Ruminations on design
Oct. 6th, 2023 11:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootSo, I've been playing Design Home a lot lately, because one of my coping mechanisms is displacement organizing, and this game is extremely good for that. And part of it is, of course, a/b voting on other people's designs. Observing my own voting inclinations, and trialing them in my own rooms, I have come up with the following rules of in-game design, and figured they might entertain.
All the elements of a space need to work together. An geometric blue print mixed in among blue flowered print of a different shade is going to be jarring. Filling one of the game's wildly ornate "French" rooms (it's Rococo, just call it that, omg) with square, plain furniture is unlikely to hit voters' "yes, correct" reflex. If the accessory set of the month is bright orange, then by god, get that glowingly orange couch and click that sucker in there. That said...
Black furniture will not stand out well against a black room. If you have a room in neutrals, use colored furniture. If you have a room with an intense accent color wall, put a neutral against it. This is not to say low-contrast palettes can't work very well; but things have to stand out well enough to be seen.
A room needs to be comfortably filled out. If it's a big room with just a love-seat and a desk chair in it, it looks like that terrible stage of moving in when you're there with just the things you could cram into your car because the moving van hasn't arrived yet. It's certainly possible to over-stuff a room, but I much more often see rooms that are way too sparse.
These are the things I find myself voting based on, and they've been good guidelines to winding up with a good-looking room. Even if I feel a little dirty about it, when it's one of the Rococo rooms.
Commit to the Bit
All the elements of a space need to work together. An geometric blue print mixed in among blue flowered print of a different shade is going to be jarring. Filling one of the game's wildly ornate "French" rooms (it's Rococo, just call it that, omg) with square, plain furniture is unlikely to hit voters' "yes, correct" reflex. If the accessory set of the month is bright orange, then by god, get that glowingly orange couch and click that sucker in there. That said...
Contrast is Good
Black furniture will not stand out well against a black room. If you have a room in neutrals, use colored furniture. If you have a room with an intense accent color wall, put a neutral against it. This is not to say low-contrast palettes can't work very well; but things have to stand out well enough to be seen.
Fill the Space
A room needs to be comfortably filled out. If it's a big room with just a love-seat and a desk chair in it, it looks like that terrible stage of moving in when you're there with just the things you could cram into your car because the moving van hasn't arrived yet. It's certainly possible to over-stuff a room, but I much more often see rooms that are way too sparse.
These are the things I find myself voting based on, and they've been good guidelines to winding up with a good-looking room. Even if I feel a little dirty about it, when it's one of the Rococo rooms.
