Ahh… New York… Paris… What a dream! Imagine, being a fashion designer in one of the fashion capitals of the world. Hold on a minute. That’s a big step. There are a few things you need to learn about being a fashion designer before you make it to the big time.Let’s say you spent most of your childhood creating clothes for your dolls, yourself, and your friends. You’ve always dreamed of being a fashion designer and everyone loves your sense of style and the way you combine colors, fabrics and accessories. Great! It sounds like you’ve got the makings of a great designer. That innate talent is critical in the fashion world but you’ll need some formal education as well. The world of the fashion designer can be extremely competitive. Not only are there lots of people gunning for jobs at the top design houses, but the most prestigious fashion designer schools only take the best students. That’s not to say you can’t do it. But you’ll need to make sure you have some basic skills and a few tools in your tool box.First off, can you draw? It’s not necessarily a must have but it certainly will help. You need to be able to translate the designs that are in your head into something people can see. So a good first step in your quest to become a fashion designer would be to brush up on your drawing skills. Next, how about adding a little experience to your tool box? Do you live in a metropolitan center where you can get an internship or entry level job in a design shop? If so, take advantage of the opportunity. If you are free to relocate, try getting an internship in a city that has a vibrant fashion industry. You’ll make valuable contacts and learn more about the industry in a few months than you can in a lifetime of reading books and magazines.Now the education part. If you are just starting out and you are prepared to go to school to learn how to be a fashion designer, think about what kind of school suits you best. Are you a good candidate for a top notch four year school or would a technical school better suit your needs? Can you move away or do you need to stay near home? Either way, you’ll never regret having the chance to immerse yourself in the fashion designer field and gain a solid foundation of the basics. There is a lot more to being a fashion designer than sketching out ideas. You’ll need to know about fabrics, pattern making, cutting and all those things that go into creating a final design.Obviously, school is not the only route to becoming a fashion designer. There are success stories of famous designers who started at the bottom of a fashion house and quickly rose to the top. These days we also find overnight fashion designer stars created on reality shows. The fact of the matter is, if you are serious about becoming a fashion designer and you have the drive and talent, the more traditional route will probably be the best. Get some education, build a portfolio, make contacts, and work, work, work. You can do it!
Small Home Living – Food! And Other Features of Your Small Home Design
Have you ever listed your life’s creature comforts? Shelter would have to top that list. One of the most enjoyable benefits of my work is the fact that I get to help people with this basic need. It’s awesome.
But, where does food fit into the housing picture? Well, food is another basic need. Actually, wouldn’t food rank higher in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Yes, enter “kitchen, stage right!” (That dates me, doesn’t it?) The kitchen is one room to pay close attention to when designing and building a small home.
Your Home, Your Food, Your Kitchen
The desire for small homes is growing but there are challenges. I find that people start with a small home floor plan but once they start analyzing what they want and adding things here and there, the small home living idea has morphed into something quite different and the plan often grows by up to fifty percent!
For most people, the kitchen is a central part of their lives. It should not be slighted when building a small home. It should be featured. Let the kitchen solve part of your problem.
How a Large Kitchen Makes for a Smaller Home
Smaller homes require plenty of thought and design to make them as livable and comfortable as possible. There’s no one solution for this. If you center your solutions around making the kitchen not only a place for food, but a living area as well, you’ll find ways to make the rest of the home smaller. Here are a couple ideas and reasons behind them.
Make the kitchen part of the Great Room/Family Room: An open kitchen allows for “living” to flow more easily throughout the house.
Bring the Dining Room into the kitchen: This means eliminate the dining room! It also means making the kitchen a little bigger. Like the old “country kitchens”. And if it’s designed well, when company comes you can expand your dining on into the great/family room area.
Let your interior design and décor flow too: To bring it all together, allow your furnishings, décor, and other features to overlap and compliment to give a bigger feel to the home.
Food and shelter go hand in hand just like a bigger, multi-use kitchen makes sense for small home designs. I bet you never thought food could solve your small home design problems!
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Home Design Software Tips – Before You Build
The benefits of using home design software can be unbelievable. Whether you have experience with home-building design or not, home design software can give you a pretty clear picture of what the new house is actually going to look like and this is wonderful.1. Make sure that you understand how the software works. Take some time to read the instructions and practice using the software until you become comfortable with all of the tools and other options that are available in the program.2. Get a couple of books on house design, to make sure that you are designing everything so that it will function and flow properly in the new house. In other words, don’t make your hallways to big and your bedrooms too small.3. Don’t design a house with engineering problems. Your home could look marvelous on your computer, but have engineering problems. Don’t get too excited, before you actually try to figure out if the home can be built.4. Once you have a pretty good design, you’re going to need to make sure that all of the electrical, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning systems will actually work and function well with the home design.5. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to understand how homes are actually constructed, before you design one. I can’t tell you how many architects I have worked with, who don’t understand how homes are actually built.If you have the house design software, design a couple of different buildings, before approaching an architect or engineer. A good engineer or architect and even a good general contractor can look at a home design and point out potential problems with it. Have fun with your home design software.
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