Modern, Rustic, Contemporary: Finding Your Interior Design Style

Having an eye for design can get you far, but just like any other artistic field out there, you may not yet have a full grasp on what type of interior design suits your personality best. While it may make some people uncomfortable by placing themselves into a category, being able to recognize what aesthetic works best with you shouldn’t be seen as a limiting thing. Instead, it can be liberating to know that you specialize in something, while still keeping yourself open to exploring and experimenting in other areas of design as your career grows.

Modern Design


Possibly one of the most popular and common types of interior designs being implemented today. There are many sub-categories that fit into modern design, but it’s most common theme includes geometric shapes playing off of each other through the furniture and decor, clean lines, and repeating patterns and complementary colors.

The color scheme with modern can range from warm to black and white, starkly contrasted tones. This is where we run into these modern design sub-categories, which seem to sort of melt into one another depending on the designer’s preference. Mid-century modern is characterized as including sleek, clean cut lines and organic shapes mixed in to create a contrast of shapes and sizes throughout a room. Transitional is another sub-category of modern design. With transitional, a touch of elegance is added to create balance and warmth to a room. Industrial also falls under the modern category and it is bordering on rustic but sets itself apart with more suburban, rather than urban, appeal.

Rustic Design


If your style falls more under the rustic category, then you will likely find your place in a design plan that surrounds the kitchen, living room, and lounge as the main areas of interest. Rustic design takes advantage of what nature has to offer us with more organic shapes, plenty of open sunlight, natural wood surfaces, hardwood floors, and . With rustic interior design, you’re more likely to see kitchen accessories out for display. There might be a copper saucepan and cast iron skillet hanging out on display, right in plain view.

With a rustic design in mind, kitchen cupboards might be made of wood or see-through glass, so that you can actually see the cupboard’s contents. This creates a much more open and humble appearance to your kitchen. Much of the rustic style design relies on how homes used to look back when electricity was either nonexistent or a completely new concept. Rustic means you are working with some raw or semi-raw materials, so things like shabby chic furniture and wicker furniture are commonly found throughout the home.

Contemporary Design


The thing about contemporary design is that it’s all about the color scheme. If you are an extremely color-oriented designer, then contemporary may be right up your alley. It is also characterized by metal accents, muted wood tones, warm lighting fixtures that really set the mood, and textures. Textures are a main theme for contemporary designers. The details are what make or break this design type, as everything is so delicately placed but warm, cozy, and comfortable.

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