Иностранный язык в профессиональной деятельности. Английский язык. Дизайн интерьера. Дизайн пространственной среды. Учебное пособие

sophisticated grass papers or paper-backed hessian. A luxurious effect can be created with fabric-covered walls. Contemporary developments include the dramatic repeat of hugely over-scaled individual designs, crisp graphic designs and exciting and vibrant overlaid combinations of color.

Wallcoverings provide a way to introduce texture or pattern into an interior but decorative paint finishes such as dragging, marbling or wood graining, can also add interest and additional light reflection. Battening fabric onto walls or using paper-backed fabrics as an alternative to paint or wallpaper can give a space a feeling of luxury and intimacy with acoustic benefits, while fabric banners provide a way to soften the contours of a room. Stencilling or stamping can also be used to provide pattern and individualize an interior.

Wood panelling, panel frames of MDF or tongue-and-groove boarding can be applied to introduce a particular style to a room or manipulate the proportions. As with all the finishes in a decorative scheme, the interplay of texture and light will be a factor in the selection process and, when choosing wall finishes, the designer can opt for a stylish matt finish, a shiny, lightreflecting gloss or a silky mid-sheen effect. A designer will need to have a decent understanding of paints to be able to produce a detailed decorative specification.

Bed and window treatments

Even in the most pared-down interiors, bed and window treatments are crucial components of a scheme and a designer needs a good knowledge of fabrics in order to choose something that will give the necessary wear and hang. There is a vast range to choose from, including natural fibres (cotton, linen, silk and wool), man-made fibres (in which natural fibres have been regenerated and chemically treated to make them more practical) and synthetic fibres (acrylic, nylon and polyester), which were developed as a cheaper substitute for natural fires. Woven fabrics can be very popular as they often provide the pattern and textural contrast needed in a scheme. The choice of fabric will of course depend on the style of treatment and the amount of light and privacy required.

It is important that a designer understands how curtains are made and what styles will work in certain situations in order to produce practical and feasible designs for windows and detailed specifications for any curtain-maker involved. Blinds including Roman, wooden, roller and specialist varieties are often used to impart a feeling of simplicity in an interior. More traditional treatments and classic drapery, however, are still appropriate in certain situations and a designer needs to know where these will work and how to specify them. Headings for curtains and valances often dictate the overall character of a treatment and include pencil, French, box, tab, goblet pleat and smocking. Further choices include the type of suspension – track or pole – and the style and application of trimmings and borders should all be in keeping with the overall room scheme.

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Bed hangings go in and out of fashion but allow great scope for decorative effect. Canopies can be as simple as length of fabric draped over a short pole, or as dramatic as a full tester bed with accompanying draperies.

Bedcovers, valances and headboards may all be part of designer’s remit and although fundamentally traditional in style, can be given a contemporary twist with natural materials, sheers, inventive trimmings and clean lines.

Clever designer touches can turn a bed or window treatment into something original and exciting whether it is the imaginative application of feathers, buttons or beads, the integration of antique textiles, or the provision of feet or castors in unusual woods or metals.

Selecting furniture

An integral part of any scheme is the selection of furniture and a designer can choose between free-standing designs or built-in furniture, which can be a good solution when space is at a premium. Solid furniture can be made in soft or hard wood, or MDF, block or ply, which can then be painted, laminated or given a spray finish. As with all design, it will be the attention to detail that sets a piece apart. A bespoke design makes the best use of space but can be an expensive option for a client since a good joiner or master carpenter will be required. The designer may need to generate working drawings for any special pieces required.

Mixing different woods in one room can be challenging and clients do not always understand that wood itself has a color. The final choice of furniture will depend on its practicality in relation to the client’s brief, its style, and whether it will fit and work satisfactorily in the actual space.

Upholstered furniture

The type of upholstery, fabric and trimming a designer selects for a scheme will be largely influenced by practicality as well as style considerations. When the back of a chair or sofa is very prominent in a room the actual shape will be of particular importance since this can directly affect the style and mood of a room. Curved shapes, for example, tend to look more welcoming than straight and upright ones. The fabric that is used will also need to suit the shape and style of a piece and the actual positioning of a pattern also requires careful consideration.

