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Samantha Morgan of Concept Interiors on 2010 Flooring Trends

The big chill will soon be over, making way for new beginnings and fresh ideas. Our living area flooring feature looks at all the options available for the residential market from tile to carpet as we suggest the trends and developments set to be big in 2010.

Spring is fast approaching and Samantha Morgan, head designer at Concept Interiors, has been looking at future home and interior trends. We asked her to give Retail Floors readers some advice on what materials, patterns and colour pallets will be featuring in homes over the coming year, with a particular emphasis on flooring.

Concept Interiors creates eye-catching and sophisticated living spaces for clients who want the very best in their homes.
Says Samantha, “People are starting to opt for quality products in preference to cheaper alternatives for their homes. The current focus is on the more durable and eco friendly choices.”

Samantha thinks 2010 will see high quality products and finishing touches such as black nickel curtain poles with lavish jewelled finials and oversized wool pieces such as knitted rugs or upholstered furniture featuring in our homes. She explains that the two key interior looks for 2010 will be “English Kitsch” and “Eastern Glam”. Both use floral and organic shapes in their style and natural fibres. Weaves also feature in both looks.

Black will remain a signature colour in our bathrooms - but with more style than we’ve seen throughout 2009. Introducing luxurious purples into the theme will simultaneously soften the room and add to the glam factor. “Choosing the right focal point or element for each individual room is important,” Sam continues. “However, you’ll also need the other elements of the space to work with that focal point to complete your room design.”

To help make this possible, dramatic flooring and statement lights will be hitting our homes to create a focal point for all of our rooms. Patterns such as stripes or a woven carpet, for example, will bring texture and an area of interest, while lighting can frame the room or highlight a specific element. Indeed, light fittings themselves can become features or the focal point - providing it helps to create an atmosphere.

In terms of wood flooring, Samantha is seeing a growing popularity of dark, chocolatey woods, especially wenge, a marked contrast to the walnut colours that dominated last year. Leather tiles are also making headway in living rooms and hallways, a material that only gets better with age and, like a favourite soft leather jacket, looks good even when worn and lived in.

In the tile department, porcelain is making a comeback all across the downstairs areas, replacing natural stone as a favourite because of its ease of maintenance and durability. Concept Interiors have recently completed an installation of a large format tiled border (600 x 600) with an inset carpet, allowing a seamless flow from a tiled hallway into the living room.

Whilst woods are getting darker in colour, carpets are remaining light and neutral, despite the explosion on colour and pattern at last year’s major flooring shows, it seems the consumer is not yet fully comfortable with bold, bright statement carpets in the home, a trend which may cotton on in a couple of years time.

Rugs are where the flurry of creativity remains in terms of pattern and texture, with homeowners more likely to choose a statement rug or a funky design no an item that can be moved or changed more readily than carpet or tile.

Read Samantha's Blog
Visit the Concept Interiors Website

Richard McKay of McKay Hardwood Flooring: On Social Media Marketing

One person who has seen first hand the advantage of a consistent, well-managed online presence is Richard McKay of McKay Flooring Limited, the UK’s largest independent wood flooring company. We spoke to him about his experience of using social media marketing as a powerful tool for improving his business and networking with clients and new contacts.

When did you first start using online social media to market your company and what was your initial strategy?

Richard: We first started using social media in early 2008. We were keen to improve both our offline and online marketing and continually noticed references to Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, LinkedIn and blogging. We then opened up accounts on these and other social networks to establish how they worked and how we could perhaps leverage them for business. We also set up our first blog and learned about RSS feeds and feed readers. It was quite confusing at first but we then started to piece how these tools could work for us. It was pretty much a case of just getting stuck in - initially there was no firm strategy on social media. More a case of suck it and see.

Many in the industry whom I have spoken to cite time as a major excuse not to develop a more intensive internet marketing presence. How do you find the time?

R: It was quite a labour intensive task at first. I was happy to work into the small hours building up our presence online as the social media space seemed quite natural. Eventually our web analytics reported increased hits to our website. The fact that you can measure the effectiveness of online campaigns is a
huge plus. We use Google Analytics (it’s free) to track our website statistics. Furthermore you can see progress on Twitter and Facebook in terms of the number of people following your company. Currently we don’t try and ‘fit it in’ to our work routine. We have prioritised social media and online advertising due to the healthy returns we’ve had in sales and increased brand awareness. We feel there’s a lot of potential in developing our brand and sales online over the next 3 to 5 years and therefore will be allocating resources to these areas.

