Plan Your Interior Design Career For Success
How To Plan Your Interior Design Career
Interior design career prospects look extremely promising for those who are able to complete the training needed to break into the career. Many of the households and businesses who can afford to pay for a professional designer are continuing to do so.
There is plenty of work for designers at all levels. Commercial and domestic markets, show no sign that the trend is going to slow down. If you have the talent and the determination, allied to the business acumen which will be needed to go with them, you can create a good career for yourself in interior design.
Pioneers of Interior Design
If you are considering interior design as a career, you will need to know right from the start that it is a competitive arena, and that the modern designer really needs to put in the time to study for a university degree. Yes, it is technically possible to set up a design firm and try to win business without any kind of track record or qualification, but you would not be likely to succeed.
It is true that most of the pioneers of design had no formal training, but the world has changed drastically since those times. People looking for designers have access to the Internet and to local media, and will be drawn towards those who have experience and proof of how well they can design.
Even the designers who have set up their own businesses usually do so after having worked in a design company for many years first. This gives them the chance to improve and refine their skills in an environment where there are work colleagues and supervisors who can help with any difficulties, and also fellow talented designers who can impart much useful knowledge. The contacts you can make as an employed designer can be extremely useful to you later on, so it is unwise to attempt to miss this step out.
Basic Interior Design Skills
The basic skills you will need for an interior design career are based on your ability to see how you can transform indoor space into something far more than it intrinsically may be. Imagination is essential, although it is always given a helping hand by the knowledge of previous designs you have created.
If you can visualize instantly how any given room could look if you applied a certain design theme to it, you definitely have the raw material from which exceptional designers are made. You will also need to have the business and communication skills to work with clients, especially if you are going to become freelance at any stage.
The largest part of a career in interior design will be spend designing rooms in private houses, as there is still a large percentage of people who can both afford to have professional design carried out, and to have the work completed for them. These design jobs will provide great variety, as there are so many different tastes which people have in room design. You will have some clients who will want to totally individualize their dwelling and put their own stamp completely on it, while most others will simply want a conventional but aesthetic design.
Interior Design Components
The other component of your interior design career will be dealing with commercial organizations who want to have either individual rooms or whole buildings designed. These designs can also vary in complexity and originality, as businesses who are attracting customers off the street or entertaining clients will need a design which is nothing too outrageous. Some of the specialist businesses catering to niche market minorities may demand something altogether more daring and original, and this can challenge a designer to the limit.
Creating Interior Design Elements
If you are determined to go ahead and create a career for yourself as a designer, you will need to find a way of obtaining a degree in either architecture or interior design, with the latter obviously being most suitable. This will demand at least a four-year course at a university, but this does not have to mean physical attendance at a college campus. Interior design is a relatively easy subject to study using online learning, as there is so much theory and background involved. You will also be learning to use software, and this can easily be done using home computer technology.
This use of software is now an integral part of an interior design career, as it makes the job of satisfying the customer so much easier. Any design which you create can be shown to the customer in virtual form so that their feedback can be gained.
This feedback can then be integrated into further designs until the right combination has been found. Software can even display designs in three-dimensional form, creating the effect that you are right in the room. The effect is the closest you can get to creating a design in reality without actually doing so, and this software will always be an integral part of an interior design career.
