Designing a hotel isn’t easy. Unlike a commercial or residential space, a hotel’s design is critical to the success of the brand. Hospitality interior design communicates the brand’s identity and culture, and is key to attracting the right clientele.
Even with the latest tools and technologies, project managing a hospitality interior design project is no easier than before. There are tons of moving parts, anxious stakeholders, and big budgets involved. As an interior designer, you have to think creatively, rationally, and operationally. Every decision you make is key to ensuring a smooth project and an incredible guest experience.
While there’s no sure-shot formula for success, we’re confident the tips below are bound to make your life easier, and help you create the best hotel interior design yet.
Be Creative, But Stick To Standards
Creating a signature theme and design aesthetic for a new hotel through creative and innovative designs is what’s so fun about hospitality interior design. But as much as an owner or hotel operator wants their hotel to be unique, it’s also important to stick to a brand’s standards. Leverage your design software’s template and packages feature to ensure you’re not starting from scratch or forgetting key elements. Not only does it save time, but ensures consistency for future projects too. Hospitality interiors especially have some demanding requirements and specifications – from FF&E to the color palettes to the facilities available. Reduce the need to memorize all of these in documents and stick to a template you can work with.
Go Beyond Aesthetics
Just because it looks pretty doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. With hotels, every touch point matters. From how soft the sheets, how far the lights can be adjusted, or how good the shower pressure is – a guest is going to remember everything. That’s when the finer specifications of products come in. By using intelligent product catalogs that can be easily searched based on a variety of attributes of your choice, you can put together spec sheets in minutes instead of hours. Take advantage of comprehensive databases that accurately track products used in the past or in similar projects, and make smarter and quicker decisions.
Not Everything Has to Live in Spreadsheets
To be clear, we don’t hate spreadsheets. We have the utmost respect for the OG organization tool. We just think designers can do better. Especially interior designers when creating specifications for hospitality projects. Spreadsheets work for design firms working on a single project at any given time, but fail to accommodate the visibility and collaboration needed on multiple projects. Designing and creating specifications is an overwhelming task, so there’s no need to make it harder. Leverage SaaS or software products such as .studio to create product spec and tearsheets a breeze. Easily manage revisions and track client approvals, making updates in minutes. That way you focus less on paperwork, more on being creative.
When you manage all facets of your design practice like a pro, you upgrade the way your business engages, follows up and interacts — new and existing clients spot your professionalism right away
