No, you haven’t misread the headline; there really is a connection between the way that an online casino website lays out its offerings, and the way that leading interior designers should think about arranging rooms and features inside a modern home. We realize that’s a bold statement, but don’t worry. We’re going to prove it to you.
If you monitor styles in home design – and we know you do, or you wouldn’t be here – you’ll probably have heard of “Kanso”. It’s home design with a Japanese influence, where the emphasis is on simplicity. Homes designed in a kanso manner demonstrate simplicity and restraint. That’s the art that we feel often gets lost with modern design. It’s natural to want beautiful things within your home, but if there’s a focus on beauty and splendor everywhere, then none of it stands out. It all becomes noise. We might think we want to live in a palace, but the constant upkeep of all the glamour is expensive, and the plethora of riches just make it dull. Even the future King of England doesn’t want to live in the one he’s got! Following kanso principles allows you to emphasize the things that really matter by decreasing focus on the things that don’t.
Our Chosen Template
For the purposes of this article, we’re going to use moneyreels.com as a style guide. Money Reels is a popular choice in the UK Online Slots scene, and we think at least part of its popularity comes down to its design. It looks fresh but it’s committed to being functional, and allowing its players to focus on the games they went there to play. To non players, it’s designed to feel warm, inviting and friendly. The website wants you to log on, find your way around easily, play online slot games and spend your money with them. Those are the same goals you should want from your home; an inviting feel that both you and guests feel instantly ‘at home’ in, with a layout that doesn’t leave people confused.
Here are the principles they’ve used, and how they can be adapted by home designers.
Make Your Space Inviting
What’s the first thing you notice when you log onto the moneyreels.com homepage? Is it, by any chance, the image that’s front and center which invites you to win up to 500 free spins by joining today? Good. You’re supposed to. That’s the entrance hallway to the website. It’s the first thing newcomers see, and it’s an immediate invitation to come inside and make yourself comfortable. It doesn’t waste time by making you take winding routes to get there, and it isn’t hidden behind any clutter. It’s right there, easy to understand, and obvious about its purpose. In short, it’s a warm welcome.
How many homes have you seen recently where someone’s gone to the expense of renovating the lounge or the kitchen and made it look beautiful, but it’s all behind ugly doors or neglected hallways? How many houses have you been invited into where you’ve walked through the door and had to walk down a corridor past three or four closed or lock doors until you get to a room that makes you feel welcome? First impressions are everything in life. The impact of your beautiful dining room is ruined if everything you have to pass on the way to get there is too ugly, too cold or too complicated.
A Home Should Have A Heart
Once you’ve seen the introductory offer at the top of the page, the next thing you see when you scroll down the Money Reels website is their collection of slot games. They’re all grouped together in the middle, easy to access and identify. Note how the use of a fairly neutral purple background color gives all the colors used in the thumbnails for the games an extra pop. They stand out, and they catch the eye. There’s no risk whatsoever of a casual observer missing them, or failing to understand what they are or why they’re there. They’re the centerpiece of the page.
Similarly, your home should have a centerpiece. This goes back to what we said at the start of the article about not trailing opulence or flamboyance throughout your home. If there’s a room in the house that’s the focus of your activities; a dining room, a family room or whatever you want or need it to be; then that room should feel like the beating heart of your home. That’s where the more intricate design should happen, that’s where most of the accessories should be, and that’s the room that should make people say ‘wow’. Anyone standing in that room should know straight away that this is the focus. If everything is too showy; or by contrast, if everything is too open plan; you can’t achieve that effect.
Keep The Clutter Elsewhere
Being a gambling website, there’s a lot of legal and regulatory information that Money Reels has to make available to its players. It’s all there for anybody who wants to read it, but it isn’t taking up space on the homepage of the site. None of it is hidden; it’s just filed under links which you can access from the bottom of the page. Everything that needs to be there is there, but it’s not interfering with the look or feel of the website. That’s one of the basics of design that so many people get wrong.
Naturally, your home will have clutter, especially if you’ve lived there for a long time. It shouldn’t be piled up or on display in your living room. There shouldn’t be folders of it on the tables where everyone can see it. Thinking bigger, more consideration should be given to where we place amenities or utilities. A visitor to your home shouldn’t be able to accidentally open the door to your washing machine or dryer when they’re looking for your toilet. They shouldn’t encounter the bins on the way to the kitchen. The functional parts of the home should be easy to identify and easy to find. The things that get in the way; the nuts and bolts, and the items of your private life, should be kept away on the sidelines.
Just to hit those three headlines one more time; make your space inviting, decide what your centerpiece is and give it focus, and make sure what should be on the sidelines stays on the sidelines. Three vital pieces of design advice, taken from an online slot website, and applicable to your home. Learn them, use them, love them!