Are there any particular challenges posed by the flooring industry when it comes to online marketing, web sales etc.?

R: Yes there are a few challenges.... If you sell branded wood flooring online you are instantly compared on price to your online competitors. Also customers like to touch and see the product before they buy which is why we offer a free sampling service. In a large twist to how things were (are) a website is no longer just a brochure site for your showroom or product. We are increasingly thinking of our showrooms as back up to our website. Having a network of showrooms throughout the UK supporting our online shop looks like a good idea....


McKay Flooring Showroom

Aside from purely selling, why is it so important to make maximum use of the internet to market yourself? How does social media etc... help with branding, brand awareness and customer loyalty?

R: Although social media involves time it is cheap compared to traditional media like newspapers, TV and radio. It is also measurable and is where the customers are. Customers who are researching a product or service will do so online. If they repeatedly come across positive mentions of your brand it will help build trust and they are more likley to make a purchase. When we first signed up to Twitter I thought it was another broadcasting medium for us to shout about our products and services. However we now see the true value of Twitter as a tool for listening into and contributing to the conversation. This helps us build relationships, trust and customer loyalty. Social media isn’t a quick fix approach - it’s gradual.

What apps and tools do you recommend for people who are considering improving their company websites and/or blogs?

R: Simply having a brochure website isn’t enough in this social media age. It should really have a blog and link to your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Blogging is important because it enables non techy people like me to update the site with company news, case studies etc. It is also important for attracting organic search via keywords and links. Other sites I’d recommend are LinkedIn, Scribd (an online repository for articles, product brochures, etc.) and Google Reader. The site that I absolutely couldn’t do without is Google Reader which is an RSS feed reader. For years I wondered what the small orange button on my internet browser was for. Rather than have to individually visit all the important websites you visit every day you can subscribe to them via Reader. Combined with Google Alerts you can use this to extract leads, get updates on your competitors and discover mentions of your own brand. Really very powerful in a format akin to email.

Has your business improved noticeably since you started employing a solid online marketing strategy and general online presence?

R: Yes - sales are up due to a targeted pay per click campaign supported by our website, blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts. Still work to be done but early signs very encouraging.

Why do you think so many flooring companies have yet to take advantage of the world of opportunities offered by the web?

R: I think that it seems daunting due to the initial investment in time and having to learn ‘the internet’. Fortunately since the social media boom these tasks can be outsourced to the many social media and marketing companies. Rather than embracing these new technologies and seeing what works and what doesn’t some companies shy away from this increasingly important space. No time like the present I say!

MCKAY FLOORING CAN BE FOUND...

On Twitter / @mckayflooring
On Facebook / McKay Flooring
On their blog / http://blog.mckayflooring.co.uk/
On their sister blogs:
http://bauclic.co.uk/
http://clydeflooring.co.uk/
http://floorcrunch.co.uk/
Company Site / www.mckayflooring.co.uk

Blinding Vinyl! A Visit to the Amtico Factory

On Friday 22, I went to visit the training centre and factory of luxury vinyl flooring manufacturer Amtico, to learn about their vast range of products, see how a vinyl tile is made, hear about their waste reduction and recylcing programs and understand the myriad of benefits from training and professional development courses at Amtico. Here are some snapshots I was allowed to take as we were guided around the factory - not featured: rather intense smells, squishy earplugs and super-funky factory health and safety shoes, which look rather like orthopaedic aids for club foot sufferers!

Amtico training centre - Note the "cool wall" at the back, where students proudly display work that they've done, ranging from "not so good" to "excellent" in order to compare and contrast, learn from their mistakes and show off the things they've learnt!



Here's where students get to discover and try out a range of grouts, adhesives, DPMs etc. from the four major brands: Ardex UK, Uzin, Mapei and F.Ball. Amtico are not biased and do not promote one over the other, rather they allow students to experiment and choose which they prefer and explore the properties and benefits of each one.


Trainer Neil Perriman talks me through the training process, explaining how students of different levels are given a vaariety of tasks as they progress through the course to ensure each student gets personalised training, feels challenged and is given plenty of opportunity to put into practice a range of skills.

