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3D Rendering in Interior Design

As an interior designer, your job is to turn a client’s dreams into reality. Bringing concepts to life means getting clients to support and sign off on your overall vision and direction for their home, workspace, or other projects.

But it’s not enough to tell your clients that you have a great idea, and no amount of time spent describing your vision will do it justice. What you need is a stunning, crystal clear depiction of how their new space will look. Your client’s need to be invited to envision themselves within the design. Can they imagine what it will feel like to live, work, and play in this new space?

Put in common industry terms, you need an amazing project rendering. Powerful interior design softwares will allow you to create renderings that capture even the smallest design details and create the most compelling possible picture of your concept.

Read also – 15 Best Interior Design Software

Image Credit: Lumion

In the interior design industry, renderings are simply high-quality images that can be thoroughly reviewed by clients who want a pictorial representation of a design before any construction is started, purchases are made, or floor plans are approved. Thus, a rendering is usually one of the first times that a client is able to visualize their new space, and it precedes all of the remaining steps in a new build or renovation.

For a long time, interior designers have had to rely on 2D mockups to showcase their designs. While these can be incredibly detailed, they’re still 2D, and they have a “flat” appearance that simply doesn’t captivate like a 3D image. These 2D renderings were often painstakingly drawn by hand to a precise scale.

After the advent of computers and software development that produced interior design programs, designers were able to produce better and better quality renderings. Now, designers can create 3D renderings that not only look better, they actually allow clients to explore the space.

Read also – 15 Best 3D Rendering Software Alternatives

Image Credit: Denise Calvo Interiors

A good example to help highlight the impact of 3D renderings is to compare traditional home listings with basic photographs to the newer listings with full video walk-throughs. Which one gives you a better, more complete picture of the home’s layout and potential? Obviously, the video walk-through with the 3D tour.

How much does this improved quality and experience actually matter? We understand it’s easy to make assumptions about how much of an impact something like a 3D house tour would actually make for real estate agents. However, studies have shown that homes listed with 3D tours sell, on average, for 9% more than their comparable counterparts. Further, these homes are on the market for a significantly shorter period! This case study makes a strong argument for using 3D renderings in all design projects because it’s clear that clients prefer more detail.

Read also – What is Real-Time Rendering?

You’re probably all-too-familiar with that nervous feeling right before you show a client the rendering of their project design. How about the silence that follows while they take in your design and scrutinize every aspect to see if it strikes them the right way? 3D rendering makes this process exciting, not stressful. Clients will be thrilled with a life-like portrayal of their new space.

3D renderings allow clients to actually “explore” the space and get a better sense of its layout, spacing, and flow. This is especially important for online interior designers that don’t get that critical face-to-face time other businesses might enjoy. When operating an online or e-design business that provides interior design services, providing a high-quality design rendering is one of the biggest values you can initially provide to clients.

In fact, if you’re not helping the client manage the project or source items, the rendering might be one of your only actual deliverables at the project’s conclusion. They might be using this highly detailed rendering to manage a contractor or DIY project.

Read also – 10 Best Client Management Tips for Interior Designers

Image Credit: FrontCore

1. Exceed client expectations

If your clients aren’t familiar with the world of interior design, then they might not even be aware of 3D rendering. Instead, your clients might be expecting a long pre-design process that concludes with a static, 2D rendering and basic mood boards.

As you begin to work with a new client you’ll develop a sense of their expectations regarding the capabilities of an interior designer, especially if they have never worked with one before.

2. Improve the client experience

In professional services, client satisfaction is one of the only factors that actually matter when determining the future success of your business. By using 3D renderings to bring specific, personal details to life in your design, you’ll enhance and deepen your client satisfaction.

A stale, boring environment doesn’t inspire confidence or help someone envision themselves in a space. It’s the small details that matter to clients and 3D renderings allow you to add these elements with just a few clicks.

Read also – 15 Problems Most Interior Design Business Faces

3. Maintain total alignment on design ideas for each project

A high-quality 3D rendering gives the client the best possible representation of the project, which means they’ll know exactly what to expect when the project is done. Keeping expectations aligned is critical for the success of your project.

Since you all know what to expect at the project’s conclusion, there shouldn’t be any surprises – only a delighted customer! This can save you major headaches and time spent on corrections during the later stages of a project.

4. Physcial products

Sell more physical products that help you earn commissions or markup. You can significantly increase purchases of physical items like furniture or more expensive building materials when the client can visualize how it will look when finished. How else can you convince a client to choose the more expensive tile or fixtures? This tactic is particularly effective if you’re also presenting materials, fabrics, furniture and other physical items to the client in addition to your rendering.

If they can touch and feel the items in conjunction with a completed 3D rendering, the combination becomes powerful. Don’t forget that the sourcing, procurement, and installation of these items can all increase your billable hours (as stipulated by your agreement). If the client loves your 3D rendering and wants to move forward, you’ll make more money in the long run.

5. Spend less time waiting (and fighting) for client approvals

To build some empathy, put yourself in the client’s shoes. They’ve probably been thinking about how their new space will look for months or years. They have likely spent time online researching different styles and pieces of furniture. At the end of the day, they’re simply overwhelmed at how to bring everything together in a cohesive, beautiful design that’s functional and attractive.

