During the COVID-19 crisis education has migrated to the virtual classroom, presenting unique challenges and opportunities for many of our members. Below you will find distance learning resources for interior design educators and students alike. These resources available courtesy of IDEC’s partners and supporters. IDEC is not endorsing particular products but is acting as a conduit of information for its members.
IDEC will be updating this page as resources are made available to our Members.
Adobe Creative Cloud
Adobe is making temporary at-home access to Creative Cloud available until July 6, 2020 for schools and colleges who currently have only lab access for students, at no additional cost. Click here to view the terms and conditions and request access.
ASID
ASID is providing resources to keep the interior design community informed during the global pandemic. From The Interior View weekly webinar series with leading experts to bi-weekly, industry-wide pulse surveys, ASID is tackling the issues interior design businesses and professionals are currently experiencing to better support the community.
The Society is also forming two taskforces to study design issues related to the pandemic and seeks qualified ASID members and industry stakeholders to join one or both of the following taskforces:
ASID Adaptive & Multigenerational Living Taskforce
This Taskforce will study changes in adaptive and multigenerational family living resulting from challenges faced by nursing home and long-term care facilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic and beyond. The Taskforce will also study best design practices for quarantining family members within the home/family living structure whether they be ill, a healthcare worker exposed to disease, a person with immunodeficiencies, etc.
ASID COVID-19 Design Research Curation Taskforce
This Taskforce will read, examine, and vet scholarly and professional research, data, and information concerning the COVID-19 Pandemic and design and will curate this information in a single public resource for the design and built environment community.
ASID members and industry stakeholders interested in participating in either taskforce must contact ASID VP of Government & Public Affairs Bryan Soukup at bsoukup@asid.org no later than 5pm ET on Friday, June 19, 2020.
Bluebeam
Bluebeam offers a free 1 year license of Revu, a digital workflow platform, to students and educators. Click here to learn more about the platform and request your free license.
COVID 19 and Environmental Interventions
The Culturally Enriched Communities managed by the College of Design, University of Minnesota is collecting environmental Interventions to COVID 19 from around the world. This repository can be used to inform stay-at-home efforts as well as recovery. Individuals can use it to share:
• Environmental interventions from inside homes to parks and hospitals.
• On-going studies and opportunities for collaborations across institutions for funding and resources.
For more information, visit http://www.cec-design.com/covid-19/ and to participate, visit http://www.cec-design.com/contact/ .
This program is managed by Tasoulla Hadjiyanni (tasoulla@umn.edu) from the College of Design, University of Minnesota.
Design Public Group
Furniture company, Design Public Group, is providing free student access to its trade-only professional site. Students can utilize their access to browse over 10,000 unique furniture pieces and create ancillary specifications. Follow these instructions to set up your free student account.
Design Manager College Program
Design Manager is the leading project management and accounting software for interior designers. Because design firms have specific needs that cannot be answered by conventional software, it is our mission to provide a product that is dedicated to serving the design community. As a new sponsor of IDEC, but someone who has been in the design industry for over 3 decades, it is with great pleasure that we introduce our college program to esteemed interior design educators across the country like yourselves. Design Manager will present a special webinar for our educators on August 19th at 1 – 2 pm Eastern Time. In this webinar, you will come away with these key takeaways:
- Who is Design Manager?
- What is Design Manager software?
- What is included in the DM College Program
- How Design Manager fits into the Classroom
- Short Software Demonstration
We are the cloud software you can rely on to set your students up for real world success. We provide your students with a clear competitive advantage in the market by offering seamless integration into the classroom and expert industry experience and connections.
Goodheart-Willcox
G-W is providing free 90-day access to their digital content. Reach out to a G-W Educational Consultant with your classroom’s specific needs to finish the semester. Below are a few of the Interior Design titles available.