Chairs and sofas can either have loose covers, which are removable and easy to change for cleaning or seasonal changes, or fitted covers which give a neater look and preserve the line of the furniture. The fitted variety are usually edged with braid or with spaced or close nailing. As part of the project planning, a designer will give carefully thought to where furniture will be grouped in a space. Sofas and chairs should be arranged to create comfortable conversation areas and avoid leaving anyone isolated within a room unless, of course, a quiet

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reading or study area is required. As a general rule, designers try to avoid placing a large sofa across a window as it tends to block out light.

Details and accessories

Attention to detail is a key part of good design and a great deal of emphasis is placed on the way accessories are used in contemporary interiors. Details such as door and window furniture can appear incongruous if they are not in keeping with the overall scheme, while apparently modest additions such as stylish, good-quality handles can transform a simple piece of furniture. Accessories such as lamps, cushions, throws, rugs, vases, glassware and artefacts provide a way of pulling a scheme together and introducing texture, color accents and contrasts – a modern painting hung over an antique console table, for example. The style of an object and the way it is displayed can give cohesion to a scheme and enliven a space with a touch of originality.

A designer may be closely involved with the purchase of artworks and decorative objects as well as items such as cushions, throws and runners. In a commercial situation, it is not unusual for a designer to specify even the smallest details, down to the flower arrangements.

Sample boards

Once the designer has decided on the different elements of the scheme and has pulled everything together satisfactorily, a sample board is produced to present to the client. A sample board is one of the most useful presentation tools since the different elements of the scheme are generally mounted in the same way as they would appear in the room – flooring samples at the base of the board, ceiling color at the top – and in proportion to the way they will finally be used – small samples for cushions, a larger sample for the wallcovering, and so forth. It can therefore give the client an accurate impression of how the room will finally look. Assembling the sample board also gives the designer the opportunity to check that the whole scheme is working and to make last-minute adjustments where necessary. In some instances, there will be too many elements to include on one board, in which case the designer might elect to create a separate board for furniture or to devise a support booklet containing items such as accessories. If there is concern about how the client will react to a particular scheme, the designer may set up a pre-presentation meeting with the client to approve the selection of samples before they are attached to the board. In fact, some designers may not use a formal sample board at all for presentation purposes, preferring to show large, loose samples of the materials and finishes so that the client can get a really good idea of the look and feel of everything.

Preparing for the presentation

Presentations to the client may vary in style and degree of formality but the overall purpose remains the same: to communicate facts and ideas to the

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client. The size, type and extent of a presentation really need to be decided as soon as the design solutions have been finalized. Time-management is a factor here, since it would not make financial sense to spend a large amount of time on detailed visuals for a small project. The scale at which the plans are drawn up will depend to some extent on the shape of the space involved and the amount of detail to be shown. This, in turn, will affect the size of display board on which the plans are mounted for presentation and whether the sections and elevations are to be included on the same board.

The type of client would also influence the type of presentation since the requirements for a large corporate project, which might be attended by several directors of a company, might be very different to those for a small residential one where the designer might be just chatting through ideas with a client over a kitchen table.

A simple presentation for one area might consist of a floor plan and furniture layout with sections and/or elevations illustrating details of the scheme, such as proposed window treatments and built-in shelving, supported by a sample board showing proposed colors, materials, finishes, furniture, equipment and accessories. Some designers find it helpful to formalize their concept ideas on a board and show these to the client, too. If a full visual, such as an axonometric or perspective, is not appropriate for the project, then the presentation might still be supported by attractive thumbnail sketches to help bring the designer’s ideas alive for the client. A keyed lighting plan might also be presented. For larger projects, presentation material may include extensive rendered visuals. CAD packages are increasingly being used for client presentations, particularly where it is possible to visually walk the client through the space.

