The Interior Design Handbook

Love this book! It is not a fluffy, coffee table book with lots of glossy photographs, it is an intelligent book for people who want to learn how to approach a design project and make it their own. So often the approach to interior design is to copy photographs showing other people's work. This book empowers the reader to create their own design and to make it work within their own setting. It gives basic principles of design to use as a guide, explains how common mistakes occur and shows how to create a harmoniously designed house. I am due to move house later this year so I am using this book to learn about interior design so that when I start the project, I will have a firm foundation of knowledge to build upon. If I have a criticism - and it is a tiny one - it is that the section relating interior design to architectural designs of houses, would have been more useful had the houses used as guides been British houses. However, all that means os that I will have to do some more work and research British architecture myself. At least I can use the information in the book to work out what kind of information I need to find. On the whole, a wonderful book, it will soon be tattered - a sure sign of a useful book!

This book is excellent for those people who enjoy reading and having occasional drawings to understand. The first few pages explain that this book is a book without any photos in because there are too many of them. I was excited to read after this because I felt the same way, which is why I chose this book. The book contains lots of details, lots of tips and lots of variety in how you can decorate your space. I think that its wonderful and is definitely helping me better understand interior design. It talks about, symmetry, flow of movement, colours, styles, lighting, proportions and many more. If you ARE NOT a visual learner and you want pictures, don't buy this book and write a bad review on it because it doesn't have them! Find a different book. But if you enjoy reading and seeing the occasional diagram or drawing like me, this book is excellent for you.

Bought for interior design student, told it will come in handy. Looked good quality both in content, and it’s cover.

The book itself is filled with practical and technical advice, but I was expecting more visuals. Also, this may just be a production issue but the pages within the book were back to front and upside down from the cover.

The design book I've been searching for! If you want a simple, straight forward manual for interior design, guidance on why certain designs work and how to make them functional, the mathematics behind what's pleasing to the eye and a foundation to build your own style on, this is it. I love the black and white illustrations, they definitely help you focus on the solutions for your space without the distraction of someone's personal style. Don't expect endless (any) photos of dreamy interiors because this definitely isn't that book, but I strongly suspect it will turn out to be a lot more useful in my renovation planning than any glossy coffee table tome.

Really handy book for helpful tips on nailing the basics of planning interiors whatever your home style or budget, initially was disappointed there weren't lots of glossy interiors photos but realised quickly this would defeat the point of the book. Very easy to read and would highly recommend

I love this book! It gives you information about basic design principles and is great inspiration when it comes to decorating your home. Lots of info about placement of products within the home and comparisons of what to no and not to do. Great coffee table book too.

I had high hopes this book and pleased to say it’s delivered! As the author says in the intro so often interior design books are full of gorgeous photos with little explanation of what makes them successful. Often interior design is intuitive but the author has worked hard to demystify a lot of this for the lay person like me. Kate from Mad About the House had a similar intention with her first book which was also useful. However, I think this one is even more successful due to the many diagrams which help to illustrate the wide ranging tips. Thus this has far more substance than the usual pretty interior design coffee table books. I highly recommend it!