AND ON TO THE FACTORY...


The funky entrance demonstrates the host of options that vinyl flooring offers. And that's not to mention the Amtico clients who've requested everything from a giant monopoly board created on the floor of their conservatory to the eccentric millionaire who had the basement of his gothic country house turned into a life sized Cluedo board!


First off, alchemy is performed... plasticizers are added to oil in giant vats and shuttled off to a scary looking machine called the Banbury Mixer, where it is mixed and heated until it becomes a squishy lump of plastic. This is then sent through a series of heated rollers to smooth it out into a continuous flat sheet.


WHOOSH! BLEEP! WHIRR!


Yes, those would be the big heated rollers... like an industrial-sized set of hair-straighteners. Except you wouldn't want to get your face stuck in them...


Here you can see clearly the different layers that make up the vinyl tile: the backing ply (black), the face ply (white) which sits on the backing ply, and the protective layers (Amtico tiles have 2 such layers!). The actual design of the tile, anything from wood to grass to stone to metallics, will depend on the printed film, which is made by a printers in Japan. This ultra-thin film is bonded onto the face ply, then coated with the protective layer and embossed with a grainy pattern to mimic real-life materials and textures.



Could it be magic? Nope... just lots of heat, heat, heat! Here the various layers are fed into another set of heated rollers, which bonds the layers together, changing the chemical properties within each to ensure strength and resilience and a solid bond. Note the brown roll coming up from the bottom is the very fine, thin film sheet which contains the design - in today's case an oak wood effect.


Finally the vinyl sheet is cut first into tiles, then the tiles arrive in this cutting room, which contains 30 cutting machines. here the tiles are cut to order to the client's specifications, stringent quality control checks are performed and tiles that pass the controls are boxed and dispatched! This is the end of the line for us journalists, but only the beginning of the life of a vinly floor tile!

Retail Therapy - Barefoot Floors Website Review

Barefoot Floors’ website greets you with zingy orange and a sense of carefree happiness, which is, of course, exactly what they’re offering their customers. Barefoot Floors are selling a concept, not just flooring and that concept is delivered to the browser through a variety of means, video, photo galleries, personal accounts from all members of staff successfully portraying the team, from CEO to Customer Care as a close-knit, highly enthusiastic group who are all 100% sold on the products and services they can offer.



The widespread use of video and story-telling is a great tool for creating brand awareness and drawing the customer into a world, instead of simply presenting products on a flat page. Consumers will feed off the energy and positive attitude of the team in their personal “barefoot stories” which will encourage them to stay longer on the website and browse a greater variety of products.
Potential buyers can browse flooring by product, by room or by sector. Each sub-category contains a list of links. For example, under “by room”, one finds bedroom, bathroom, garden and pathways etc. For each page, suggestions are made as to the collections best suited to those environments, with examples of layout, design and room themes. There is a video of a customer testimonial where they are also invited to tell their “barefoot story”, linking them with the company and further strengthening the impression that this is a company a customer can have complete trust in and form a solid retailer-client relationship. The video also allows for consumers to see exactly how a barefoot floor can fit in a home and what level of customer service the clients enjoyed.


The Products link takes you to the collections, with a designer or customer testimonial and an inside look at who and what inspired the various designs and colours. Brochures are available to download for every collection.
Barefoot Floors have a list of partners, all of whom reflect their concept of carefree, zen living and individuality. The partnership page for garden designer Bernie Quinn features a flip-book photojournal of a barefoot flooring installation as part of the garden designer’s award-winning garden at the Royal horticultural Show.
The overall aim of the website, therefore, is to sell customers an entire lifestyle, based around a flooring product. The stories, images, videos, flip-books and art installations that fill the pages are perfect for the ADD generation whose attention needs constant fulfilment and variety, but also give the impression that when buying barefoot you are buying so much more than a floor, but buying into happiness, a slice of the team’s perfect world. It may sound far-fetched and pretentious, but twenty minutes of browsing on the website and I still wasn’t bored, although a couple of the staff testimonial videos were a touch too sugary for me.



The product barefoot are selling is genuinely creative, stunning to look at and different enough from the norm to hook you in. No amount of fantastic online marketing can flog a duff product, but everything from the slick website design to the high-quality art work and sheer conviction of everyone connected to the company delivers a powerful retail punch.
The only let down? Some missing links and wrong telephone numbers - easy mistakes to make but shocking on a website of this calibre as well as fundamental information for a buyer.