A holistic approach

In the twenty-first century, the designer needs to be flexible and adapt to ever-changing styles and trends. An area of concerted growth is the quantifiable attributes of emotional, sensory and comfort-generating environments as we search for ecologically safe and natural materials and turn increasingly to nature in a troubled and highly industrialized world. There is greater emphasis on specifying environmentally friendly materials, with lower operating costs and energy efficiency making ‘green’ products increasingly attractive to designers and clients alike. A home is valued more in terms of its atmosphere than as a representation of material wealth. Services in the behavioral analysis also enter the mainstream. Nature and seasonal changes play a greater part in design schemes, the use and layout of space become progressively flexible, and technological developments allow the designer greater scope than ever.

Despite all of this, quality and beauty is still of paramount importance, and good design continue to strike a balance between the past and the future.

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APPENDIX 2

WRITING TO WIN BUSINESS

Once you have created capability materials that display your message in a fetching way, you will no doubt welcome the opportunity to put that message out into the world. Yet you are not the only designer whose message may reach a prospect. How can you improve the odds that your firm will be selected from a group of competitors?

Not all designers are aware of the role that correspondence – good oldfashioned letter writing – can play in turning a prospect into a client. For residential and smaller contract-design projects, a series of letters is often crucial. Letters are not, of course, the only business-development route. More familiar to designers who deal with large projects, particularly governmental ones, may be the process whereby response to an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) leads to an RFP (Request for Proposal), and ultimately to the awarding of a design contract. Along both these business-developing routs, writing has an important role to play in winning clients for the designer.

Components of a Business Letter

Your letters will be better received and more effective if they contain the components that are standard for business correspondence and that help to define it. In addition to a letterhead containing contact data and a letter body prepared according to your layout pattern, the standard business letter components include the date line, the inside address, the salutation, and the complimentary closing, followed by the signature and copies or enclosure lines. Highly effective in marketing correspondence, although not necessarily a part of routine business letters, is the postscript, or P.S.

How to Market through Correspondence

Five types of marketing letter are typically a part of the business-development process for interior designers who market through correspondence, although not all designers use all letter types. You are apt to find yourself writing the prospecting letter, the letter of interest, the letter proposal, the preliminaryagreement proposal, and the letter of thanks or regret after an agreement has or has not been signed.

The Prospecting Letter

The prospecting letter has three major objectives:

-To create favorable interest on the part of a stranger

-To provide context for capability materials enclosed with the letter

-To pave the way for further contact

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Writing a letter to a stranger who may or may not be interested in you and your services is humiliating on the face of it. Most contemporary design professionals accept the need for business development, yet some balk at writing to people with whom they have had no prior social or business contact. This type of letter is the paper equivalent of the canvassing or "cold" phone call; like its telephone equivalent, it can be a highly effective business-development strategy, but it should be directed only to likely prospects targeted by means of careful research.

PROSPECT IDENTIFICATION

To figure out who your best prospects are, you first need to have a clear idea of your core strengths as a designer. Next, ask yourself who your clients should be and how you can help them. Then ask yourself how you can best approach them - whether you already know someone who can help you put your message across, whether you know someone who knows someone, or whether you will have to reach out to a stranger.

THE ROLE OF BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Prospect identification is partly based on business intelligence, the gathering of data to further your objectives. If you are a residential designer, make a practice of regularly perusing the real estate sections of newspapers serving your area, which list homes that have recently been sold to new owners who may require design services. Real estate agencies may also be willing to share information about recently sold homes. In addition, the Chamber of Commerce or another business group in your area can provide information about newcomers to town.

If you are a contract designer, you may get valuable information from the business section of the newspaper and from business magazines and newsletters. You may also be able to get valuable leads, or tips about potential opportunities, from government publications such as municipal or state records or from government Web sites.

But doesn't all this take time? Alas, it does. If you create capability materials that do not have to be rewritten for each prospect, you save time that would otherwise have been spent describing your business. Yet prospect research is an ongoing responsibility for those who pursue business development The 20 percent rule is a good rule of thumb for independent professionals. Twenty percent of your time - two hours a day or one day a week - needs to be spent on business development.

