If you haven't taught yourself to see, it wont matter what you look at or where you look at it. It's the visual education, whether one that is book smart or travel and exposure smart ........that separate artists from mechanics. and that separates copy cat environments from those that take your breath away.......or just stop you dead in your tracks.

There isn't a designer on the planet who doesn't have shelves loaded with design books, art books, and a coffee table piled with magazines. The great designers and architects see the images differently. Billy Baldwin would faint at how many pages of dining chairs in RH catalogues he has inspired......except he is long dead.

That is just one reason you often see these words on a post " I looked at the portfolios of a hundred designers and couldn't find one who does what I want"......and why a portfolio loaded with four thousand fabulous images can elicit a "Meh" from an uneducated client. No designer is capable of eyeball transplants and brain surgery,,.

A designers brain is a library of images........all they have seen and all they can imagine yet unseen. It ain't Pinterest. Though it's a virtual guarantee they will face clients whose imagination must be dragged beyond both that and any Houzz idea book of ship lap walls and farm sinks and barn doors...........and more recently, cement tiles. Welcome to homogenized suburbia.

Well said, Sophie Wheeler. Im not a designer, but an artist at-heart. You wrappe it up perfectly.

Wonderful post, Sophie. I'm also not a professional designer, but I was a professional in the arts generally, and have pondered creative process all my adult life. One thing I only recently realised is that many great artists (I mean painters and sculptors in this instance) "copied" each other -- but selectively, and only to use the idea to create their own work. An artist from Sienna might use the exact composition of three angels that he found in a work from Florence, but the result would be two works of art with a totally different look and feel. It happens in other arts, too. Correctly used, then, inspiration pictures can be very useful. But as Sophie says, it's not a good idea just to copy them. Aside from anything else, the result will not be your home, it will be someone else's.

Thank you Sophie. You've given quite an inspirational message. I hope I can find THAT designer. I appreciate your insight!

Thanks too @JANMOYER and @Rina, for all the interesting points of view! I think it's time to visit the local art museums and see what inspiration I can find.

I agree that good designers have developed certain muscles that allow them to see and seek inspiration in all things. I've collected items in my files for decades. The smallest item can inspire. Maybe you can see how the first few inspirations led to the Design Board at the bottom.

Great comments above! I'm not a pro in the field, but I do know that what those above have stated is what I'd look for if I were hiring one.

I would not work with someone who used solely what I could just as easily use. Just browsing the chain store and a Home-Blah-Blah magazine in the dentists office, well, that's something I could do as well myself.
I can't get a good designer's talent, knowledge, or experience - well, not in the same time as I can an appointment at the dentist - and they're what matters.