discovering your
interior design style!

AS fun as it may be to fantasise about decorating your dream house, actually realising those dreams takes a lot of effort and planning. You need someone to help you get organised, someone to focus your ideas, to tell you how much it's all going to cost. In short, you need to talk to an interior designer.

Zakir Kamran, better known as 'Sun', a new professional interior designer with his firm Archive, offers to help you make your dream house a reality.

Recognising the importance of the clients' vision of their homes, Zakir ensures that his décor is personalised to suit their preferences. 'I always ask my clients about their hobbies, their family, their colour preferences, pets, whether they entertain at home or whether they frequently have guests,' says Zakir. 'By learning about them and analysing their requirements, I put together the first building blocks of the eventual design', he adds.

'A good designer nudges one further along the pathways upon which one may have already placed a tentative step. At the same time, he never imposes his taste on one's environment and Zakir is that kind of a designer', says Mrs Yousuf whose 2000sqft flat at Dhanmondi, has been decorated by this young designer.

Zakir's work is a study of textures, silhouettes and colours. Working with information of his clients' preferences, he tries to translate their desires into a co-ordinated theme, with each room having its own character while the house as a whole has a bonded rhythm. He takes into account space, proportion, and lighting, as well as utility before developing the style that is to be used for the décor.

The biggest influence on the human state of mind with the possible exception of the weather is colour. As a designer, Zakir is rather generous about colours, although he always keeps it in mind how colours match with each other. So the combination of mild eye-catching orange with hard and bold red used in the living room suits the burnt earthen pottery and the sideboard of striped timber textures. The rhythm of colours continues onto the wall shelves and the curtain-loops.

Zakir uses fresh lime tone in the dining space and family lounge, and a shade of cream in the master bedroom. The bedroom of the Yousufs' only daughter merges a striped wall, delicate modern furniture and mellow lighting to create a perfect musical ambience.

Vibrant glass work on the wooden door in the family lounge is another example of Zakir's excellence. Images of prism-shaped sunlight create a mesmerising ambience in the room.

Proper balance of lighting using modern styled light shades, an open pantry counter with wooden false ceiling and the foyer with stylish door and decorative plaster on the walls all work together to create a home people would want to stay in forever.

So those who can't decide what to do with your homes, what are you waiting for? Just go to 3/3, Block-c, Lalmatia--the Archive's office to get Zakir Kamran.

By Afsar Ahmed
Photo courtesy : Sharif Hossain