- Interiors: Design, Process, and Practice, 2e ©2021 by Stephanie Clemons
- Principles of Floral Design: An Illustrated Guide, 2e, ©2021 by Pat Diehl Scace and James M DelPrince
- Housing and Interior Design, 11e, ©2018 by Evelyn L. Lewis and Carolyn Turner Smith
- AutoCAD and Its Applications Comprehensive 2020, 27e, ©2020
- Adobe Certification: Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Animate, Flash, by D. Michael Ploor
Internships

Together with our premier partners Stantec, ASID, IIDA, My Resource Library and Design Manager, IDEC is providing its members with eInternship, a module-based program with the resources an educator needs to create, complete and advance a virtual internship program for their students. The program includes resources and examples of projects, assignments, and engagements members can use to transition an in-person internship program to one that is 100% virtual.
Kravet
The KRAVET Design Grad Program, an initiative that helps current and former design students make the transition from students to design professionals, is offering a number of e-resources for students. Students may apply for a student account to receive access to everything a working designer would need, including memo samples and budgeting information.
My Resource Library
My Resource Library (MRL) is an online resource center for the contract & hospitality interiors markets. Industry professionals can efficiently search, categorize, share, and most importantly, get inspired.
MRL is streamlining the design process for the contract and hospitality interiors markets. What began as online access to resources once found in a physical library has evolved.
It is an enhanced database of resources that simplify communication between architects, designers, furniture dealers, manufacturers, rep groups, and their clients.
As designs today demand increasingly innovative product options, MRL offers a one-stop-shop for designers and specifiers to efficiently search, learn, categorize, share, and perhaps most importantly get inspired. In short, MRL is where design work happens.
- Work Smarter:
- With a virtual platform, vendor resources are visual anywhere you go, and cost savings are realized through re-allocating physical library space.
- Find Solutions Fast:
- MRL’s enhanced search engine enables fast-finding in our vast database of products. Quickly create awareness of secondary lines and impress customers with unique solutions.
- Gain Assurance and Accuracy
- Minimize pricing errors by using electronically updated price books and be in-the know on the latest products and changes. MRL platform is always current and evolves with your needs.
Redshelf
RedShelf, a digital textbook provider, is offering students free access to up to 7 of their textbooks for the remainder of the semester. Click here to access their collection.
Remote Summit, July 13-14
This virtual conference provides a forum and support for all colleagues across higher education to help them design the most effective and engaging experiences for learners. Leading educators with extensive practical online and blended teaching and learning experience drawn from across global universities and colleges will gather to present immediately useful and evidence-backed practices on both subject-specific and general online teaching techniques.
More than 70 sessions selected by group of nationally respected higher education experts will be presented at the conference. REMOTE is free of charge for those involved in learning delivery (faculty and learning practitioners) as well as Administration worldwide. Click here to learn more and register for the summit.
Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc.
Textile Fabric Consultants, Inc. produces fabric swatch kits for fashion and interior textile/materials courses. The complimentary instructor materials include valuable online resources. Even though you may use a different swatch kit or no swatch kit, Textile Fabric Consultants would be glad to share some of these tools with you.
The digital instructor materials include the following:
- PowerPoint Presentation – Fiber to finish presentation that includes references to the swatches
- Textile Video Document – contains links to many textile videos
- Laboratory Manual for textile testing
(Additional resources are under development and will be available for the fall semester)
Please contact Amy Willbanks at amywillbanks@textilefabric.com to take advantage of any of the free resources listed above and/or to preview any of the swatch kits.
Work Design Magazine: The Next Work Environment Competition
Given the challenges that COVID-19 has placed on our health, economy, and workspaces, Work Design Magazine, a leading online publication exploring ideas that shape the places we work, is searching for new and innovative ideas to create safe, productive, and comfortable work environments for the future. The goal of the competition is to uncover ideas that can be used by organizations to quickly get employees back to work in a safe, stress-free, and productive manner.
Diverse and multidisciplinary teams are encouraged as well as individual entries. Participants will choose one of the seven following themes: a workspace; an office building lobby/common area; a coworking space; a workstation; a collaborative space; a home office space; or a new change management process. While The Next Work Environment Competition is a design competition, for solutions to be effective, participants will need to consider policies, operations, technology solutions, and organizational interventions.
To learn more about the competition and submit an entry, visit www.workdesign.com/the-next-work-environment-competition.
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