ONLINE SHORT COURSE
Interior Design For Your Home
This Interior Design short course is perfect for beginners and design enthusiasts. Designed to introduce you to the principles of Interior Design in easy ‘bitesize’ chunks.
Start Date
Enrol at any time & choose your start date. No term times or semesters
Study Duration
Assessment
No exams — Gain valuable feedback from National Design Academy Tutors
Make Your Start In Interior Design
This course is designed to introduce you to the principles of Residential Interior Design, whilst understanding the design process using a non-technical approach that is both fun and creative. Packed full of useful information, hints and tips, and exciting interactive activities, this course is sure to make your first experience of Interior Design a very positive one!
You will build your interior design confidence and explore colour, pattern and texture, combining these together to create successful design schemes for your own home. Your NDA Tutor will assess your personal projects and give you feedback and guidance to help develop your creative ideas even further.
No more guess work is needed, no more trawling through countless magazines and blogs; this course will give you all the information that you need to achieve success.
What Will I Study?
The course is organised into 5 separate projects, each one having a specific focus.
Project 1
Interior Design Inspiration & Colour Theory
This covers the key Interior design elements used by professional interior designers that are essential for any successful design. It also explains where to find your own inspiration for designs and how to understand the theory of colour and how colour affects our mood.
Project 2
Combining Colour, Texture & Pattern
Understand simple rules to ensure your rooms are balanced and perfectly proportioned. This includes choosing and applying colour, texture and pattern to create the perfect mood and feel within your home.
An introduction to wall and floor finishes, understanding the materials available to you and how these can be applied. Sourcing and designing the best window treatments and beautiful soft furnishings will also give you the confidence to bring your design schemes together within your home.
Project 3
Furnishing Your Space
This provides an introduction to the wide range of furniture and accessories you can choose from, giving you the confidence to make your own selections based on your individual style, taste and budget. It will also show you how to make a statement with furniture and how to combine form and function with furniture and accessories.
Project 4
Planning Your Space Effectively
This will teach you how to arrange your space and develop an understanding of basic layout principles appropriate for the use of the room. It will also show you how to measure your own rooms, how to use furniture templates to plan out your space and finally how to calculate quantities for your wallpaper and floor finishes.
Project 5
Your Own 'Personal Project'
Designed to bring together all the knowledge and skills you have gained during the course. A practical design project giving you the opportunity to redesign a room within your own home, making it both exciting and creative.
This can be a complete concept idea or a design that you actually intend to undertake in the future.
Within this section you will be given a step by step guide on how to approach your own design, as well as how you can present your information.
How Will I Study?
The course is accessed online via the Virtual Learning Studio or ‘My VLS,’ our exclusive, online platform. Delivered in 5 interactive projects tailored so that the content is both inspiring and engaging to help bring out the designer in you.
Projects 1 to 4 deliver a wealth of interactive course content, each followed by a ‘knowledge checker’. Here, you can test your own understanding through a variety of interactive activities and multiple choice quizzes.
You can rest assured that you are working at your own pace and can revisit the content and knowledge checkers, as and when you choose, which prepares you perfectly for working towards producing a design project of your very own.
Your own ‘Personal Project’ or project 5 will take you through step by step process to apply the knowledge and skills you have gained, giving you the opportunity to redesign a room within your own home, making it both exciting and practical at the same time. At the end of this project you will design and produce a professional Inspiration board, a presentation board and a room plan of your chosen design.
Once completed, you will upload your finished work via the VLS. This will enable you to gain valuable feedback from one of our experienced Interior Design tutors here at the NDA.
Online
Self Study
Tutor Feedback
What Will I Acheive?
During this course you will learn the following skills;
- Key Interior Design principles and design inspiration
- How to select and combine colour schemes successfully
- How to combine colours, textures and patterns
- How to add accessories and soft furnishings successfully
You will have the confidence and inspiration to design your own home following simple rules and hints & tips to achieve successful and professional results.
- Selecting appropriate wall and floor finishes
- Planning and furnishing a space effectively
- How to produce a room plan of your chosen furniture layout
- How to develop an inspiration & presentation board to illustrate your own design scheme
- You will have a clear understanding of the fundamentals of Interior Design and apply these to a practical outcome, enhancing your creativity, awareness, and knowledge.
You will receive the NDA Short Course Certificate ‘Interior Design For Your Home’ Endorsed by AIM Qualifications Quality Mark.
Skills Or Equipment Needed?
There are no specific skills needed in order for you to complete this course as this is aimed purely for beginners as an introduction to Interior Design.
You will require access to a desktop or laptop computer to access the course online. There are ‘hints and tips’ throughout the course content to help you achieve professional results.
Physical Boards
If you decide to use a physical approach and produce your boards by hand you may need to consider purchasing some equipment to help you achieve successful results.
- A3 Mount Board/Card
- Spray adhesive to stick your imagery/samples down
- A glue stick can be used for paper, e.g. images and text
- A craft knife or scalpel
- Gridded cutting mat (at least A3 size) – This is optional but can be a great help when cutting
Digital Boards
If you would prefer to create your boards digitally, you may produce your boards using Microsoft Word, Powerpoint or Keynotes if you are working on a Mac.
Further Education & Careers
If this course has opened your eyes to the exciting world of interior design and you think this may be the career for you, then you can progress onto our Professional Interior Design Diploma accredited by AIM Qualifications. You can study the Diploma flexibly online or fast track online via our Zoom delivery option or with two weeks in-studio in the UK or in Dubai. And the best bit – NDA will give you a progression scholarship to reduce your Diploma fees.
Once you complete the Professional Diploma you will be able to start your own business, join a design practice or go on to study the BA (Hons) interior design degree, online with NDA, once again with a generous progression scholarship.
Study an NDA Professional Diploma
NDA Progression Scholarships
Study an NDA Bachelor’s Degree
What Our Students Say
“It was an easy decision to study with the NDA. One of the things that made the whole process so much easier was the VLS platform. It’s a great method of communication between student and tutor but also in terms of receiving work and submitting feedback.”
John Niven
Interior Design Diploma Student
“It is an amazing course which exceeded my expectations as I thought it would be less informative instead I learned more than I expected to learn and the assignments were more challenging than I imagined. Thanks for the amazing course!”
Lolowa Al Mazrouei
Interior Design Diploma Student