In an intimate interior design classroom at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Atlanta, Sarah Fishburne recently brought home improvement design to life. As The Home Depot’s director of Trend and Design, Sarah works with students each year to bridge classroom lessons with real world projects and discuss the process of trend forecasting for the world’s largest home improvement retailer.
This year’s conversation shed light on how daily inspiration – like fashion and social media – play a significant role in how home design comes to life. “Fashion and home design are closely tied. What you see on the runway will soon be seen in home décor,” Sarah told students. “Customer inspiration plays a role in our design process, too. We’re seeing customers come into stores looking for galvanized and black iron pipes to create these industrial chic curtain rods for their homes—trend inspiration from Pinterest.”
Sarah described her travels to international home design shows and her process of gathering trends for The Home Depot. “After each show, I build color palettes and trend reports with my team. We integrate trends we saw where they make sense for our business and ask ourselves, ‘How do we incorporate this color or trend in flooring, patio, kitchen cabinets and more?’ We have to make sure the vision stays correct along the way and ensure what we do will work in our market.”
The class period concluded with a panel discussion and questions: “What does your office look like? Does it mimic our classroom at all?” Sarah laughed and replied, “It looks a lot like this room but much messier. I have a board with inspirational tears from magazines paired with paint swatches and paint fan decks on my desk. The team and I are always looking for inspiration and we find it everywhere.”
