How to Become Interior Designer. Decorating a room makes it look more attractive than before. What else should be the interior of an apartment or workplace? Comfortable, safe, cozy, and aesthetically pleasing. Making it so is the job of an interior designer.
What does an Interior Designer Do?
A competent interior can solve many problems: help concentration in the classroom, quality rest in the bedroom, comfortable work in the office, and an increase in the number of orders in a cafe. A six-square-meter kitchen can become a curse for the owners of the apartment, or you can use the art of interior design to make it a comfortable and favorite corner of the house.
The interior is not only a pretty picture. First of all, this is a comfortable ergonomic space where everything is important: lighting, acoustics, the practicality of materials, well-thought-out communications, and a sufficient number of storage spaces. Of course, the visual also matters.
All this is done by an interior designer. He works for the result, leading the project from idea to implementation, taking into account all the nuances of a particular room and customer requirements. He develops a concept, creates drawings, draws up estimates and other technical documentation, selects finishing materials, furniture, and decor items, and controls the work of builders.
This job is for you if you are:
- Creative and creative person.
- Love order in everything, attentive to trifles.
- You have developed spatial thinking.
- You have good taste and vision.
- Communicative, able to negotiate.
- You are responsible and stress-resistant.
Project Milestones and Responsibilities
Here is an example of how an interior designer can work on a project (it happens that this work is done not by one person, but by a team, but in any case, the designer manages the process):
- meeting with the client, discussing the order, signing the contract;
- measurements of the premises, preparation, and coordination of layout options;
- creation of mood boards, sketches, and visualizations of the future interior;
- preparation of drawings, and plans, which take into account the arrangement of furniture, placement of ventilation, and lamps;
- drawing up a detailed estimate, taking into account furniture and finishing materials, plumbing, decor, etc .;
- quality control of work performance, correction of deadlines and budget, if necessary (this stage – architectural supervision – is usually ordered separately).
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Profession
To the pluses of the profession: it is creative, in-demand, and promising. A decent salary for an experienced specialist, the ability to work remotely, the relative ease of entry into the profession: a university is not required, you can get an education online after spending a few months. This is not to say that “crusts” are not important at all, but experience and a strong portfolio will tell the employer more.
The shortcomings: high competition, stress (the project must be completed on time, and this can be difficult), and the need to constantly update knowledge. In this profession, the human factor plays an important role: a difficult picky customer (who also has bad taste or does not know what he wants) or an unscrupulous builder can get caught.
What You Need to Know to Work
This profession combines creative and technical aspects. But what do you need to know to get started?
- work in ArchiCAD, Adobe Photoshop, 3ds Max (for creating visualizations);
- interior sketching technique (freehand sketching);
- ergonomics – the science that helps to make the space comfortable and safe;
- redevelopment laws and building codes in general;
- features of construction work and materials used: from concrete to textiles;
- laws of composition, styles, a combination of colors;
- principles of lighting design and gardening;
- modern trends, history of interior design;
- fundamentals of psychology.
Where Can you Get Training?
There is a huge amount of information about interior design on the Internet, but it should be treated with caution, not relying only on self-study. The price of a mistake in this profession is high, so you need to be 100% sure of your knowledge. If you want to seriously engage in interior design, you should think about getting a professional education.
You can study at a university – for example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) / Cambridge, United States, UCL / London, United Kingdom, Harvard University / Cambridge, United States, Manchester School of Architecture / United Kingdom, University of California, Berkeley (UCB) / Berkeley, United States, and many more. The disadvantages are a long time (several years), and knowledge can be out of date: academic teachers most often do not practice, and do not track trends.
How Much can you Earn as an Interior Designer?
The profession is in demand: more than 2,000 vacancies on the HeadHunter website are available today. An interior designer can work in design studios, furniture or building materials stores, and architectural design bureaus. Often such specialists go freelance and work for themselves.
Working in a company, you can get a $70,000 – $90,000 annual wage while for beginners, the annual wage lies between $30,000 – $60,000. On freelancing, everything is in the hands of the specialist himself – if the client base is developed, there is experience and reputation, and the income can be $2000 – $2300 per month. The salary of an interior designer is also influenced by education, the number of projects in the work, skill, and creativity, customer reviews, portfolio, and geography.
We wish you success!
In the profession of an interior designer, experience comes with practice: the more strong projects in the portfolio, the higher the professionalism. You can start with your apartment – and who knows, maybe step by step, you will come to your calling in this area.