Although interior design is a quite tangible profession, this does not mean that it cannot be taught online. At least that’s what the huge positive feedback received from the students who completed the course of GRID Online interior design academy seems to prove to Eszter Bertóty and Emese Bunyik, the founders of the course.
When they launched their first course in January, they didn’t think that in just two months, there will be an even greater demand for it than in the beginning. But then came the epidemic, and online courses became even more prominent and popular than ever before. Interior designer Eszter Bertóty, the co-founder of GRID told us how it all started and how the course is structured.
“I have been thinking about teaching for quite some time now. Especially because in the past years, many entry-level designers contacted me to apply for an internship, who had no idea about the real course of processes after they finished school – at the same time, they could create fantastic moodboards and had an opinion about all the cool styles. Then the thought of teaching was somehow never followed by an action, partly because I saw that the syllabus of home decoration vocational courses have not changed a bit in the past 20 years (!), and I didn’t want to join or support that. On top of it all, I feel that the “home decoration” term has been completely discredited in the past period.”
Then Eszter met architect Emese Bunyik, with whom they not only shared the same opinion in terms of courses, but it also turned out that although they came from different backgrounds, they structure their projects in a very similar manner. In parallel with all this, they came across the company webuni.hu focusing on online education, which gave them the little push they needed to start developing their own course.
“Instead of replacing, we rather aim to complement the currently available courses. In addition, we would also like to offer help to the laymen who would like to manage their own home renovation projects The syllabus we compiled follows the sequence of processes and steps in projects accurately, so we offer what we would expect from an intern applying to us.”
The first group started off with 35 participants in January, and the course is still very much in progress at the moment. Although the next turn was only supposed to start in May, the activity of GRID gained even more relevance with the COVID-19 outbreak, and, therefore, Eszter and Emese also launched a 10-person mini course, and made one session free in March.
GRID’s course is not only different from the other interior design or home decoration courses in that it takes place online, but also in the fact that students are allowed to create their own schedules here.
“In the introductory course, we don’t teach styles and colors or how to create moodboards. I think that taste is a subjective matter to some extent, and although it can be developed, there’s no such thing that something is liked by everyone to the same extent… and this is just how it is supposed to be. We don’t teach what we consider beautiful. Our course is about how the practical steps follow and build on each other in real life, in each design project. The students progress according to this so that relevant drawings can be created. And the end product is the design documentation necessary for implementing their real project.”
The feedback received is positive from both sides: the students are satisfied and Eszter and Emese also think that they have met talented and autonomous participants. And the project does not only continue, it develops, too, as luckily several companies stood behind GRID and help them with relevant brochures and workshops. In addition, they also plan to launch visual appearance and mini room-specific courses in the future.
Photos: GRID Interior
GRID Interior – Online interior design academy
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