Interior Designer & Design Consultant

This month we're chatting with Emma Ainscough, an up-and-coming interior designer with a fun and playful style. Emma's designs are an eclectic mix of the old and new, transcending trends to create practical and beautiful spaces for her clients. She shares her favourite tips when it comes to designing a space, including her approach to tackling an interior project and incorporating art into a home. 

When you set up your own interior design business, what was the ethos you wanted to live by?

These days I try not to sweat the small stuff! Easier said than done when you have your own business but the design process (and admin that comes with it!) is so much more enjoyable and often leads to more beautiful results if you and your client are able to enjoy the process. Managing expectations with timelines and allowing yourself the time to do the job properly (and calmly!) is often the key to success here.

Where do you think is the best part of the home for a client to take a risk with interior design?

I think it would be the good old humble downstairs loo! This is where clients are often prepared to take a risk, and it is probably the one space that guests can soak up the style & personality of a client’s home. Often tiny spaces squished under a staircase or the like, you can really embrace this by playing around with colour, texture, pattern or artwork to create something really unexpected and which pushes boundaries which you might not want to commit to in a larger or more formal area of the home.

What are your favourite tips to add a personal touch to a client’s home?

I always encourage clients to be hands on in the design process and to show me what they truly love from their own collection of objects, artwork or accessories. Artwork is probably the most effective way to add a personal touch to the home, and should definitely be collected over time in my opinion. Mixing media is key to a characterful home and framing old memories can work a treat (a restaurant menu, the music of a favourite song, a vintage textile found on travels…) and can sit alongside more of a hero piece of art - they balance each other out and provide a home with real personality & stories to tell.

If your style was represented by an artwork, which one would it be?

Cy Twombly’s work always really resonates with me and I have found myself translating aspects of his style into interior work - I’m really drawn to the use of negative space without making a home feel minimal. This can be achieved with plain coloured linens used in different proportions, and playing with form & texture occasionally rather than pattern. His colour palettes can often be quite feminine but balanced out with more masculine forms (or ‘mark making’) which I think is often true to my interior spaces.

What would your dream project be?

I’d love to do more work abroad, not least for the exciting prospect of travel & exploring! But Africa is a place very close to my heart - I get a lot of inspiration from those vast open spaces, and so having the opportunity to do a safari lodge there would really be a dream - I’d love to play around with creating something quite colourful yet sympathetic to those raw & unspoilt spaces.

FOLLOW EMMA AINSCOUGH

@emma__ainscough
emmaainscough.com