# Interior design



## PeterG (Aug 26, 2005)

I have just been browsing on the Brittany Ferries Enthusiasts website, and was looking at pictures of the interior fiitngs. I'm no design expert, but even the new ferry Pont-Aven is awful internally. 
Why do all ferries have multicoloured carpets that look like they have been designed by toddlers with crayons. The seats are bright multicoloured. 
It all looks so tacky.


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## Bearsie (Nov 11, 2006)

Because architects are the "avantgarde" of a society gone tacky?
Its not just the inside of ferries either.
It's everywhere, houses;inside and out; cars, ships, you name it...


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## hhvferry (Jan 29, 2006)

PeterG said:


> I have just been browsing on the Brittany Ferries
> Enthusiasts website, and was looking at pictures of the interior fiitngs. I'm no design expert, but even the new ferry Pont-Aven is awful internally.
> Why do all ferries have multicoloured carpets that look like they have been designed by toddlers with crayons. The seats are bright multicoloured.
> It all looks so tacky.


I have to say it's the first time I've ever seen the Pont-Aven of all ships described as tacky! Maybe the pictures on BFE don't do justice to what is a very sophisticated and luxurious cruise-ferry, but whilst fingers could be pointed at ships like the Color Fantasy as perhaps slightly (!) over the top in decor the same couldn't really be levelled at Brittany Ferries. BF have been using Architectes et Ingénieurs Associés for about 20 years as their interior designers and they are generally very highly regarded; that said I'm rather more of a fan of other recemt AIA-designed ships such as the Seafrance Berlioz, Mont St Michel or Napoleon Bonaparte than the 'Pont' herself - the bar and the self-service being the two areas I'm least keen on.

Whilst I'm a massive fan of ships of yesteryear, not many of them would have very suitable interiors today - either at the top end of the market where the Pont-Aven undoubtedly sits or the bottom end with, on the English Channel, P&O for example. Tastes and fashions change - the rather subdued smokeroom on the Dover of would seem decidedly grim today; all those fixed face-to-face railway carriage-style seats on the Hengist, Horsa and Senlac really would fail to win many fans.

I wonder what you would have made of the interior of the QE2 when she was delivered? In her case things have gone almost full circle and, after Cunard spent so much money ripping them all out, they would be very fashionable again if she were fresh out of the shipyard in that condition today.

As for "multi-coloured carpets", on certain companies with slightly lower-class clientele (think Tallink, Silja or Viking Lines party cruises) an overly-complicated design helps to hide the cigarette burns and the stains left after an overenthusiastic passenger has set free the one too many drinks they've just had at the bar! This I don't suspect applies quite as much on the Pont-Aven as on the rival Pride of Bilbao though. I suppose the lino of old would have been rather more practical and wipedownable, but that's really not the market anyone is in nowadays. And, I would say, quite rightly so.


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## Martyn (May 16, 2007)

PeterG said:


> I have just been browsing on the Brittany Ferries Enthusiasts website, and was looking at pictures of the interior fiitngs. I'm no design expert, but even the new ferry Pont-Aven is awful internally.
> *Why do all ferries have multicoloured carpets* that look like they have been designed by toddlers with crayons. The seats are bright multicoloured.
> It all looks so tacky.


Probably because they hide stains and marks better.


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