Samantha Kragel, senior in interior design, placed second in the residential design category of the Sherwin-Williams Student Design Challenge (SDC) with her rendering “Wander,” winning $1,000 cash. 

The SDC is an annual national competition which focuses on students majoring in interior design in both the residential and home categories. 

The competition required the participants create a space featuring the company’s colors. Kragel designed the kitchen, bedroom and living area.  

The competition closed in March, and the top-three placements were announced Wednesday. 

“It’s still kind of like a shock to me that I was even able to place in finals. … It’s just kind of crazy to me to think of the amount of talent that there is in the interior design field when I used to not even know it was a thing,” Kragel said.

Kragel said the software required to create the design had been something that she enjoyed using, so the process was enjoyable for her.  She said the specific software she uses helped her add detail to the residential design. 

The common software “Revit” allows students to create a realistic design but takes a lot of time to add the details, such as a magazine, into the overall project. She said because of the time commitment, students will often resort to Photoshop in order to create the details of a rendering. 

Kragel said the artistic side of the software “Sketch-Up” and the plug-in “V-Ray” allowed her to express her artistic side of interior design and make the rendering unique. 

Kragel said this competition was a way to validate her choice to go into interior design. Kragel explained she has had multiple interests in different areas of design but did not know if she was making the right choice of interior design. 

Now, she has a passion for interior design and the way it has affected people’s lives. She also said the challenge with the going into an art field is the competitive environment. 

“Any art field — it’s all subjective, and it’s all extremely competitive, and so at any moment you can really doubt yourself and make yourself feel like ‘there’s so many other talented people there’s no way I’m ever going to be successful in doing this,’” Kragel said. 

After placing second in the SDC, Kragel’s work has been featured on the Sherwin-Williams facebook page. More information about the contest and entering can be found on the Sherwin-Williams website.