How to Design Office Furniture

Designing office furniture for contemporary interiors

The best way to learn how to design office furniture is by taking an art and design course in the field of three-dimensional design, where you can choose to specialize in interior and furniture design. This will help you work as a professional designer.

If art college is not an option for you, but you wish to freelance, then you need to produce a portfolio of designs to prove your artistic flair as an interior and furniture designer.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• A3 sketchbook
• A3 white card
• Pencil HB
• Eraser
• Pencil sharpener
• Color art markers or colored pencils
• A1 or A2 leather portfolio
• A1 or A2 colored mounting board
• Glue stick
• Plastic display sleeves

1. Gather images, from photographs, magazines, catalogs, patterned papers or other visual resources, to create a mood board. Create a collage by cutting out a variety of images or abstract shapes and arrange them onto a page of your A3 sketchbook. Stick the images in place using a glue stick. The purpose of a mood board is to provide a visual source of inspiration for potential thematic, design and color schemes to help you create your furniture designs.

2. Consider what kinds of furniture you need in an office, such as desks, swivel chairs, storage units, soft furnishings, lighting and office accessories or anything you need in an office. Observe office furniture, noticing the proportion and scale of the objects set within the interior they inhabit and consider the functionality of each piece of office furniture and how you might be able to bring something new to furniture design.

3. Sketch the furniture and interior you inhabit as an exercise. This will help you to explore scale, perspective and how to shape your sketch by using line and the contrasts of light and dark, so to develop your own visual drawing style. Add color to your sketch, if desired.

4. Look at your mood board and pick out a small section or an element which visually interests you. This could be a shape, a color, an abstract pattern or an unusual contour or motif. Reference this section on a new page of your sketchbook by pasting in a re-sized photocopy of that section of interest or add a rough sketch of it. This will help to influence and shape your design ideas.

5. Start drawing a series of designs for your office furniture. Draw several design variations until you have a sufficient collection of design ideas to be able to select your best design ideas to make your professional display sheets. Add color or pattern into your furniture designs to add more detail. Stick material swatches onto your page to represent the type of fabric you might want to incorporate into the upholstery of your furniture. Write brief descriptive notes to suggest what materials to use in the construction or your office furniture and to specify special design and functionality features.

6. Select some of your best furniture designs from of your sketchbook. On a separate piece of A3 paper or white card, design an office interior that visually displays your range of office furniture. Your display sheets are to be placed in plastic display sleeves to be inserted inside your leather portfolio. This will look professional and will show employers or buyers that you can design more than just office furniture and can conceptualize by designing interior design schemes in their entirety.

   You can create display sheets of selected pieces of office furniture but set the object in an office background, so that you don't just design office furniture in isolation.

7. Stick the finished display sheets of your designs onto pieces of colored mounting board to complete the presentation of your furniture designs. Place them into plastic display sleeves and put them in your portfolio.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember the practical function of your office furniture so that your designs fulfill their practical purpose. Be innovative, be experimental and adventurous by thinking outside of the box when approaching your designs.

• Avoid designing what is expected and stereotypical furniture concepts.

References

• Interior Design Tutor: A Good Interior Design Sketch Requires Observation of a Space as It Truly Is
• Channel 4: Design & Style How To Guides