FCCLA Interior Design

As graduating seniors, we would love to share our project and tips for success in the FCCLA Interior Design competition, as from our own experience the entire process can be quite overwhelming and confusing if you have never competed before. We realized that those who have been successful before us have kept to their own, and we feel inclined to share what we found works in order to raise the bar and help you all get the most out of your competition. This competition isn't easy and ultimately leaves a lot up to the judges, but with three years of experience, we have found several tips and tricks that should significantly improve your project and seriously develop your skills as a designer.

We will break down our process into steps and try to make them fit to any prompt, though ultimately your prompt may not exactly align with our tips, in which case feel free to contact us for our input.

Step 1: Uncover

This is arguably the most intimidating part of the competition. At the end of September/beginning of October the prompt will be posted and until that point you will have absolutely no idea what the competition will entail. Many people may read it and decide that it's not for them, but if you're like me (Camden), you know that you'll do your best even if it's something you never imagined yourself doing. This year, we were really hoping for either a fun vacation home or a restaurant/cafe, and were obviously disappointed when we first read the prompt and learned it would be a therapy center. We didn't let that disappointment continue however, we simply moved on and kept reading and started to come up with ideas.

We strongly recommend that in your first read through, you simply try to thoroughly understand what it is you are being asked to do, as that will ultimately impact your design the most. Get an idea of the scope (ie which rooms you'll be doing) as well as any style/unique needs that the prompt details. This year we were told we would need to accomodate at risk teens and were given detailed lists of the rooms we needed to furnish/design. You may be given detailed lists of furniture you need to select but don't worry about that too much at this stage.

Step 2: Imagine (1st week of October)

After you get an understanding of what it is you'll be doing, now you can start to imagine what the space could look like. This stage is important, though just know that it's ok to completely shift your plans later. We recommend thinking about the atmosphere you want to create, the world you want to transport your guests into, and the aura that you want viewers to experience. After we read that we needed to create a safe space, we started thinking about the most relaxing and inspiring spaces we'd seen and really fell in love with the idea of bringing in an Indonesian influence, drawing inspiration from the tropical villas in Bali. We thought this would be great as this sort of zen feeling would definately ease the patients anxiety and transport them into another world where their problems and pain don't exist.

We do want to heavily stress now, though we'll probably hark back to this idea later, that we believe that designers should always try to come up with unique and innovative ideas, never designing something that already exists. Do to this we didn't want to stick to this one particular style that we were inspired by. We did create a pinterest board at this point, pulling ideas for furniture, textures, and color schemes, though disclaimer, our final project looks nothing like our pinterest board and really doesn't look like anything that's ever been designed before, which we think shows the power and genius of our design and is the mark of a good designer. Don't be afraid to come up with wacky ideas, as those will stand out, just understand that you will ultimately have to defend them in your presentation.

Step 3: Visualize (1st - 2nd Week of October)

Now, print out several copies of the floorplan or layer tracing paper over it and start to roughly sketch ideas for your furniture plan. Don't worry too much about scale yet, we'll use a computer for that later, simply get all your ideas out on paper. We reccommend that you really think beyond simply placing the standard sofas, chairs, and tables, and instead think about how your furniture layout will influence the spaces lifestyle. The way you lay out your furniture, whether you realize it or not, will influence interactions in the space. Think about the small interactions that will go on in your space. For example, in the reception room for our counseling center, we opted for the sign in counter to be perpendicular to the door so that when patients walk in they feel like the receptionist is a good friend and they are conversing from over their shoulder, this way they don't feel like they are walking into an office building and speaking with an unfamiliar receptionist behind a desk. That might not be a detail that most people would think about, but that is your job as a designer and is what will make your work stand out.

Additionally, you should think about details such as where people will set down drinks, where rugs should go to help divide up large rooms, and how you would like to lay out spaces such as kitchens and bathrooms. If you're doing a full renovation or new design, be sure to think about traffic flow, you don't want people to have to walk through something like a bedroom before they get to the living area.

Another important thing to understand at this stage is that the judges may have a difficult time interpreting floor plans, so the simpler you can make yours the better chance there is that they will be able to understand it and appreciate it. Try to keep your rooms as simple shapes, we recommend that you don't put any walls at weird angles or create odd L-shaped rooms as these will cause your design to look poorly planned out (90 degree angles and rectangles are the most pleasing for our eyes to look at).

Once you have completed a few different furniture plans, now you should start to double check that you included all the furniture that the prompt may have requested, if applicable.

