Hi all,

I'm not totally new to db design, but it would be safe to say I am new to "solid" database design. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A quick question:

I have a list of inventory from a blinds reseller which contains information such as Color, Style, and Type.

The available color names are redundant across the different styles, but the colors actually differ.

So, for example:

Acapulco: Off White, Sand, Ivory

IS DIFFERENT visually than:

Galaxy: Off White, Sand, Ivory

But the names of the colors are the same.

To reduce redundancy, how can effectively design the table which will hold the inventory??

Thanks so much for any help you can offer. I am not without curiosity to learn, so if you think an explanation would serve me better than a solution, than by all means. Thanks again!

It seems a product detail table is needed, and this would include fields for manufacturer and color. Both manufacturer and color would be 1:M linked to appropriate detail tables. I suspect the database doesn't "have to know" that Acapulco Ivory isn't necessarily the same as Galaxy Ivory, but that the sales staff would need to know this.