10 of the best interior design material sources
Great artisans craft their own tools. In an industry ripe for disruption, interior designers look for tools to solve their design inefficiencies and improve their productivity.
Our interior design curation starts with design artistry, product platforms, practice management, business models and streamlined workflows. Everything that you need to pull in a handy guide of interior design sources to amplify your creative process and build your own framework from start to end.
Wells of inspiration
Ever lose your designer creative muse? These interior design sources can give you that quick shot of inspo for your mood boards. From styles, how-to articles, and even info on the latest architectural materials, you’ll find what you need to get your creativity flowing.
Quick inspo for your mood boards
Interior Design Magazine
Founded in 1932, Interior Design Magazine features tons of project features, new products, current industry news and trends, as well as industry research and trend reporting.
Interior Design magazine is full of design inspiration in both their physical and digital magazine subscriptions as well as streaming on DesignTV which features a variety of interviews, product tours and more!
2. ELLE Decor
Another haut monde in interior design sources, ELLE Decor features stylish homes, renovation tips, interior products and design sourcebooks that fire your imagination. Combining modern curation with French influence, ELLE Decor opens you to a world of interiors where luxury living and average homeownership can coexist together.
Every year, ELLE Decor debuts A-List, where you can scope out a global roster of influential interior talents who emerge with dynamic design approaches, material innovation and proactive community engagement.
3. Dezeen
Dezeen covers a comprehensive range of product showrooms, awards, lookbooks and projects including residential, commercial, offices and flagship retail stores, but its best asset highlights the intelligent discussions across the A&D industry.
Get a glimpse of current industry news and thought-provoking conversations with leading designers and architects in the form of videos, podcasts and interviews, so you can solve your design problems with inspired and challenging solutions.
4. Architonic
From product recommendations, to furniture brands, premium manufacturers, design textiles, lighting, fit-out solutions, expert designers and interior projects—you can find just about anything in Architonic.
This Zurich-based platform just recently acquired architecture news website Archdaily, merging two of the largest platforms in the industry to power up its product database, but still growing the sister platforms separately. Add the same DNA of Designboom to its strategic alliance. Similar players in this space include Archiproducts and Archello.
Material Sampling
Designing for the built environment drives the need to physically touch, feel and see material samples. With modern online sampling platforms, you can easily find and order all the samples you need from these organizations:
Your design library delivered - at home or at the office.
5. Material Bank
Material Bank allows you to order samples from hundreds of top brands in one easy step. And they arrive quickly and efficiently to you — samples ordered by midnight (ET) are delivered to you by 10:30AM the next day. They also offer pre-paid return packages that you can request to return those unneeded samples back to be reused and help eliminate waste. Material Bank is free for designers to use and currently ships to the contiguous United States and Canada.
Material Bank offers sampling solutions for interior design firms of all sizes working on both commercial and residential projects.
Best practices
Looking for ways that your firm can become more productive and efficient in the interior design industry? These innovative tools can help you get more done in a day.
Industry insights on practice operations
5. Morpholio
Called "digital magic" by Wired magazine, Morpholio's knack for innovation reverberates across reinventing the creative A&D process with design-specific apps. Effective design outputs start with streamlining your workflows.
Using Morpholio Ava as an interior design source, you can make interior spec sheets in 3 easy steps: create design boards, transform product pages into cut sheets, then edit spreadsheets and export for purchasing. For client buy-ins and high-level presentations, connect Pinterest boards and leverage its AR Product Library & Color Capture to see FF&E color samples at scale.
6. Studio Designer
Treat Studio Designer as your ERP solution on your whole suite of interior design sources. Design is only one part of your business, and you need an all-in-one tool to switch back and forth between client portals, project management, product sourcing, time billing, and integrated accounting.
Find better ways to run your interior design business and overhaul outdated workflows with industry best practices. With Studio Designer and industry competitors like Design Manager and Ivy, optimize one-stop shop tools and automate business processes so you can make feasible decisions and drive good profits.
Design and e-Commerce
These next two organizations are changing the experience of interior design by adding options for e-commerce transactions and virtual collaborations between designer and client.
Reinventing interior design virtually
7. Eporta
Dubbed as the Airbnb of interior design, Eporta takes B2B business model into a whole another virtual level by digitizing the catalogues of furnishing manufacturers and allowing businesses to order direct, cutting middlemen out of the equation.
When you aim to expand into new ventures of B2B2C, consider how this interior e-commerce solution connects trade buyers, retailers and interior design professionals, and then tailor the concepts to tap into economies of scale and capitalize on your business growth.
8. Houzz
Houzz evolved from a simple design marketplace into an integrated business tool with functionalities for CRM, client collaboration, marketing, lead generation, brand building, cost estimation and payment requests.
This interior design source is incredibly useful when you want to follow up on leads, kick off the interior project, scan as-built measurements conveniently, and design for an end-to-end customer experience all in one platform.
Digital technology
Although commercial construction still ranks as one of the least digitized industries, these organizations are providing digital catalogs and tools to help you become more efficient in your design workflow.
Workflow tools of the future
9. Source
We might seem biased here, but only because we validate how our streamlined approach on material specs and memo sample fulfillment brings value to interior designers. Source is a game changer for A&D specifiers, revolutionizing what used to be disconnected among clients, architects, designers, consultants and developers.
With over 190k+ materials on digital catalog, robust filters for product selection, and an all-around personal touch from our product experts and reps, Source reduces that chronic culprit of clutter and verifies your specs against your criteria before shipment, leading to mitigated carbon footprint. Sourced from discovery to delivery—it's simple, but groundbreaking.
10. Clippings
With niches in residential, hospitality and workplace interiors, Clippings empower you to design, quote and purchase furniture and lighting products all in one go. When you need to scale back on your budget constraints, comparing FF&E trade discounts from the recommended retail price (RRP) is one powerful feature that you can leverage from Clippings.
Conclusion
Each interior design source in the industry has its own differentiator, with its peculiar list of pros and cons. Because interior design is multifaceted, a strategy-first approach before integrating which coordinated tools work best for your start-to-end workflow will yield you maximum results.
Author
Karissa Austria | Architect, Construction Manager & Consultant
