The Impact of Pinterest on Interior Design

If you’ve been paying any attention the last few years, you’ve no doubt noticed that Pinterest has become a driving force in our industry.

Not only do more tech-savvy clients come to initial consults with their iPads loaded to the gills with boards about their dream bathrooms, but having followed so many designers online, they are much more aware of what goes into the final product.

It’s not uncommon these days for me to have to do very little work indeed – my Pin-crazy clients vet the entire process before we even begin. They’ve created color boards, texture boards, contrast boards. They’ve sourced the pieces, the producers, the paints. They know which themes will work in the spaces they have to work with.

And it’s all because of Pinterest.

The platform has enabled more research and reflection time than people have ever had before. No longer do they have to buy expensive, glossy magazines, then carefully cut out the elements they like, and stick them in a clunky scrapbook or folder. No longer are they frustrated by the inability to locate the right piece or element – because there’s almost nothing these days that’s not on the Internet.

And no longer do we designers get stuck with a half-baked idea that careens toward disaster – because they’ve had the resources to visualise a project from beginning to end.

I’ve heard some colleagues from different design firms complaining that Pinterest has largely taken the fun out of the process for them – but I think it’s just the opposite. It frees you from the anxiety of wasting time on pieces and plans that the client rejects.

You see precisely what they want, so the horrible conversations about ‘what we really wanted’ have evaporated, allowing us to focus on just creating beautiful spaces and delivering great work.