Christine B Whittemore - Marketing Guru and Flooring Blogger Extraordinare

Christine B. Whittemore is Chief Simplifier at Simple Marketing Now, a marketing consultancy firm which she formed in March 2009, focused on integrating traditional with social marketing. Christine previously worked for the flooring industry, specifically carpets, for 6 years as director of in-store innovation for Wear-Dated carpet fibre by Solutia Inc. She also blogs extensively about marketing solutions for the flooring industry, at http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com. She focuses strongly on marketing for the woman consumer, since, as research shows, women make or influence over 80% of purchase decisions.


As a marketing consultant advising businessmen, Christine addressed in particular the issues of disconnect between consumers and manufacturers and how to present choices to consumers, first in the upholstery business where she started out, then subsequently in the carpet industry where she felt the same dynamics. What began as industry summit presentations and newsletters became a regular column in Floor Covering Weekly, a major US trade title and an exploration and study of the possibilities offered by the internet as a free, fast, and effective marketing tool to educate and share ideas and insider knowledge.

“I had had great success in apparel and upholstery with paper newsletters, but they were becoming preposterously expensive to print and mail out, so I started learning as much as possible about blogs where the creation of content was practically free.” She encountered skepticism to begin with, with many peers wary of internet as a marketing tool. “I remember mentioning blogging and blogs to some of my associates and being poopooed that they weren’t serious tools. The flooring industry is a mature one”, says Christine, echoing my impressions that many see a huge divide or barrier between traditional marketing and online marketing, as though they are somehow incompatible, or separate entities, when in fact, when used together they can be especially powerful tools for reaching out to consumers. “The current focus in both hardwood and the soft/carpet coverings market however is on product rather than on what the consumer does with it. Furthermore, so many businesses in the flooring industry seem to hire mostly insiders, which leads to a paucity of thinking and perspective.” Overall, she concludes, the focus has been physical rather than digital, as if somehow the consumer isn’t shopping differently now to ten, twenty years ago, when there is evidence to hand that this is no longer the case. Digital retail is the inevitable future, or even present. How does one explain to clients, manufacturers, retailers, the advantages of having and maintaining a blog, or some kind of social media presence? “I launched Flooring The Consumer under the radar, in June 2006. Once it was set up I mentioned it to associates and got their buy in. I used it in presentations when talking about marketing to women, but the transition from integrating offline to online marketing took a long time. It was about bringing it up in conversations, talking about it at tradeshows. I printed business cards with the address of the blog and gave them to clients at fairs. I now have close to 1500 subscribers.. The blog is the single best way to raise one’s digital awareness, to bring your company to life.

Many ask “why bother with a blog, if you have a website”? The answer is simple, but the putting into practice is the challenge. A website lays out information on the table. A blog is a conversation, an exchange of ideas, a form of discussion between manufacturer and consumer. It bridges the divide and becomes a more personal approach, which plays on the factors of trust and loyalty between customer and retailer, consumer and manufacturer. In a sense, its like reverting back to the age of the local shop and tradesman, using the technology of the 21st century. Social media marketing, of course, is not simply about opening a Twitter account and tweeting about what sandwich you had for lunch as a means of “bonding” with the consumer. It is a time-consuming process and needs careful study and review in order to be effective and to target the right consumer in the right way. It might not benefit everybody. “I see two big problems with social media, says Christine. Firstly, for large flooring companies, the medium requires that they become intimately involved in it and that they engage in it for the long run. They cannot delegate their social media to an outside company; it needs to come from them in order to be authentic. This means relinquishing some control over their communications and that social media be integrated into their overall strategy – that they be willing to actually talk, communicate with and respond to customers. That takes a lot of thinking through. Secondly, there’s a problem for smaller organizations. How do you find the time to do it all? This is a big issue for traditional mom/pop stores, independent traders etc. who have been clobbered psychologically by the economic environment. The days when the consumer came to them and all they had to do was deliver/install the product are over. But, in the bigger picture, for small to medium entrepreneurial organizations, these tools allow you to reach more people than you can imagine at far less cost than traditional vehicles and more effectively because you can target specific consumers. A great example is Carpets by Otto, a small family business which with a few changes and more personal additions to their web page have reached out to the customer and presented themselves as a clients’ “friend”, giving a sense of community which is very attractive for a consumer searching for a local retailer.