The feeling of being overwhelmed only gets worse when an interior designer starts to discuss the specific details of a project like paint colors, cabinet styles, lighting options, flooring, etc. A 3D render should show the client how each component of the design blends to create an aesthetically consistent project.

In turn, they’re much more apt to quickly approve the initial design and proceed to the next steps. People are motivated by goals that they can visualize! Completing projects faster means you can take on a higher volume of work.

Read also – Time Management Tips for Interior Designers

6. Earn more referrals from happy clients

If you’ve read any of our articles on sales and marketing for interior designers then you know that we believe strongly in the power of referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. Clients who appreciate the ability to seamlessly work on and envision their design through your 3D interior rendering services are much more likely to tell others about their great experience.

Those types of referrals can’t be bought, and they’re one of your most valuable marketing strategies!

7. Differentiate yourself from competitors

Being able to quickly turn around a project with a beautiful 3D rendering will be highly impressive to the average interior design client. Imagine if your client first went to an interior designer that listened to their ideas and then delivered a few 2D prints.

How much different would their experience be if you quickly sent them either digital or printed 3D renderings with incredible attention to detail and clarity? This differentiation matters immensely when you’re first pitching a client.

Consider showing examples of other 3D renderings in your proposals to clients and make sure they understand that they will receive the same deliverable as part of your process.

8. Pursue more sophisticated clientele

Pursue more sophisticated clientele with higher budgets and more refined tastes. As your capabilities increase and improve, so does your ability to cater to clients that expect more from their interior designer. After all, bigger budgets also mean bigger projects that require extra attention to detail, larger preliminary designs, and more opinions to consider through the design process.

Getting and keeping everyone on the same page for a design concept, and meeting a client’s high expectations with your initial rendering will help you grow your business without necessarily adding more people or many more clients.

Read also – How To Get New Clients for Interior Design Business?

9. Increase your profitability by focusing on efficiency

Interior design rendering programs like Foyr Neo make 3D rendering incredibly easy, by eliminating time-consuming tasks no matter your level of experience. Efficiency will save you time and money on your internal operating costs. Once you establish good procedures for setting up a new project and become comfortable with your interior design software, creating new renderings will take less and less time.

As this happens, make sure that you switch from hourly billing to billing per project. You shouldn’t make less money just because you’ve built cost-effective processes. Plus, this additional time can be used to prepare other parts of your design presentations.

10. 3D Visualization

3D visualization gives the designer (you) maximum flexibility to meet the preferences of demanding clients and ensure a good customer experience. Sometimes you get the design wrong, or the client unexpectedly rejects your ideas.

3D renderings allow you to change significant design elements like flooring, layout, paint color and more with just a few clicks. This adaptability will give you ultimate control over the design and the ease with which changes can be made is sure to impress during client presentations.

11. Create a walkthrough

Create a walk-through of the entire design to help your clients the full project scope and approach. 3D renderings allow designers to create complete walkthrough tours of a new house or commercial design for architectural visualization.

The ability to move seamlessly from room to room, or from interior to exterior, through photorealistic renderings is often the unifying experience that potential clients need to understand how your vision will look in real life.

12. Enjoy your work

Enjoy your work and love your business. What is the point of trying to improve profits and grow your business if it’s difficult, stressful, and all-consuming? At heart, designers are passionate about bringing together functionality and beauty in the places where we live and spend time.

That artistic vision shouldn’t be prohibitively difficult to express or require painful workflows. While 3D renderings are excellent for serving clients, they also make your job as a designer more fulfilling and easier.

Foyr Neo is an online interior design and 3D rendering software that is fast, easy and powerful. What makes Foyr Neo the preferred design tool for thousands of interior designers? Our platform was built for designers of all experience levels, capabilities, and business sizes. Amature designers with a DIY attitude use Foyr Neo for their home projects, and successful interior designers working on large-scale projects rely on our tools every day.

Our robust set of core features and capabilities include:

• Photorealistic 3D rendering
• 3D animations
• 3D floor plans
• 2D floor plans
• 2D images
• 3D Walk-through
• Design collaboration
• Multiple quality options for renderings: HD, 2K & 4K
• Several file types available for download
• Various aspect ratios and viewing perspectives
• Adjustable lighting for optimal display
• Library with thousands of preloaded 3D models like furniture, fixtures, and textures that can be added to designs
• Create and download renderings in minutes

If you’re not fully convinced about the benefits of 3D rendering, or if it sounds too complicated to tackle, you can take the free 3D Rendering Masterclass curated by expert interior designers from our Foyr Community. You can also try out your learnings with the free 14-day trial period of Foyr Neo.

Hold on, there’s more. The free learning modules on Foyr Community also cater to the business side of things. They will not only help you become a better designer but also run your interior design business efficiently and profitably. You can post jobs if you are looking for talent or seek out opportunities if you are looking for work.

Once you have your profile up and running, you can even use the Portfolio feature to create your unique mini-website. Follow your favorite designers, ask questions, share ideas, flaunt your work – but don’t let the doubts hold you back, join Foyr Community for free today.