Art courses and Interior Design students

This study sheds light on the influence of an artistic background on students’ outcomes, specifically students of the Interior Design (ID) course at Umm al-Qura University in Makkah-Saudi Arabia. It focuses on the first-year curriculum and its impact on the final outcomes. Case studies were observed of ID students studying art courses in their first year, over the subsequent period of up to five academic terms. The chosen cases were the second class of the major, where final presentations of some courses were analysed. Among the cases was one student who is artistically gifted, and her works were also evaluated. This study examines the assumption that artistic background may be reflected – by some means – in some of a student’s drawings and presentations of design projects. The study also demonstrated that early exposure to artistic methods and skills impacted on student confidence and presentation skills, and this diminished somewhat in the final year of study where newly acquired ID skills merged with the artistic skills.