As a designer, have you ever had a space to create, but little inspiration to get started? If you answered “yes,” you are not alone. In fact, like writers with writer’s block who stare at a blank page, designers can get stuck as well.
Enter INDEAL Spaces, a new tool that allows users to browse idea starter spaces and load them into leading space design platforms, complete with all the assets needed to hit the ground running. It is a library of space planning ideas, ready-made resources for marketing and client presentations, and downloadable symbol sets for project specification and live design. The tool is a free resource for dealer designers and sales teams who are INDEAL members.
INDEAL Spaces are starter spaces that designers can use in the sales process or for live design. INDEAL created Spaces with a number of different manufacturing partners. Unlike individual manufacturers’ typicals, it’s something that the dealer designer and dealership can have ownership of since it uses multiple manufacturers in the same digital vignette.
The vignettes all include CET symbols. Everything is downloadable and includes high-resolution images with virtual reality capabilities. Designers can sort by product. Live links connect directly to the proper My Resource Library binder. Files can be downloaded as CAD or in other useful formats.
“Unlike other industry typicals where it’s all one manufacturer, this is something that really shows your diversity as a dealership and enables designers to quickly take projects from inspiration to application,” Dave Bloch, INDEAL CEO, said.
The Spaces are realistic and lifelike. Over 200 Spaces are already on the platform and more are being added all the time. The Spaces are sorted among every vertical, from commercial to educational to healthcare and hospitality.
Through INDEAL’s conversations with its dealer members, specifically designers, they found that ancillary is a huge category that’s growing and becoming more of a time burden in terms of specifying and finding products to fill that need, according to Jen Grubba, INDEAL’s director of marketing resources.
“A lot of times you can go to the manufacturer websites for inspiration in terms of product specifically, but in terms of space planning ideas and full projects from top to bottom, it is difficult to find inspiration,” she said. “We know that a lot of designers like to look for inspiration on Pinterest, Google searching and looking in publications. But I think that this experience is going to fill a void that you have in terms of finding inspiration from the manufacturers that you actually can specify really easily.”
INDEAL works with its dealer members and manufacturer partners to activate strategies, connect with solutions, and ultimately grow business. The company has made a significant investment in additional solutions to address the industry’s biggest challenges, including new tools and resources for designers and sales teams.
“We’re working hard to leverage our relationships with all of those companies to be able to provide as much of a singular solution as possible for the dealer community and the manufacturing community,” said Bloch. “Our goal is to simplify the process.”
INDEAL is committed to helping its constituents effectively integrate digital technology and specification platforms into their business, he said. INDEAL is the organization that works as an intermediary between all the different groups in the industry.