ELEMENTS OF A PROSPECTING LETTER

When you have done your business intelligence, you are ready to write prospecting letter, the body of which has three parts: the contact paragraph, the presentation paragraphs, and the close.

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The contact paragraph states the reason for writing. If this part of the letter is not clear, convincing, and credible, the prospect will not read on. State simply and politely what prompted you to write to someone you have not met. In 25 words or less, tell prospects what you can do for them. Your opening paragraph must ask a simple question that is very important: Do you need design services? The process of asking this question and obtaining an answer is known as qualifying the prospect.

The presentation paragraphs highlight the capability materials that are enclosed with the letter, drawing on them without duplicating them. This is the part of the letter that lists one by one the benefits of doing business with you. Here you clarify what you can offer a particular client that other interior designers cannot. Since most people do not like to be the first to hire you for a particular kind of project, stress your track record in the appropriate area.

The closing paragraph looks toward your follow-up. It should be short, positive, assertive (though not aggressive), crisp, and courteous, without pleading. It need not ask for a reply or a phone call, though it may. If your purpose is to whet the prospects' appetites, simply let them know that you will be calling soon. This effective tactic leaves your reader hanging, waiting for the promised follow-up. It also prepares the reader for your call, so you will no longer be a stranger when you make it. In addition, the closing paragraph often restates the qualifying question: Do you need design services?

The Letter of Interest

While a prospecting letter is sent to a carefully targeted stranger, a letter of interest responds to a feeler on the part of a prospect. It may be written in response to a mailing that invites designers' interest in a particular project, or it may be written as a follow-up to a contact with the client in which the designer has learned something about a project - though not enough interest has been expressed in the designer's services to indicate that a design-services agreement is imminent. Usually the designer does not know enough at this early stage to provide a preliminary scope-of-work statement. A letter of interest speaks directly to client concerns, but it does not propose solutions to problems that have not yet been clearly formulated.

In its purest form, a letter of interest resembles the cover letter that is sent with a résumé. It provides the opportunity to discuss your expertise as it relates to the prospect's project type. If there has been a written invitation to submit a letter of interest, you, as the designer, pick up on specific points, paraphrase them, and respond to them in order to demonstrate a careful reading of the invitation. In relation to these points, you assert the relevance of our qualifications in terms of specific and tangible accomplishments, addressing, insofar as you ascertain them, the needs that are driving the project.

If the letter of interest follows up on a social contact, then continue the dialogue that has begun. As in responding to a written invitation, highlight the

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manner in which your accomplishments prepare you for the challenges posed by the project. (If you have had an opportunity to display your presentation book, then express your gratitude for this opportunity in a simple and dignified manner.)

The letter of interest usually serves as a transmittal letter for capability material, which it should highlight only in terms of the project at hand. It should not restate the entire content of a capability brochure with sections describing, say, the work of the firm.

ELEMENTS OF A LETTER OF INTEREST

The letter of interest typically contains the following:

-An appropriate salutation

-A statement of the reason for writing

-A discussion of staffing, qualifications, and likely collaborators

-A preliminary schedule projection

-A statement about the relationship structure

-A preliminary discussion of the financial basis for the project

-A marketing close

The Letter Proposal

Short, informal business-development propositions written as correspondence are known as letter proposals. A letter proposal might follow a letter of interest in the typical progression by means of which an interior designer secures work. Or it might replace the letter of interest. A letter proposal contains many of the same elements as a letter of interest, but there are some important differences. Usually a letter proposal is based on a greater familiarity with the client and the project. The designer who writes a proposal, however informal, has usually been encouraged to do so, for the proposal commences in preliminary fashion the design process.

COMPONENTS OF A LETTER PROPOSAL

Like a letter of interest, a letter proposal typically contains the following elements:

-An appropriate salutation

-A statement of the reason for writing

-A discussion of staffing, qualifications, and likely collaborators

-A preliminary schedule projection

-A discussion of the financial basis for the project

-A marketing close

These sections may be more detailed than they would be in a letter of interest. In addition, the letter proposal also contains:

- A preliminary scope-of-work analysis and a preliminary design proposal

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-A preliminary breakdown into phases, listing trades involved and the principal items to be ordered

-A preliminary cost estimate

The letter proposal is often accompanied by a set of references - a list of the designer's previous clients who are willing to discuss the designer's qualifications in a favorable light - often by telephone.