Another problem that many in the industry have raised with regards to emphasizing online presence is that flooring is ultimately a tactile product. They then use this as an excuse not to improve, update, maintain or increase their website/blog/online presence. I put this to Christine: “What I think is scary for many flooring retailers is that all of this requires some deep thinking about what value they bring, then they have to adjust their organization to deliver it. The reason flooring retailers may be slow at getting round to online marketing is that many flooring retailers got into business because they were installers. They have a strong technical knowledge base. But, they aren’t customer focused. Not that they give bad service, but they aren’t focused on ‘walking in her shoes’ and understanding the process/experience from her perspective. Life was easy for many years, with business literally walking into stores without too much encouragement. Now they have to do what I call ‘retail outward’ and do things they aren’t comfortable or knowledgeable about.” Consumers are much more picky now, and can find a huge range of information online before they approach a retailer, both when it comes to price and quality. They are aware of choices and can find deals online that they won’t necessarily find in store. “All these arguments are reasons for getting into social media. Can’t do much with your website? Then start a blog and let your personality shine through. Yes, flooring is tactile, but as an industry we do more to sell it as a commodity than we do to showcase it as a design product for the home. So far, most of the social media efforts from flooring are about shouting “Cheap, Cheap, Cheap Carpet and Floors!” Who wants to engage with that? Consumers are sceptical. They don’t want to be taken advantage of and too often walking into a flooring store is like walking into a used car lot with the hard sell focus. Not pleasant. Flooring is an investment piece. Even in a recession, consumers are willing to pay a bit more for good value and quality. At last year’s National Floor Show, great efforts were made by companies such as Ryalux to emphasize flooring as a design element, a long-term investment that fits into the whole context of home and family. People had their company designers on the stand, mingling with clients and buyers. Imagery was strong and there was a lot of attention paid to marketing concepts that looked at flooring as an integral element in the home. Somehow, this still hasn’t translated to many company websites or blogs. Christine elaborates, “Design should be key, it should be emphasized. I believe that’s what consumers want more of. I don’t think retailers necessarily believe that. Phil Pond at trend forecasting company Scarlet Opus (who spoke at the NFS) says that manufacturers have convinced themselves that consumers only purchase beige carpet. However, the only option that consumers are given is beige carpet.” How does Christine monitor the success of social media for the flooring industry? “In 2008 I couldn’t find a single reputable sign - other than myself (!) - of flooring in social media. As I got my business going, I started coming across more signs of flooring activity. Much of it I attributed to the winter convention of a prominent flooring retail cooperative which instructed its members to go forth and be social. They all went off and started Facebook and Twitter accounts. As you can imagine, many of those are languishing because they don’t have much of a clue on how to be social and to sustain the effort. However, I started noticing possibilities and some success stories.

I decided to organize what I found by platform and document it in the Social Flooring Index. As a quick first step to evaluating, I’m paying attention to followers/fans, etc. I’m using some of HubSpot’s tools to get a quick read on ranking. And now, I’m getting more immersed in monitoring the level of truly social behaviour. I also want to segregate the blogs, for example, in terms of the subjects they address. There’s a lot of traditional behaviour taking place... hard selling, shouting, not much interacting, but also, some who get it! So, who “gets it”? Christine cites several examples of companies that “get it”, many small, family operations, but some bigger companies who are starting to explore the possibilities beyond traditional online retail. “Carpet One Floor & Home in Panama City does a terrific job on Facebook offering flooring tips. Palmetto stores has an active Facebook fan page with contest and passionate users. The Domotex blog has been very useful for industry people. McKay Flooring in the UK (see interview with Richard McKay) has really used the net to its full potential. The aforementioned Carpets by Otto has made small, but significant in-roads. Does Christine get the sense that if flooring companies don’t get on board the social media bandwagon in the next 5-10 years they will disappear? Could it be that urgent? This year has been crippling for many in the UK flooring industry, and there’s a sense that those who are surviving are having to radically transform their entire approach to the customer “I do believe there is urgency. My latest Floor Covering Weekly articles have been about the need to be found online. Online visibility is getting so much more critical, to such a point that if you can’t be found online, despite a physical store, you become irrelevant.”
Find Christine at:
Simple Marketing Now
Flooring the Consumer
Carpetology
Social Flooring Index
On Twitter / @CBWhittemore
On Facebook / Christine B. Whittemore

