, Lowe’s, William Sonoma, Sears and Wal-Mart, etc.. So, as designers, I would not worry that your clients are going to usurp your sources on the Internet any time soon.
In truth, the home and garden category of resources on the web grew 32% last year making it the 3rd largest growing segment on the Internet….and we still do not use it effectively.
Betting that the Interior Design profession had already learned to sort through this info and had better sources, they turned to the profession for answers for the very best resources in 4 categories: Antiques, Paint (of all things), Wallpaper and Fabric and Art and Decorative Accessories. With so much out there (Our website, designerEsources lists over 2000 sources) these are the sites the designers gave WSJ. We thought you would like to see them.
Antiques: http://www.1stdibs.com $1,000-$20,000: The site acts as a middleman for over 200 antique dealers. http://www.florianpapp.com $10,000-$25,000: Stocks everything from 19th Century papier-mâché vases to 18th Century settees. http://www.greatstuffbypaul.com $10-$200: Inexpensive furniture and eclectic odds and ends like tin pots. http://www.pavillionantiques.com $1,000-$15,000: Specializes in off-beat French, Italian and Scandinavian pieces, mid-century modern and 19th Century.
Art and Decorative Accessories: http://www.dogpainting.com $2,200-$10,000: Best for outfitting traditional-style homes and for portraits of foxhounds named “Sparker”. http://www.mossonline.com $50-$32,000: Cutting edged New York house wares and furniture store, limited edition pieces and modern “classics”. (Frankly, this is a great source) http://www.oceanstore1.com $20-$250: Favorite of TV designer Doug Wilson who uses coral instead of flowers for centerpieces.
Paint: http://www.citronpaint.com $48-$54 per gallon: Arizona based company offers 99 colors, some designed to withstand strong Southwestern sunlight. http://www.devinecolor.com $38-$42 per gallon: Thick paint (consistency of yogurt) in 120 Nature-inspired colors. http://www.ellenkennon.com $45-$49 per gallon: 84 stock colors and can be customized.
Wallpaper and Fabric: http://www.flavorleague.com Prices start at $150 for a 45-foot roll: Custom, hand-screened wallpaper in bold designs. http://www.interiormall.com $15-$100 a yard: Fabrics from over 75 manufacturers including Kravet. http://www.silktrading.com $25-$75 a yard: Silk fabrics from jacquards to damasks as well as linen-cotton blends. Ready made and custom curtains.
While I think some of these sites are interesting and you may find things you need there, I was amazed that some of the more obvious sites in these categories were not named and used. For instance, if I were looking to use the Internet to find antiques, I would probably start with the Antiques Council. Their standards are top rate and I could be sure of the quality. Check them out at http://www.antiquescouncil.com/home.htm and certainly http://search.sothebys.com/ . For Art, I would definitely check out http://www.art.com/ , http://www.guild.com/ , and http://www.artnet.com/ (as well as the 28 sites we give you in our library).
And why did they not mention http://www.benjaminmoore.com/, and www.kellymoore.com , both of whom have great designer and consumer sites and the specialty finishes of http://www.tmpratt.com/? (I did, however, preview the paint sites and they are worth checking out.
What the article mostly pointed up to me was the fact that even designers are gravitating to quirky, or tried and true sites just like their clients. We still do not believe it is a major resource.
Is it? Today almost every major manufacturer has their catalogs online. The exceptions, of course, are fabrics and finishes. It is still hard to get fabric manufacturers to believe that designers are smart enough to sort through pictures of fabrics to determine if they are close enough to warrant getting a memo sample. But technology is such today that you can scan a fabric so well that you can almost “feel” its texture online….certainly well enough to know if you want to get an actual sample. If designers are recommending sites like http://www.interiormall.com, then they are definitely ready to search for fabric online.
What is wonderful about the Internet is that it opens up a world of opportunities and resources you may never have stumbled upon otherwise. Our database, for instance lists over 2000 manufacturers from architectural resources and art and accessories to kitchen and bath resources…and we are still growing. And, I doubt that your own library has over 2000 catalogs.
What is not so wonderful about the Internet is that it is very frustrating filtering through all that information. You really have to know what you are looking for. It is not a book (catalog) of inspiration to be flipped through. Therefore, again we dismiss it as a viable asset or resource.
My husband, an architect, recently made an observation to me that really struck home. He was looking through a PDF catalog on the Internet for garage doors. He was scrolling and scrolling and getting more frustrated as he went. “If I had a catalog, I could flip right to what I want”, he complained. Since that was absolutely true, I, who am a major advocate of using the Internet first for resources, could find little to argue about. On the other hand, his catalog was at the office and it was 10 at night. I thought I had a good point there.
Truth is, to use the Internet efficiently, you must have patience. Do you remember when you first started designing? Just learning basic resources was very time consuming. It is the same way with the Internet. While a world of information is at your fingertips, you have to learn how to get to it and how to search through it once you find it.
And, your clients have the same problems. Those of you who have worried for several years that your sources are no longer safe from the public should feel a little more comfortable when you see that for home and garden sites, the top 5 on the Internet are Home Depot, Loew’s, Sears, Wal-Mart and William Sonoma. (That is one of the reasons we keep our directory of library sources available to you password protected at a charge but not to the public. We are no more interested in making it easy for your clients than the designers WSJ spoke to.)
That doesn’t mean they will not find them. They will…because they want to. And, that is OK. I told WSJ that while I did not see the Internet affecting the profession because of our researching or buying habits, I do see it changing the profession from the client standpoint. I think their article also gave credence to this. The public can find information easier, but they still do not know what to do with it. We do. I think they are looking to us for different reasons today, more for our talents than our sourcing potential. And, that is much more valuable and marketable than hidden resources.
As a footnote, I found the article to be surprising from a professional standpoint. I consider the WSJ to be a very good business source. What amazed me more than the article itself was how they treated the profession. The very title was an affront to the profession…”Decorators Name Names”. You would think that by this time the country’s most recognized business publication would appreciate the profession enough to refer to practitioners as designers. I also noticed that in the article, practitioners from large metropolitan cities were called designers while those form small towns were referred to as decorators. I was disappointed to see that we still do not command any better respect than was evident here.
We would love to hear from you and will publish your comments in our next newsletter. Has the Internet changed the way you personally do business? What are some of your favorite sites? We would love to pass them along.
Thank you! Oh and be sure to look for “The Electronic Office for the Interior Designer” published by ASID and written by Yours Truly. http://www.asid.org/resource/ASID+Research+Publications.htm The book is a resource for setting up your files on the computer and using the computer and the Internet to make doing business more efficient. Find out before your clients do.
