Follow these DIY home designers for more than design
How do you even combine science and home design? I want to put these two together, but this is a question I’m still asking myself. So I decided to look at some experts for you to check out too!
If you’ve been following me on Instagram or read my first post, you probably already know I’m a neuroscientist. I mostly share DIY home design content on Instagram, with the occasional science-y thing. I want to add in a little more science, but in cool, design-worthy way.
To figure out how to do this, I’ve rounded up some amazing Instagram designers that do more than just DIY home design.
Click to jump to where I talk about these DIY designers
Anita Yokota and Mental Health (Japandi style)
Dominique Harris and Social Issues (moody, elegant style)
Monica Chavez and Teaching Others How to Succeed Online (mixed bright and moody functional style)
Wendy and Her Fun Cooking (tasteful Japandi maximalist style)
Anita Yokota and Mental Health
Anita Yokota
Anita Yokota designed my favorite primary bedroom, which I discovered years ago! Her beautiful Japandi style and genius design ideas are combined with content on DIY as therapy.
Yokota went to graduate school to be a therapist, but she now does DIY home design full-time, which she shares on Instagram and on her blog. Her home design content is intermixed with home design tips for family and mental health. For example, she suggests ways to design your home to facilitate family time or DIYing for personal therapy.
Anita Yokota shares an image of her primary bedroom on Instagram and writes about the importance of sunlight for mental health on her blog.
Yokota really does a good job connecting mental health to home design, and often refers to the science behind choosing certain colors or layouts for a room. I’m not only inspired to make beautiful spaces when I see her content, but to also think carefully how my space affects me.
While some of her solely design-focused content receives more engagement, I feel her design content with a therapy focus adds value in ways that solely design content would not.
Dominique Harris and Social Issues
Dominique Harris
Dominique Harris, of AllThings O'Natural, owns a natural beauty business, and she shares her elegant, moody home in peaceful morning and evening rituals on Instagram and talks about social issues, especially issues of social justice.
Harris shares her thoughts on blackout Tuesday and a picture of a corner of her living room on Instagram.
Her home design style is rich in color, but it’s never overwhelming, and it just makes you want to relax and take it all in.
Harris’ discussions are thought-provoking and engage with her community of followers on Instagram, especially in Instagram stories. These discussions encourage me to continue learning about and working towards social justice. Her home feels like I place I would want to really settle in and have deep conversations about a lot of different topics!
Both her home design and social issues content appear to receive a similar amount of engagement. Dominique does an amazing job merging home design and social justice on her page by posting with a similar aesthetic across all her posts.
Monica Chavez and Teaching Others How to Succeed Online
Monica Chavez
Monica Chavez, of House of Esperanza, is a force on Instagram. She has grown into the CEO of her own company and empowers women on the way. I appreciate her functional design style – having both spaces with lots of color and other spaces that are more neutral, with lots of plants and garden content. She has recently gotten in modern Mexican style, which I’m very excited to see!
Chavez shares a ton of incredible home design DIYs, and uses her own experience to teach others, especially underrepresented groups, how to DIY and build a business online.
She uses a similar aesthetic across her posts to make it all mesh together, though I think it helps that her teaching fits so well into what she already does. What I find really interesting, is that, even though the IG algorithm has really switched to pushing for video, Chavez’ picture content often gets more engagement than her video content.
Wendy and Her Fun Cooking
Wendy
Wendy of The Kwendy Home manages to be hilarious and share drop-dead gorgeous home design and cooking content at the same time.
If you haven’t noticed, the design style I probably love the most is Japandi, and Wendy does not disappoint! With lots of texture and a little bit of tasteful maximalism thrown in (nice, because I cannot be a minimalist no matter how hard I try!), her home design is drool-worthy.
Wendy is renovating her home she bought recently, and uses her brand new kitchen to share all kinds of beautiful, yummy cooking content.
Left: Wendy shares how to make strawberry ice cream on her blog. Right: Wendy’s Instagram reveal post for her new kitchen.
Wendy merges her cooking and home design content so well by using her home designs as a backdrop to her cooking content. She also manages to share completely hilarious, ridiculous posts on her Instagram (example here), and I think it works because of her personality.
Her smaller DIY design projects seem to get more engagement, but I would be willing to bet that her cooking content gets a lot of saves.
What I’m getting from these amazing designers is to combine my science content with my home design content by finding a way to post both with a similar aesthetic and really think through the connections between science and the home. I think also creating an area in my home that’s thoughtfully designed where I can share more science content would be helpful. (I guess I have another project coming up!)
After thinking through these content creators’ strategies, I’m feeling a lot more confident and excited about sharing science content in the home with you all!
*for readers, this is my first assignment for my college class on multimedia content creation! This is why you might notice some talk about engagement about certain types of content - I hope you had fun learning about these designers that I enjoy learning from and following online