Axel Griesinger - Education Director Society of British Interior Design

The traditional view from the construction industry pitches Interior Designers as haughty artists concerned purely with aesthetics and the “feel” and “look” of a space, whereas construction workers, floor fitters or electricians, being manual labourers, are generally perceived as the ones who actually “get their hands dirty”. In reality the interior design profession demands a thorough knowledge of architectural structures, specifications, materials and the practicalities of plumbing, electrics and brickwork. Interior Design and construction go hand in hand and pretending that Interior Designers can call themselves professionals and experts without an intimate knowledge of the shell that they work in is a fault that is sadly reflected in many Interior Design courses offered in the UK.

Axel was born and educated in Germany, back in the days when apprenticeships were commonly offered to students of design and architecture (he studied the latter). He himself trained as a bricklayer and learnt carpentry, often working on building sites, something he found very helpful later on in his career saying it “improved his communication skills” no doubt implying that being able to banter with construction workers is an invaluable skill for a designer. This apprenticeship practice is disappearing due to EU regulations aiming to standardise qualifications offered across the European Union countries. Axel hopes to introduce his university students to apprenticeships, internships and training schemes within the construction and flooring industries and hopes for a free exchange between the two worlds to encourage interior design students to look beyond the parameters of their courses but also enable manufacturers to market schemes to the interior design industry.


“I always want to know how students can get involved”, says Axel, “either with design professionals or manufacturers who can approach the students, like Dalsouple have done, organising student competitions. The head of Dalsouple came to the ID Department of AIU London and gave a very interesting lecture to our students. He talked about rubber flooring and its various qualities such as it being a natural product and therefore supporting sustainable design. This was extremely helpful for students to understand and appreciate the different aspects of flooring materials and their appropriate use. They also appreciated the complex processes which are involved to create high spec flooring materials. We have great interest in the flooring industry; “I’d like to give the manufacturers a chance to inspire the students to better understand specifics, like floor fitting, floor laying, and types of flooring. The same applies to construction and electrics, etc”. Bemoaning the loss of the apprenticeship scheme, Axel added, “Now we’re moving towards a standard European BA model, so there won’t be a one-year apprenticeship offered anymore. It’s a shame. I think we should use the possibilities of internships / apprenticeships to get students back into on site learning, get them practically involved either within the university programme or outside. The more diverse knowledge the students can acquire, the more employable they will be in the ID profession. This is one of the reasons why the ID department at AIU London has established a SBID student chapter to establish strong links with manufacturers. Breanna Wucinich is one of the Interior Design department’s SBID student representatives at AIU. Breanna has had a lot of experience as student liaison at her previous university in the US with the IIDA (International Interior Design Association). She arrived in London last year just in time to be elected to represent the ID department of AIU London in the newly established Society of British Interior Design (SBID). She feels that this involvement will bring a fresh outlook and establish useful links to the manufacturing industries. It all started when Vanessa Brady, president of SBID, approached Axel with her education-driven ideal and he was named Director of Education. Their fresh approach was to ensure a high-standard entry level for SBID student membership, to guarantee students a certain standard of quality at networking meetings and student events. SBID will only welcome student chapters from universities that offer a BA.



“Each student chapter will publish its own newsletter and we want to be able to meet, organise events and student networks, first nationally and internationally, especially in America” (Axel is a member of IDEC, the Interior Design Educators Council). “We want to make sure that academic standards in education are high but we also feel the need for industry based learning experiences. It’s important for us to talk to the trade press, like Contract Floors magazine, for us to get into apprenticeships, get students involved with the flooring trades. We are looking to achieve very high standards.” “SBID’s student chapters are also great for recent graduates. When they first go out in the world to make a career for themselves they already have a fully-fledged network behind them, a support system of excellent, high-standard contacts. We also offer CPD’s (Continuous Professional Development Units). This brings the designers to the University, our students can come for free and we always have drinks and nibbles afterwards to give students opportunities to network and ask the participating professionals questions in a relaxed atmosphere. “In times of recession, the more skills you have, the more employable you are when you graduate. If you have a possibility as an interior designer to get involved in an area of industry, such as flooring, and you have some experience in that area, you may be able to design specifically for it. Remember the Bauhaus in Germany, which was very hands on - students developed certain projects within the construction and building industry and that is what we need to work on developing more here”. The American Intercontinental University offers design students opportunities that many of the better-known design colleges or universities don’t. For starters, graduates here are equipped with a degree recognised both in the US and Europe, because they gain accreditation through an US academic accrediting body and London South Bank University. This opens doors to those who will travel abroad for work, or return to the US after their London experience. For designers living, working or studying in London, Axel believes they experience the best design environment in the world. To readers familiar with British flooring designers, from rugs and carpet-makers to ground-breaking floor coverings in rubber, vinyl and bold colour-rich designs, this statement may come as no surprise. Axel also believes the recession will not hamper interior design, rather inject some necessary creativity, something he believes the Brits have in bucketloads, thriving in moments where thriftiness and quirk are required.



