A Concept Board, created during the first stage of the Interior Design Process, is a visual presentation of the style, mood, and colour direction of a space. Creating a concept board helps the designer and client mix and match design elements and see the holistic result of the elements combined together...the whole Gestalt so to speak! The board is intended to display the overall feel and look of the room.
The elements of a 'Concept Board' are curated based on early discussions between the client and the Design Consultant. For a successful design concept, it is very important to gather information about a client’s lifestyle, habits, hobbies, needs and wants. It is also important to understand a client‘s preferences as they relate to style, colour and material. With this information, the designer, together with the client, build these preferences into a plan that is visually interpreted in the selection of furniture, fabric and finishes for a prospective space.
So many of us are visual - we really need to see everything altogether to move forward from the plan. In the initial stages of consultation, the designer and client explore possibilities and make desired changes to solidify the ideas that will subsequently influence items sourced and purchased.
The Concept Board is a great way to explore ideas and establish the design and layout in a clear comprehensible way. Used as a springboard for ideas; this board is not intended to showcase actual selections of finalized furniture, finishes or accessories.
At Bliss Studio Design we have noticed that our clients often fall in love and end up purchasing some of the items they see in this initial ‘mock up.’ For this reason, whenever possible, we input accessible and purchasable options within our concept boards. We spend time tailoring our selections to ideally suit our clients’ tastes. Once ideas have been firmly established, it is possible to move to the sourcing / purchasing stage.
As our clients’ benefit greatly from being able to visualize the plan as it progresses, we’ve taken the Concept Board a step further. ‘Ideas’ within our boards are substituted with actual items being considered and/or purchased throughout the design process.
We’ve essentially tweaked the process of the ‘Concept Board’ as a mere idea visualization tool and adapted it for use as a transformable virtual document, intended to help clients picture every item sourced and purchased, every step of the way. After all, every design decision impacts the next!
At Bliss Studio Design, we call these ’Visualization Boards,’ as their utility extends beyond the idea. As items are sourced, they are inputted into the board, and a view of the actual room selections begin to unfold. The goal is to help our clients grasp the ‘big picture’ as chosen items are selected.
The stages of the visualization process have been displayed in the images below:
INITIAL IDEA
SOURCING
FINAL SELECTIONS
For our clients, this process has eased that feeling of “not being able to picture it.”
The Concept Board has essentially become a ’working document’ that continuously evolves as items are sourced until the design process reaches completion.
The Visualization Board has proven to be an integral part of the entire design process, helping our clients ‘visualize’ items together as rooms are transformed from ideas into exquisite reality!
