Building a Room-By-Room from the Themes, using Page Templates and the power of linking the Book to the Schedule.
Moving from Administration to Visualization: Room-by-Room Presentations
In the last few modules, we’ve focused heavily on building the foundation—setting up the Schedule (The Shopping List). Now, it’s time to get more visual and start working on Room-by-Room presentations, the part of the process we all enjoy!
While there’s a dedicated training module for building and customizing your organizational themes, this module will focus on the basic themes and page layouts already available in the platform. We’ll explore how to use these tools to create Room-by-Room client presentations effectively.
Improving Client Presentations
One of our key objectives with this platform is to enhance the quality of Room-by-Room client presentations while making the process simple and intuitive. With the powerful tools at your disposal, you’ll be able to create polished, professional visuals with ease.
It’s also essential to note that if you wish, these presentations can be directly connected to the schedule. This means:
• A change made to the book or the schedule is reflected in both.
• The client Book/Presentation becomes a visual representation of the Item schedule, ensuring consistency and accuracy throughout the project.
Room-by-Room Format:
Everyone has their own approach to creating a Room-by-Room presentation. For this training, I’ll be using the page structure shown below. Keep in mind that this is not a mood board—we’ll cover mood boards in another module.
The goal of a Room-by-Room is to help clients clearly visualize the selections for each room in a structured and professional way. Let’s focus on crafting a Room-by-Room presentation for the Interior Finishes that is both visually engaging and easy for clients to understand.
Room-by-Room (Furniture) Page Structure
Page Name |
|
Cover |
|
About | Your company & team overview |
Plan Page - Main Level | Main Floor - Snippet Image |
Primary Bedroom - Furnishings | Furnishings for the Primary Bedroom |
Closing |
|
My Theme selection is ‘Simple & Tonal’, with the Book Layout ‘Training -1’—a clean and effective starting point.
Before we get started, let's discuss linking the Item ID or Location to the Item Box on the canvas as we will do this as we construct each page.
Linking Item IDs and Location Items to the Design Book
NOTE: In our platform, you have the flexibility to link either an Item ID or a Location Item to the design book. Let’s explore the differences and advantages of each approach:
Item ID
• Purpose: Represents multiple locations.
• Use Case: Ideal for design book pages where you’re showcasing finishes applied across multiple locations. For example, a single paint color used on walls throughout various rooms can be represented by one Item ID, simplifying updates and maintaining consistency.
Location Item
• Purpose: Represents a specific location.
• Use Case: Perfect when you need changes to a specific location to directly reflect on the corresponding design book page. For instance, if you want the page to adjust automatically when a specific wall or floor finish is changed in a single room or space, linking the location item ensures this connection.
By understanding these differences, you can choose the best method based on the requirements of your project and client presentation. Let’s dive into examples to see how each approach works in practice.
Time to create our Book.
Page 1 & 2: Cover and About
These two pages can be customized with your company brand and information, by your organization's administrator. Learn how here.
However, we can make adjustments at the Project level. For now we will use the standard theme pages.
Page 3:
Image |
|
Main Floor Plan | Snippet - Image |
Choose a blank page and we will add a single plan image.
Page 4: Primary Bedroom - Furnishings
Since all of this Item locations are specific to this room we will use the Locations from the LHS and drag them onto the Book Canvas.
Drag and Drop the location onto the Item Box that you wish to link to that location.
NOTE: We will not show the Curtain, Curtain Rod or Ring on the Book. This will leave us with 6 Items.
Location Type / Sub Type |
Area Rug |
Bed / King |
Night Stand |
Dresser |
Bench |
Wall Decor / Framed Art |
Window Treatment / Curtain Rod. (No Need to show this on the Book) |
Window Treatment / Curtain. (No Need to show this on the Book) |
Part / Ring. (No Need to show this on the Book) |
Page 5: Closing
No need for any adjustments here.
We’ve now completed the construction of our Furniture Room-by-Room client presentation and linked it to the item schedule. At any point, adjustments can be made— items can be added or removed as needed throughout the design process.
The next step is to add our items to the presentation. Let’s jump to the next lesson!
The Design Process challenges we have addressed in this module.
Adobe InDesign and Microsoft PowerPoint are undeniably powerful tools, but they’re not specifically designed for Interior Design Client Presentations: These programs excel in graphic design and general presentations, but they lack features tailored to the unique needs of interior designers, such as:
Integrated schedules and visuals: They don’t inherently link design visuals to the project’s schedule, making updates time-consuming and prone to errors.
Room-by-room organization: Setting up and managing structured, room-by-room presentations is cumbersome without templates specifically built for interior design.
Dynamic updates: Changes in design details, finishes, or layouts require manual edits across multiple slides or pages, leading to inefficiency.
Formatting Room-by-Room elements—aligning visuals and text on a canvas—has been a difficult and time-consuming task: Achieving professional alignment and balance often required meticulous effort, especially when using tools not designed for interior design. With our platform, this process is no longer a challenge. Thanks to customizable elements purposely built for interior design:
Adding Project Items to a canvas: Previously a painful and time consuming exercise bringing all the information on to the canvas by saving and locating all Images and Attributes on your computer. Now a simple, Drag and Drop.
Create the Book and then update the schedule, line by line: Linking the Book to the schedule, this task is gone. By linking the book directly to the schedule, any changes made in one are instantly reflected in the other. This seamless connection ensures:
Accuracy: No more duplicate entries or missed updates.
Efficiency: Save time by eliminating manual edits.
Consistency: Your Room-by-Room book and schedule always stay aligned.
Collaboration can feel impossible when using generic tools. With scattered files, inconsistent updates, and limited access, it’s difficult to keep everyone aligned and working efficiently. Our platform solves this problem by providing:
One Platform: Everything is centralized, eliminating the need for multiple disconnected tools.
One Source of Truth: Everyone works from the same, up-to-date information, reducing errors and miscommunication.
Team Access: The whole team, including internal and external collaborators, can contribute in real-time, ensuring a seamless workflow.
Topics Covered:
Creating a Design Book using Themes
Selecting a Book Layout
Managing Book Navigation
Book Page Management
Linking the Schedule to the Design Book
Basic use of Elements (Text, Item and Image Boxes)