Books, Lectures and Programs: What Interior Designers Need

Today the internet is just as much a working tool for designers or architects as a pencil and tape measure. Reading books and learning online, listening to lectures by professionals without leaving your own living room, quickly creating collages and visualizations on a tablet – all of this is real. All you need is Wi-Fi.

Books

"Arrows" Publishing Program: the "Arrow" institute is betting on books about architecture and urban planning. However, it's also worth checking out for designers: start with "The Language of Things" by Dejan Sudjic. The institute has collected over 30 books in its collection, available both in print and digital formats.

Archspeech Library: the library presents the most interesting books on architecture, urban planning, design, restoration, and art. Specifically for its readers, archspeech publishes excerpts from new books and titles about to be published, giving a preview of their content.

Amazon: there aren't many design books translated into Russian. For the latest releases in the original language, go to the largest American portal. Over 130,000 books in the architecture category are available for delivery to Russia and other CIS countries.

Totalarch: the portal's library contains publications that are no longer available for purchase. The main focus is on literature about architecture, but designers will also find plenty to explore.

Architecture Open Library: an English-language resource providing access to electronic books on architecture and design of private and public spaces. A yearly subscription costs 120 euros: affordable if you consider how much each of these books would cost individually.

Lectures and Courses

Courses at Arzamas: the "Arzamas" portal offers free courses on art. These combine short video lectures delivered by scientists with materials prepared by the editorial team: reference notes, long articles, photo galleries, fragments of film chronicles, quotes from forgotten books, and interviews with experts – all to help explore a topic more thoroughly.

BBC "Design Rules" (2003): a six-part series about basic design principles in the spaces where we live. The renowned British designer Lawrence Lelevin-Bowen explains the fundamentals of interior design, the influence of color, light, textures, and furniture placement.

"Genius of Design" (2009): a series about the emergence and history of industrial design: from avant-garde chairs of the 1960s to modern IKEA cabinets and Apple's minimalist design. Experts discuss the industrial revolution, the appearance of built-in kitchens, and how during World War II designers created more efficient weapons.

Archtime Lectures: free video lectures by well-known architects, designers, urbanists, held at the MARSH School, the Arrow Institute, the Central House of Architects, the British School of Design, and other thematic venues.

Lectures and Courses in English

History of Architecture I: 47 free lectures on the history of architecture for enthusiasts from a professor at Ohio University.

Interior Design Basics & Principles: a 10-lesson course on interior design fundamentals: from color theory to furniture history. What's convenient is that there are no strict deadlines.

Decorating Your Home: a free course (6 lessons) on interior decoration by an American designer (a member of the ASID association), suitable for those who want to decorate their apartment or house on their own. It’s also useful for beginners in design and decoration: each lesson includes practical tasks.

People-centred designing: a 12-hour course of lectures focusing on the issue of "design for people, not people for design." Materials can be downloaded free of charge in PDF format.

Drawings and 3D Models

Arcat: a solid library of details and components in .dwg format.

Ceco.net: around 150 blocks, including furniture, architectural elements, and human figures.

Bimobject: a library of furniture, lighting, and décor items from over 900 brands. Free access requires registration.

AutoCad 360: the official AutoCAD version for mobile devices. Available in two versions – basic and paid Pro. Allows opening and saving any AutoCAD projects, supports Dropbox. Determines location on the plan using GPS, which is invaluable when designing large buildings from scratch.

Dimensiva: a popular portal with high-quality furniture models from well-known manufacturers.

CGTrader: nearly 4000 free architectural models, including for SketchUp and Revit.

Textures

Subtle Patterns: 400 excellent patterns for Photoshop. A plugin that integrates into the program can be purchased for a small fee.

Textures.com: a huge archive of various textures. With a free account, up to 15 images can be downloaded per day.

Mayang’s Free Textures: 7.5 gigabytes of free textures with a resolution up to 5,000 pixels on the longest side.

Texturemate: thousands of high-resolution texture images.

Color Schemes

Adobe Color: a color wheel with many settings to help select proper color combinations.

Color Palette Generator: an online tool that creates color schemes based on uploaded images.

Coolors.co: "your own colorist" – create your own color schemes and use them in new projects.

Color Hunter: break down your favorite photograph into colors online.

Working with Images and Files

Compressor.io: allows reducing image sizes by 2–4 times while preserving quality.

Bulk Resize Photos: an online service for batch image processing at up to 150 photos per minute.

Zamzar: a free file converter that recognizes 1200 different formats.

Pixlr: an online editor that replaces Photoshop.

Smallpdf: a site that helps convert PDF files and merge them into presentations.

The content is supplemented... We would be happy to receive your recommendations in the comments.