How we make our guides
Design IRL Editorial · Last updated November 2026
Building or doing up a home raises the same questions again and again. What will interiors for a 2BHK cost in Pune? Which architects in Delhi NCR build courtyard homes? Is that lamp really ₹4,800? Our guides answer them, and this page shows how.
Where the answers come from
The businesses' own websites
Every studio, brand and product in a guide comes from the business’s own public website: the projects they show, the products in their shop and their prices, the people they name. We link back to each one. We don’t copy their text or photo galleries; a project gets one photo, credited and linked to the firm.
Published sources, cited and dated
Cost ranges, fees and rules come from published sources: rate surveys, industry and government publications, professional bodies, and the texts themselves where a guide covers a tradition such as Vastu. Each figure carries its source and the date we last checked it.
The decisions people actually face
We write for the choice in front of you, at your budget: who suits a small flat or a large house, what a living room needs, where the money goes on a renovation. Guides cover every option that fits, including firms and brands that haven’t claimed a page with us.
How we checked a lamp's price
Prices in our data are read from each brand’s shop, but shops change. While writing the lighting guide we checked a wall light stored at ₹4,800 against the brand’s live site: it was ₹14,800. Another brand’s stored prices were about 30% below its live prices on all nine products we checked.
So no price goes into a guide until it has been checked against the brand’s live shop, and every price shows the date it was checked.
The guide then links straight to the product on the brand’s own site, where the price you pay is theirs.
Where every number comes from
- Product prices are shown as listed on the brand’s own site, with the date they were checked and a link to the product.
- Costs are ranges in rupees, not a single number, each with its source and the date it was checked, and by city where it varies.
- Facts about a firm cite where they came from. Where we don’t have enough evidence, the guide says “Not enough evidence to say” instead of guessing.
- Where a tradition such as Vastu or feng shui is covered, its advice is given as what its texts and practitioners say, always attributed and never as fact. Where sources disagree, we say so, and practical reasons such as light and ventilation are given separately.
- Every guide shows the date it was last checked.
- No firm or brand has paid to appear in a guide. If paid placement ever comes to Design IRL, it will be clearly labelled.
Why we don't publish top 10 lists
Nothing in design is simply “top”. The best architect for a courtyard home in brick isn’t the best one for an office fit-out, and for someone earning ₹40,000 a month, the best sofa is the one that fits their budget.
So our guides don’t rank. They group firms by the kind of work they do and their style, such as residential or workplace, minimal or eclectic, and show who suits which need. Brands are grouped by the space they’re for and by price. The order within a group is not a verdict.
Spotted something wrong?
Prices change and mistakes happen. Tell us through the contact form and we’ll fix it and update the guide’s date.
If you run a business in a guide, you can claim your page to correct your details yourself, or ask us to take you out of a guide or off Design IRL altogether.
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