Let me set the record straight: I am definitely no expert, and this post is not meant to promote any particular course on Midjourney AI. I have been using Midjourney for several months now, having completed an indepth introductory course back in spring. You may have a look at my experiments with an eclectic Mediterranean style and mustard and blue colour palette on a recent blog post. I found the experience pretty insightful, that is why I would like to share a few thoughts on how Midjourney can help optimize your workflow and overall be useful for interior designers. I will not say things like how Midjourney will revolutionize the design process or help you push the boundaries of your creativity. I assume, we have all heard such big words from people who want to sell you their course on Midjourney. Don´t get me wrong, I am not saying it´s a big fat lie, but Midjourney´s current version has some important limitations, and you want to be ready for them. I´m going to briefly touch upon these limitations below, and, hopefully, they will be addressed in the future.
Why Midjourney?
First, I would like to dive into why Midjourney? There are dozens of AI image generation tools, so what makes Midjourney special? In a nutshell, it´s its versatility and photorealism. What I mean is that on one hand, Midjourney can recognize and reproduce a zillion of different art references and influences. From Van Gogh and Matisse to renowned contemporary manga artists and child book illustrators. On the other, it gives excellent results in terms of definition and photorealism. The earlier versions were not that good in this aspect, but Midjourney 6 (2024) is a huge improvement over the previous versions.
Midjourney´s Key Limitations
What are its limitations? The biggest downside is you do not have full control over generation results. You cannot create a space with exact measurements and control every single element in the picture like we do with 3D design tools like 3dsMax. There are other AI tools that can be fed a 3D sketch of a space or a collage, and it will recreate the basic parameters of the space with more or less attention to detail when it comes to exact textures, but not Midjourney.
The AI is still learning, and one thing we need to understand is that its creativity is limited by the images that have already been fed to it. So does the human brain, if you think about it, except for few geniuses out there, but we humans know about the importance of nuances while Midjourney is still struggling with that. Like if you specify an accent colour you want on the image, it will most likely give you the exact same hue everywhere, like same tone of orange in the wall art, same rug colour, and etc. If your prompt (text phrase describing what you want to see on the image) is detailed enough, you can get a swoonworthy image. But with generic prompts like “modern Scandinavian living room” the result will be equally generic.
And this gets us to the next downside – the time and effort it takes to build a really good prompt. Although Midjourney does have a command for shortening the prompt to a bare minimum, I would say it actually works better with more detailed and intricate prompts. And then it may also take some trial and error to ensure that you are on the same page when it comes to language. For example, it took me a while to figure out that Midjourney has no idea what a “Murano glass lamp” is, but it does know “Baccarat style chandelier”.
You will also find that every now and again Midjourney will try to ruin a nearly perfect image with small “artefacts”. That is what they call generation glitches like six fingers, a missing chair leg, or just some random weird object of unknown nature. Depending on the artefact, you can try and fix it with Vary (region) editing tool, I have seen it do wonders. If that didn´t help, just keep calm and take it to Photoshop. Good old PS cannot fix everything, but it can definitely fix a lot, I can attest to that even with my limited knowledge of Photoshop!
And now moving on to my thoughts on how Midjourney can be useful for interior designers.
1. Mood boards
Mood boards are probably the most creative part of design process. It translates abstract ideas into a more tangible format, making it easier to communicate the project’s overall feel and establishing a cohesive mix of colours, textures, materials, inspirations and so on. With its ability to quickly generate custom, realistic visuals, Midjourney speeds up the brainstorming and planning phases, allowing designers to build out a visual concept rapidly. This is especially valuable when your client really struggles visualizing abstract ideas, or can´t seem to move forward unless you present them with several different concepts.
2. Conceptual Design
Going from moodboard to actual room design you can quickly create dozens of different design concepts using your moodboard as visual reference in addition to the text prompt. The overall style and color palette will be more or less the same, but it is the slight nuances, which you will get with every new generation and modification in the text prompt, that will make a difference. You can also play with the image weight parameter, as I mentioned earlier, trial and error is intrinsic to using Midjourney.
Once you are satisfied with the results, you can show the best images to your client, if they struggle visualizing abstract concepts, or use them for your own inspiration. Despite its creative limitations, Midjourney can still be very helpful in terms of ideas.
Below, you can see how I created a series of photorealistic living room concepts based off a moodboard, I´d previously put together on Photoshop.
3. Collage work for design project
While Midjourney probably won´t create an image matching your idea down to every(!) item, it can actually be pretty efficient when it comes to details. If you want a specific item like a frontal view of a kitchen with exposed front sink, that much Midjourney can give you. Whether the arrangement it comes up with is perfect, or you will need to fix it in Photoshop is a matter of luck, but personally I found this feature pretty useful, especially when working with an uneasy client that is not willing to pay for a 3D rendering. In the example below, I was even able to feed it the backsplash I wanted to be on the collage, and then added cabinet textures and flooring in Photoshop.
4. Content Creation
The grand majority of images featured on my post about the beige trend was created in Midjourney, and look how they are all different. With a good prompt, Midjourney does a pretty decent job with different styles, materials, textures and etc. You can also come up with tons of different images for engaging Instagram stories, Pinterest and etc. Oh, and speaking of Pinterest, here is a piece of insight. I have discovered that colour palettes do better than a regular pic. Sad but true. Also, if you have a closer look at the second pic below, remember how I said that Midjourney tends to stick to one color? It´s the exact same shade of wine red on the throw, the rug and the cushion on the rug. Matchy-matchy, doesn´t look too bad, but if done manually, we would do better, right?!
5. Product Design
If you have a furniture manufacturing partner, Midjourney can be a perfect tool to express your creativity when it comes to product design. This way, you can create unique items, and I believe it is much better than ripping off famous designs. Like here I played around the idea of a sofa in the shape of a monstera leaf, and even when MJ totally screws you over, you can still create something interesting, like if you take a look at the third image below, ok, this is no longer a sofa, but wouldn´t it make an awesome cat bed?!
In Conclusion
These are my thoughts on the current applications of Midjourney in interior design, I hope you find them insightful, and if you have not yet looked into image-generating AIs, I strongly encourage you to start using Midjourney. Other than being an actual asset in your design work, it is just so much fun!
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