Step 4: Preliminary Floor Plan (2nd - 3rd Week of October)

This will be one of the harder steps. I (Camden) strongly encourage you use a program such as SketchUp, AutoCAD, or Revit for your floor plan and renderings as these will really help your project look professional. I used SketchUp all three years and have found it to be the most intuitive and beginner friendly of all three methods, though with whatever program you choose to use you definitely need to gain at least a little experience with it before plunging into your FCCLA project. There are plenty of YouTube videos out there to help you get started.

For your floor plan & furniture plan, start by recreating whatever floor plan FCCLA provided. I try to start somewhere on the floor plan where I can see a lot of dimensions, and then I start going clockwise around the floor plan recreating every wall. I will warn you that all three years now the dimensions FCCLA provided are not correct to varying degrees, with it some years being off by several feet though this year it was only off by about one inch. Because of this, just do your best to recreate it and know that the judges won't notice if your dimensions aren't the exact same as the ones provided.

Once you have the provided floor plan recreated, you can start to make any modifications/renovations. This year, we weren't allowed to move any walls, only create the entire directors apartment out of an empty room. Start by generally following the plan you sketched earlier, though know that now that you are working with scale, some things might not quite work out. It is important at this stage to look at the NKBA guidelines and know the standard clearances you need for different spaces. Definately look at what clearnece you need in hallways, kitchens, bathrooms, as well as between chairs and walls. It definately stands out when your chairs clearly don't have enough room to pull out from a table.

At the same time that you start to move/add walls, I (Camden) strongly recommend that you start to think about furniture placement. It is incredibly important that your furniture work in harmony with your architecture. With SketchUp, you can go into the warehouse and search for 2D furniture and will get tons of pieces that you can add to your furniture. Do understand though that some of these may need a bit of tweaking. Don't forget when adding furniture though that this is a space and not just a drawing. Realy think about how the furniture will look in 3d/real life and not just on the floor plan. Also think about how people will move around the space as you don't want furniture to block any important pathways. I know this is a lot to think about but this is all important aspects to consider as an interior designer and will really help elevate your project above your competitors.

Step 5: Selections (4th Week of October - 3rd Week of November)

Now comes the fun part, selections. Using the preliminary furniture plan you created, you can now start to pull furniture pieces that fit into your plan and express your desired style. Be sure to think about colors, shape, scale, etc.

I (Camden) have become incredibly particular about color, as you can probably tell from our therapy center. I think that color can be one of the most impactful aspects to a room and can be used increidbly effectively to create certain emotional responses in people. I love to think about color theory in combination with the purpose of each room. I personally have found that intense color, though it may scare off some people, can really captivate viewers and make me designs look exciting and unique. There is no right way to use color (though there definately are some wrong ones) so go out and find what works for you. Make sure that beyond just wall colors, your fabrics, wood tones, wallpapers, flooring, etc. all work in harmony and display colors that compliment each other.

For shape, we both fall in love with unique silhouettes es as they create visual interest in a room. Take our group therapy room for example, where we selected the pig stool to allow patients to find enjoyment in its unique and funny shape. Have fun with this, a room with simple and predictable shapes is boring and won't encourage your design to stand out. Definately look through the list of vendors we provided on the resources page to find some truly unique furntiure and never shy away from being unique. The last thing you want is to copy someone else’s boring design so bringing in unique shapes can help show off your skills as a designer.

Now for scale, pay attention that all of your seat heights are similar and that you have curated pieces that look balanced when next to each other. A well designed room has a variety of furniture that feels good together and doesn't feel too mismatched or too similar. You should have a combination of patterns that are at different scales, and a variety of furniture sizes such as a large sofa paired with lighter looking armchairs. Also keep in mind that when people are seated and talking, it is important to keep everyone at the same eye level as we feel overpowered when we are below someone else, hence it is important to select seating with similar seat heights.

Always remember to have fun with this step in your design, as that joy and passion in your selections will be increidbly apparent in your final presentation. The last thing you want is to present a design you are not proud of.

Step 6: Renderings & Elevation (1st Week of November - 1st Week of December)

While you are working on your selections you should probably start to create renderings of your rooms to ensure that the furniture you are picking looks good together. This will definitely be one of the more challenging parts of the process but we assure you that it is important. Rendering has become an industry standard for interior designers as clients (and judges as well) have a hard time visualizing what your spaces will look like finished so being able to show them will really help them see your vision and skill as a designer.