“Good designers are educated here, then go to Paris or Milan. Paris and New York are very interesting, but London has no rival. English is now the most important business language, which is reflected, in the cosmopolitan mix of different nationalities and their talent in London. There’s money here, a bit less at the moment, but we still invest. Thrift and thriftiness are excellent qualities to have as a designer. I asked Breanna from a student’s perspective what she saw as being interior design student’s major concerns today. “I always try to tell students what to do to be a better designer. This is actually my second career, I come from a customer service background and what I tell students is this: Don’t forget about that. Get out there, network, talk to people. Design students can get wrapped up in their little worlds and can be very shy. They forget that you have to sell yourself. You have to get involved and build relationships, learn how to communicate. And it’s not just about the talking, but listening to feedback, and other people’s opinions. Learning to listen as well as be outgoing. Axel agrees, “Yes, it’s dangerous if you feel that you don’t have to listen any more. Always be curious and always listen.”

If you are interested in promoting apprenticeships or internships to the SBID student chapter contact Axel Griesinger: Axel@sbid.org
American Intercontinental University: agriesinger @aiulondon.ac.uk

Vanessa Brady - Founder Society of British interior Design

Interior Designer Vanessa Brady, whose award-winning creations have appeared in everything from national papers to Homes and Gardens and idFX is the Chairman of the Society of British Interior Design, an internationally-reaching organisation aimed at promoting excellence in design and extending professional accreditation to designers to protect the profession of Interior Design in the UK. Currently preparing for the SBID official launch event, she spoke to Retail Floors about her vision for the future of Interior Design in the UK, the importance of education within the design profession and, of course, her vision on future trends in flooring.

The Society of British Interior Design was conceived in Christmas 2008 after Vanessa had repeatedly found herself inundated with emails from associated trades within the design world calling for her to found an organisation to set a standard and represent the industry. Taking on this daunting but exciting task, Vanessa knew from the start that education would be the key to SBID because it formed the “absolute basis” of what she wanted to achieve.
“If you are promoting professionalism, you have to focus on how a professional is formed, said Vanessa, people were telling me ‘there needs to be an umbrella organisation, a body that represents designers and anyone associated with interior design, and which accredits us’”.
Currently many design schools are not adequately preparing students for the challenges and demands of the interior design market. So much focus is on the actual design process that little attention is paid to finance, business skills and learning about the technical specifications of individual products. Vanessa cites a particular incident that led her to this conclusion.
“I had an issue with a graduate intern once. I asked her to source a bed for a client and she went on Google and came up with six beds. The client can do that on his own, we have to offer them something more. We have to give clients options. It’s not just about budget, although that is very important, but there are so many other concerns that as a recent graduate, she didn’t think about. Besides deliveries, there are logistical issues: how will the couch get up the stairs, will it turn round the staircase? If you don’t consider these things you could end up with a lot of furniture sitting in the streets.”
“Graduates often don’t understand anything about finance. If you work in a company or for a business, you have to understand costs. Budget is everything it dictates your entire project. You cannot go sourcing things if you don’t know the value of your products. Graduates don’t seem to have a very good understanding of installation in terms of the product. If they don’t understand the facilities and the use of a product, then they’ll specify the wrong product. You buy things because they look beautiful, but every designer-looking item isn’t necessarily right for that environment or appropriate for that area. If you hold yourself out as an expert you have to stand by that, you need to know why you’re using a product, and you need to understand in a building all the mechanics of that building. Ultimately I would say that means electrical, plumbing and water - that affect everything else in the design.
Vanessa has worked a long time with interns from the US, whose internship schemes had strict monitoring procedures, a comprehensive program which allows them to learn all aspects of the job from creating a business plan, how to cost and pitch a project and marketing and measured feedback to ensure the student is getting a varied and intensive internship. This is the standard Vanessa wants to see in the UK where, she says, “many interns are simply used as cheap labour, cleaning cupboards, making coffee, faxing, etc. I don’t do that, I make sure they learn as much as possible about the job.”



