MATERIALS LIBRARY
In your department there will be a space dedicated to all manner of materials in all their stock forms.
When you are designing and thinking about the aesthetics of the materials you might use, withdraw a selection from the Materials Library and try them in different combinations to see which materials work well together.
You will also be able to get more of an insight into how the materials might work structurally.
A long time advocate of the materials library is the inspiring interior designer Ilse Crawford - to see how she uses this with her team take a look at the revealing documentary episode on her work in the outstanding 'Abstract' series on Netflix