working as a graphics designer for quite a long time now but when Wahid (CTO of KAZ software) told me and Maq (my designer buddy) to do an interior design for the new design team room, the exact sound came through my through was “Glip’. I have some rough idea about interior designers but no clue about their actual work. But Wahid was pretty serious about this project. His exact words were “You designers act like you are from a different planet. Like you are some different species. A better one you claim. Well … prove it. I want people to walk into your room and say … WOW”. So, after spending some quality time in our recreation room, me and Maq decided that we really should start planning.
The theme
We were given an 11.3 by 10 feet room. Now all we need to do is visualize the WOW part. The rooms should imply that it’s the designer’s room. Only the dumbest should walk into the room and wonder if this is the designing section. We want the room as comfy as possible. To us, that means a lot of free space. Which is our challenge number two as the room is not big enough to fit all our ideas that are yet to come. Challenge number one is to decorate without giving it a cheep Chinese restaurant look.
The budget
Wahid said don’t think of the budget. Just visualize whatever you want to do with the room. I don’t mind. I have scissors.
So what dose a designer needs to do his things
On my first day at work in here, Wahid asked what I need to setup my workstation. Before I can answer that, Jewel from Java team jumped in and said “That’s easy. All a designer need is a big fat TV set”. I guess he was referring to my 19 inch monitor. Yes what would we do without it? Plus a sketch table would be nice. Through in a couch and two Bose speakers and .. well this list will never end so let just stick with the desktop and the sketch board for now.
The visual presentations
After some struggle we came up with some visual presentations. The very first sketch looks like this
And the layout diagram-
With a little help of Adobe Photoshop -
Here is a dimmed version -
Ok we do agree it looks pretty common so where is the struggling part? First let us explain our ideas and restrains.
The room has couple of windows that really don’t go with our theme. Plus Maq and I decided to have a rather dimmed room. So we decided to put a shade on those windows. But not with those dull, boring ones. We want something visually more pleasant. So we though it would be great to find a shade with a great painting on it. Wahid said this would be almost impossible. Let’s see.
We want a double plated glass frame for a wall painting. This should have an irregular shape and an easy mechanism to install the painting. We want to change it frequently. A light source mounted on top will illuminate the artwork. One of our shelves will be made out of a tree with its original shape preserved. An aquarium for out pet turtles will be placed in the other triangular shelf. Originally, Maq wants to have some snakes but that might be too disturbing for some people so we settle with turtles. Well these are our startup ideas.
So where is the struggling part again? Well I guess that's hidden in the implementation phase.
Oh … another great idea is to blog about this project on step by step progress so you can expect to see more updates on this soon.
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