An Interior Design Services design by Vanessa Brady...

“In the US, there’s a very different level of measuring. There’s an inspection, there’s health and safety, students complete feedback forms, it’s very much more professional. This is something I want to achieve with SBID and I want to address how graduates degree courses are preparing students for their career.”
Once the business plan was drawn up and Vanessa had a clear vision of her aims, she set off to Europe to talk to universities over there. “We said, SBID will incorporate the highest levels of qualification for an interior designer, which will make us the industry bearer. Whoever comes along after us cannot reach our standard, which is good for the consumer. If that person is looking for a designer in Italy, he would get the same measure of standard as they would here.” Which is where the second element of SBID’s goal comes into play, it is an internationally-reaching organisation, which already links to 17 other European countries.
“It’s good for competition: those countries get the benefit of the standard here in the UK, and when we our members go to Europe they automatically get the best intake. We delayed the launch until October because we wanted to have these connections in place.
“We’re a consumer organisation and not a trade association. We’re actually here to protect the interests of the public and therefore we can in that regard recruit across industry, whereas if we were a trade organisation we’d only be able to represent interior designers. In this regard we can now look after the interests of suppliers and that makes us hugely important. Our business model is protected so that we can’t be replicated. Our membership is predominantly architects, followed by professionals and we’ve got just a few affiliates and the student chapter. In terms of membership split, it’s roughly 50/50 in terms of designers and suppliers.”
Another concern for SBID is the “cowboy element” in the design world. The flooring industry, and all construction trades have accrediting bodies, governing bodies that protect them and help consumers make informed choices. So far, this has been missing for interior designers.
“Everybody who prints a business card nowadays is an interior designer. But there’s still no measure of that professionalism, which is why our standards are so important. Anybody can call themselves an organisation or an interior designer. Either of those two things would make a consumer think that they were hiring from a professional body. Now if I am a consumer and I need a plumber, I’ll go to the Institute of Plumbing, because the Institute of Plumbing has standards that are recognised and therefore you know what your getting.”
SBID aside, I couldn’t sit with such a talented designer and not get her viiews on flooring trends. Vanessa sees a return to what she calls the “Shephard’s Pie era”, a return to comforting, homely items brought on by the recession.
“You come home, you want a comfy sofa to crawl onto, luxury floorings, soft carpet underfoot as well as wood for cleaning and easy sweeping. There’s a lot of country furniture, cosiness and warmth, the security in yesterday. In terms of flooring we’re moving back to carpet. I think we’d moved away because of heat. I like wood flooring but I love to have rugs and insets, there’s nothing like getting out of bed and putting your feet into a squishy rug or carpet. I love tiles aswell in all the communal areas. Ground floor interiors are good for wood and sisals. “
Our clients nowadays are not driven by price but by source. Longevity. Sustainability. I remember going over the last ten years, people asking me, “How long will this tap last?”, “How long is this wood guaranteed for for this flooring?”. Now its also “Where is that wood from?”, How is it manufactured? Its a very important sales point from our perspective. We always need a certificate for wood flooring. Dampness and leaks are major issues in the UK because we have so many historic buildings. Crooked floors because England is built on clay. We’ve just used this woven vinyl in an old shed conversion that led into a house and the levels were different. We didn’t want a ridge so we used the vinyl flooring and floated it into the next room where it met the tiling and it worked wonderfully.”
The primary aim of the SBID is to champion the cause of Professional Interior Designers working throughout this Country. The Society will shed clarity, for potential clients, on the difference between experienced professionals and the ‘hobbyists’ or amateur designers and will, thus, enable British Home owners, Architects, Specifiers and the Managers of Commercial Buildings, to be better informed when making their decisions on new interior design commissions.

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