ID History 1152 Research Project

Interior Design History 1152 Semester Project

Your assignment is to develop a research-based outline and a 10-minute class presentation about an architect or designer. Your research and the outline will inform your presentation. Your outline should follow the format detailed in your class assignment and include parenthetical references with a simple bibliography. The images you use in your presentation should be cited.
Examples:
1152 Outline Example
1152 Presentation Example of Image Citations

Requirements

  • 3 sources minimum. At least one of your sources must be a book.
  • You can use books, articles, and websites. Your text book and Wikipedia are excluded but can be used as supplemental material.
  • An outline of your presentation should include parenthetical references.
  • Source list. (A simple bibliography)
  • A presentation created in your presentation software of choice. (powerpoint, google slides, etc.)
  • Images in the presentation should be cited.

Researching your subject

Books
When you search the Library Catalog, you will see items from both the COD Library and from I-Share Libraries. If you sign up for an I-Share account, you can access nearly 90 academic libraries in Illinois and the items will be delivered to COD Library for you. Note that you are also welcome to use your local public library.

Search the Library Catalog by keyword for your architect/designer's name and/or the style (stylistic period) that you are interested in. Sometimes you'll get results about the person and about the stylistic period in which they worked, or vice versa, so the library catalog can help you learn about your subject. For instance, when we search for Gerrit Rietveld, we find materials about the De Stijl movement. When we search for De Stijl, we'll find some materials about Reitveld's houses. Also, searching for a stylistic period will sometimes result in survey books about particular design or design elements, such as this book about lighting that has a chapter about the De Stijl period.

Here are a few more sample searches from the Library Catalog:
Eileen Gray
Art Deco
Bauhaus
Dorothy Draper
Michael Graves

Reference Materials

There are a variety of encyclopedias and dictionaries about Interior Designers and Architects in the Library's Reference Collection and online. Browse the collection to find similar books:
Encyclopedia of Interior Design
Encyclopedia of 20th Century Architecture
Global History of Architecture (e-book)

Images
Artstor
The Artstor image collection contains images that are relevant to the study of interior decoration, cultures, iconography, and many other subjects.

Articles

Art & Architecture Complete is a great source for interior design and architecture history but you can also browse the other databases to look for article sources.

Art & Architecture Complete
This database provides full-text coverage of more than 350 periodicals and 220 books. In addition, Art & Architecture Complete offers cover-to-cover indexing and abstracts for more than 800 academic journals, magazines and trade publications. Subjects include Antiques, Architecture and Architectural History, Archaeology, Costume Design, Decorative Arts, Graphic Arts, Interior and landscape design, Painting, Printmaking and Sculpture. The database also provides selective coverage for more than 70 additional publications and an Image Collection of over 64,000 images provided by Picture Desk and others.

Other Database Choices

See the Interior Design Research Databases page for other useful resources.

Finding Credible Websites

The Library has compiled a selection of web search tools, here. Use the Library's Evaluating Websites page for criteria to use when selecting your websites. Its important to find websites that are authored by professional people who have some expertise in your area of interest.

Creating Your Bibliography

You'll create a Sources List that will be attached to your outline. The Sources List is ordered alphabetically by author or website title. Images will be cited on each slide of the presentation.

Need Help?

Contact the Interior Design librarian or visit the Ask-a-Librarian page.