I recommend using SketchUp for your renderings as I find it to be the most beginner friendly and intuitive software for 3d modeling. Additionally, there are tons of tutorials on YouTube for quickly learning the software. Beyond that, you can then import your SketchUp model into a rendering program such as Lumion or D5 to then create beautiful, photorealistic renderings by adding lighting to show off your design even more. I strongly encourage you to learn to use a rending program beyond SketchUp as it will really show off your skills, passion, and vision as a designer and really elevate your design above your competition. And I know it is annoying but I also encourage you to render every space that you can as I know from experience that the judges will be looking for that.

While rendering, be sure to use this opportunity to add any details you think of. Use your render to find flaws in your design and go back and fix them! Maybe you will realize that your furniture plan looks strange when realized or maybe some of your furniture and color selections look odd together.

Additionally, think about the composition of your renders as though you are taking a photo. I treat my renderings as though I am doing a full length photoshoot (I have been lucky enough to have attended several architecutral photoshoots which have taught me all about this). I recommend you only use the sunlight to light your renderings, don't go to crazy with artificial lights (I know we did in our competition but I have realized since that this makes a huge difference and really makes the renderings look more realistic). Additionally, feel free to rearrange your furniture slightly to better fill the frame and create a beautiful rendering even if it seems odd in real life. This is a trick we use in architectural photoshoots, where many of your arrangements for the photo would be absolutely ridiculous in real life but look great in 2d. On the more technical side, ensure that your camera view is as square as possible with your design and that all your veritcal lines are straight up and down and your horizontal lines are level. You will be amazed at how much of a difference these small technical details will make in conveying your design.

In addition to your renderings you probably need to do an elevation. This is one of the largest gripes we had with FCCLA, as the prompt said we could do elevations or renderings, so we did renderings, while the ruberic said we had to do an elevation, costing us 4 points at region (The reason we got 5th!!!) So to avoid this error, make sure that in addition to your renderings you add a 2d elevation drawn to whichever scale FCCLA provides. I hope that FCCLA fixes this huge error in their ruberic but it is still better to be safe than sorry and none the less, elevations are still widely used in the industry and are an increibly important skill to have. I recommend you create your elevation in your rendering software, making it essentially look like a 2d rendering so that it still looks really well done and attractive.

Step 7: Final Floor Plan (4th Week of November)

Now that you have your selections made, you can go back to your floor plan and finalize it. Make sure that your furniture in the plan reflects the size of furniture you selected.

Step 7: Boards (4th Week of November - 3rd Week of December)

You've almost made it now! You should now have your floor plan, selections, renderings, and elevation. For this step, I recommend that you design your boards in Adobe InDesign and then have them printed at a print shop directly onto your 20" x 30" foam boards as this makes them look incredibly professional. Creating them in InDesign additionally enables you to the size of every picture you add and easily make changes and test different layouts. InDesign is also great as it enables you to ensure that all of your floor plans and elevations are perfectly scaled, which is incredibly important. I'm not going to spend too much time talking about this but make sure you follow all the requirements that you were given.

We recommend you lay your boards out by room and label everything you add. Your renderings should be as large as you can fit them so that they are easily viewable. For furniture selections, you will probably only be asked to make around 5 selections, which we find ridiculous, so feel free to select a few more items to highlight in each room, placing them around your renders for the respective rooms. Be sure to also highlight your finishes. The judges will prefer to see your finishes highlighted as your furniture should be viewable as well in your renders so it isn't necessary to be redundant, while your finishes may be harder to see in the renders.

After you have designed your boards you should then have them professionally printed. For those of you in Austin, we highly recommend using Miller IDS and going with the matte print and mount option.

Step 8: Presentation (End of December - Competition Time)

You've made it to the final step, the presentation! This is arguably the most imporant step for your competition as it is where you will gain about half of your points on your rubric. Our best advice is to build your presentation around the rubric, going point by point and explaining how your design delivers on each point. We do strongly recommend memorizing your presentation word for word, as exhausting and difficult as that is, and it is even better if you NEVER practice with notecards as our friends found that they became reliant on them.

Be sure to talk about your client, your research, how you started the project, your inspiration, why you did what you did, etc. Try to add every little detail you can, though also understand that some may be more important than others and some can even communicate more than what you are literally saying. For example, we talked specifically about how we oriented the sign in counter to be perpendicular to the door as it creates a more relaxed entrance rather than feeling like an office building, which tells the judges that we probably paid attention to these small interactions in every room, highlighting our attention to detail overall. We did choose to leave out a sentence about how the reception room can seat 4-5 people as we were pressed for time and figured the judges could easily see that by looking at our floor plan.

Step 9: Compete!

Good luck at your competition! We really hope that you found our advice helpful! Of course, have fun with your project and design something that is unique to you. We know that you'll do great! If you have any questions on what we explained above, feel free to send us an email!

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