The Preliminary Agreement

Professionals of all stripes agree on the difficulty of distinguishing between business development and billable investigation, or discovery. This difficulty can be especially acute for interior designers who cater to the residential and small-business markets. Corporations and institutions are more likely to undertake a detailed discovery phase on their own, providing the designer with elaborate programming criteria. Budget is clearly defined and understood in this market, while smaller residential clients may not even know what their budgets are.

It can be expensive for a designer in the pre-agreement phase to deal with questions like, "Can you give me some sense of what I would get for $25,000, what for $50,000, and what for $75,000?" A question of this type would call for unpaid consultation or would elicit a multilevel proposal. Such a proposal is so complicated that it is properly considered a subject for billable Phase-Zero study - akin to a feasibility study, the goal of which is to create a budget for a defined project.

On the one hand, early partnering with an anxious, uncertain, or demanding client often wins the interior designer the job, without extensive shopping on the client's part. On the other hand, the cost of spending too many unpaid hours on business development can be high, particularly if you must deal with a difficult client after agreement has been reached. (You may wish to do more unpaid consultation with a returning client of proven value than with a previously unknown prospect who may be shopping.)

THE ROLE OF PRELIMINARY AGREEMENT

A preliminary agreement enables the designer to be paid for work that might otherwise have been classified as pre-agreement and therefore have been unpaid. Written as an interim contract, the preliminary agreement elicits a retainer as a non-refundable binder, to be applied against the fees and other remuneration that will be set forth in the full agreement. (Ideally, the retainer will be applied to the final payment.) The goal of a preliminary agreement is very limited in comparison with the goal of a full letter of agreement, which seeks the client's authorization for an entire design project. The preliminary agreement seeks the client's authorization only for the investigative or pre-agreement phase. It is stated and understood that the rest of the project will be clarified as investigation

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proceeds. A preliminary agreement in no way substitutes for the full letter of agreement.

It is not always easy to discern when a preliminary agreement would be appropriate. Most designers will go directly to full agreement when they can, and rightly so. The preliminary proposal is useful when pre-agreement consultation looks to be a protracted give-away - often because the budget has not been sufficiently narrowed down. This is an important issue in an era when clients increasingly expect more with less, and more up front work. A preliminary agreement for the discovery phase also reduces price concern by presenting prospects with successive smaller budgets rather than with one larger one.

The Thank-You or Regret Letter

It is customary to send a brief thank-you or regret letter to the client or the client's contact person after a designer has been chosen (or not been chosen) for a project. Unlike a thank-you note for a social occasion or a personal gift, the business thank-you (or regret) letter is not handwritten. Although e-mail is acceptable in some situations, this type of letter is usually a short, printed document sent via snail mail on your letterhead. The thank-you or regret letter is usually dated, yet it does not contain an inside address. After the salutation, one or two short paragraphs convey the pleasure of dealing with the prospect. If you are writing a thank-you note, express your delight in the ongoing relationship. If you are writing a regret letter, express your hope that you will be considered for a future design opportunity. The thank-you or regret letter ends in a traditional manner, with a closing such as "Sincerely yours" followed by a handwritten signature over a printed signature line.

If you have worked hard to prepare a proposal but were unable to come to agreement, you may find that writing a polite regret letter taxes your powers of courtesy. Remember that the prospect - even the residential prospect - has made a business decision in choosing another designer. Assume that the decision was impersonal. A polite note of regret may lead to future consideration for a project that is perceived as better suited to your skills and experience. It may also lead to referrals. You have everything to gain and little to lose from swallowing your pride and "making nice." By all means, keep your near misses in your prospecting file; send them follow-up mailings on a regular basis as appropriate.

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