Interni: charting success online

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt lately, it’s that we can do far more from the comfort of our homes than we ever thought possible. Including creating a whole new design scheme for the four walls around us. Or, if interior design is your bread and butter, for your clients’ offices, hotels, residences or retail spaces.

As the pandemic has progressed, interiors companies have scrambled to open up digital spaces for the exploration of shape, colour and texture and ease the virtual ordering procedures. En masse we have moved into the virtual world and made ourselves at home, meeting and plotting, shopping and tailoring. Hang on, did we ever need to step inside a furniture showroom at all?

Well yes we did and we do. Not everything we can do will we want to do forever. Interior design is about colour and texture, and the seductive detail on exquisitely crafted furnishings - the action of a switch, the almost indiscernible click of a closure - things that don’t fully and truthfully reach the senses through a screen. The business of designing is also about collaboration and those moments in a room together when you share an unscheduled thought and a project takes a new turn. But there is something of the virtual realm, that’s making the process a whole lot easier.

Interni, the octogenarian Italian design specialists had foresight on all of this. Not that a virus would come along to turn our world upside down, but long before our shops were shuttered and meetings went virtual, the brand, which has expertise in the retail of fine furniture, interior design and project management, was plotting an online resource with simple and practical planning tools, that would connect its customers across 169 countries and 2000 cities globally, with inspirations and resources at the touch of a button.

It was being devised in tandem with the very real Interni Design Factory, a new Milan HQ which offers a whole real life experience to the customer, including a materials gallery, displays of artisan techniques, a shop, and all-singing project rooms.'The digital and physical experience in Interni are complementary', says CEO Stefano Cazzaniga.

'Digitalisation is offering us the great opportunity to facilitate, enhance and make more efficient some parts of the process of defining a project, considering the global range on which we operate, without replacing the human relationship that always remains for us, and for our Mediterranean culture, central and enriching.'

Relaunching its entire website, Interni has warmed up the welcome to private home makers, interiors professionals, architects and developers online while the hugs and handshakes are still available in the Factory and 13 other showrooms and monobrand stores across Italy and London. The website divides into two areas – an inspirational space
with a curated selection of brands and case studies of recent projects, alongside a journal exploring broader architectural themes.

The Materioteca, meanwhile, draws all the materials and finishes of brands in the vast Interni portfolio together into one place, so that a single source can be consulted instead of a multitude of charts. The Catalogue section, which can be browsed by designer, product type or manufacturer, comes alongside a Ready to Ship function that details the products that are in stock and quick to despatch.

The main innovation, however, comes in the new customer area. Here Myboard presents you with a white board on which to peg your colour swatches and furniture choices, and play with the shapes and textures of your project. This can be your starting point for engagement with the Interni team.

'It’s an interactive platform for the customer and for the professional we work with', explains Cazzaniga, 'It will be a constantly evolving tool and it will respond to the new needs of our interlocutors.' Even when we are back sipping our macchiatos in Milan, there will always be a space stretching across the timezones in which surfaces can be sized up, colours coordinated, and priorities pieced together.

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