If you’re drawn to interior design, you’ve likely wished you had limitless rooms to fill and redo over and over again. Design Home, a new, interactive design platform available for smartphones and tablets, will allow you to do just that. With over 3,000 furnishings to choose from, you can virtually pimp out spaces like private beach houses and luxury apartments in New York City without bankrupting yourself.
We asked Chris McGill, senior vice president and general manager of Design Home, about how the platform came to be and what users can expect to experience on it.
Chris McGill: We’ve all flipped through an issue of Architectural Digest or Wallpaper* and thought to ourselves, “I wish my house looked like that!” But furniture is large and expensive and it’s nearly impossible to constantly rearrange a living room based on the latest design trends. Design Home lets you embrace your inner-interior designer and virtually experiment with different looks, using real items — without the heavy lifting.
What will users learn on the gaming platform that they can apply to decorating their real homes?
Often, it only takes one or two key pieces to freshen or revamp a room in your home. By allowing users to style rooms with real items that they can actually (and easily!) purchase in real life, Design Home is the ultimate way to discover and experiment with furniture and decor that you love before committing to it in real life.
What about Design Home will particularly appeal to millennial men?
Design Home will really appeal to anyone that’s interested in living in a well-designed home or simply wants to spruce up his or her living space. The platform allows users to engage with design in a whole new way. Really, it’s like bringing the pages of your favorite design mag or design account on Instagram to life. You can engage with different kinds of homes in different locations around the world, different interior details and different brands and styles of furniture. And because we offer five new “design challenges” each day, there’s always new content to experience.
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What will the daily design challenges involve?
Design Home lets players decorate living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms, and outdoor spaces using over 3,000 hand-picked furniture and decor items from dozens of brands including Design Within Reach, Noir, Serena & Lily, Loloi, Kathy Kuo Home, Worlds Away, and many more.
What did you look for when choosing furniture and décor brands to partner with?
Ultimately, we wanted to give our users the opportunity to virtually design rooms using their favorite brands, and some they don’t know they love yet. We offer 10 styles of furniture, from rustic to modern, so players can begin to develop their own tastes and styles. Every brand featured in Design Home creates high-end, high-quality pieces that we believe are some of the best on the market.
How many interior spaces can users choose from?
In Design Home, the sky is the limit! Users can compete in five to six Design Challenges each day, designing completely different and diverse rooms, from the indoor-outdoor living room in an island escape villa in Costa Rica to a rustic, family-style dining room in a Telluride ski lodge.
Will the interior spaces and furnishing options change over time? How often?
Absolutely. The interior spaces and physical settings change on a daily basis and as we bring on additional brand partners, we will continue to grow our selection of furniture and decor pieces, releasing new items every day. We’re excited to introduce our players to new and emerging design trends. Our goal is to keep our offering fresh and ever-changing and to expose players to the best that the design world has to offer!
