If you love working with art and design, interior design is an excellent career. This is because, in interior design, you work with various materials and objects that make the space a work of art.
As you can see, the demand for interior designers is growing as more people appreciate the value of home decoration and improvements.
Is Interior Design a Good Career?
Interior design is a promising career because it offers a chance to combine creativity with financial success. It’s a great career choice for people who enjoy the aesthetic style of beauty and design. You can expect your career to be challenging but rewarding. Moreover, you can make money with interior design if you have a creative eye and a good sense of space.
Have you decided to become a professional interior designer? If so, continue reading to ensure an interior design career is right for you!
1. Interior Designers Develop and Execute the Concept
Concept formulation, space planning, contractor and client relations, site management, building services, and design execution are all features and functions of interior design.
The interior designer does the following work, including,
- understanding client requirements
- assessing the space
- designing the layout strategy and plans
- choosing the furnishings and internal features
- putting it all together in a meaningful manner
- executing the process
Make sure you are mentally ready before entering an interior design profession. The ability to handle stress well is necessary when liaising with clients, suppliers, and other workers.
Overall, ensure you have the creative abilities necessary to stay on trend!
2. Pros and Cons of Being an Interior Designer
Interior design is an excellent option for students who don’t want to become an architect or landscape architect. It is a wise choice, particularly for individuals who wish to exhibit their creativity in the simplest forms.
For the right candidate, a career in interior design has the potential to be highly fulfilling, fun, and stable throughout the profession.
On the other hand, working with demanding clients on the overall design process and money management is a drawback of being an interior designer.
You need good design skills and excellent customer service, marketing, and interpersonal skills. Balancing this isn’t easy, but it’s also an opportunity.
If self-employed, you may occasionally encounter a difficult client with unreasonable requests!
3. Interior Designer Salary and Benefits
In the United States, salaries for interior designers can vary between $30,930 to $131,390 a year, with the average income being $62,570. The compensation varies depending on expertise, industry, and location.
Many interior designers collaborate with architects, commercial building contractors, and furniture merchants.
You can build your network of connections and knowledge for your portfolio by working with more prominent companies.
Large corporations typically pay for travel expenses, vacations, sick leave, and holiday entitlement. Self-employed designers typically provide their benefits.
4. Creativity Skills
Interior designers must be creative if they want a stellar career.
Creativity skills are all about thinking outside the box. They are the kind of skills that help you come up with innovative and original ideas. Creativity is mainly about having an original idea or concept that you can use in new ways.
The standard model of creativity has three phases:
- Having original ideas.
- Finding ways to express them.
- Bringing them to fruition in some sort of product or service.
Creativity is a skill that can be learned through education and perfected, making interior design an excellent career choice for those who aren’t particularly artistically gifted.
Successful designers love working with clients to change their homes into gorgeous spaces, and it makes them happy to see them satisfied with the results of their efforts.
5. Qualifications to Become an Interior Designer
You can complete a bachelor’s degree program to become an interior designer.
Undergraduate degrees and associate’s degree programs cover the foundational concepts and training, including,
- drawing and sketching,
- layout design,
- coloring theory and
- illumination theory
In the U.S., some states require that interior designers hold a license or accreditation. While in others’s not mandated.
There are several ways to achieve the necessary academic and job experience requirements to sit for the NCIDQ certification exam, which is six whole years.
A certification from the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) or the American Lighting Specialist (ALA) can be suitable for interior designers primarily seeking to enhance their design skills.
Find out is interior design hard.
6. Design Principles
Interior designers use drafting and drawing skills to create images of structures.
They also develop layouts of spaces using structural information modeling, enabling them to showcase a completed work that considers all material aspects.
Some usual 3D applications that one should be familiar with are
AutoCAD Design Suite, Adobe Illustrator, and Sketchup.
As an n interior designer, one should stay current on building codes, regulations, and standards to keep the project’s authenticity.
Finally, designers should be able to adapt earlier designs to fit modern essentials.
7. Build a Solid Portfolio
Creating a solid portfolio is the ideal technique to acquire clients if you are just starting. Over time, you should include illustrations of projects from concept to completion to offer customers an idea of how you think and perform.
Taking up internships is a verified successful method of building a folio. A typical interior design internship will also involve the following,
- supporting budgets,
- drawing preliminary plans,
- generating invoices,
- consulting with prospective consumers,
- making design boards,
- finding suppliers, and
- hiring contractors.
Additionally, as a junior interior designer, one should work closely with senior design team members to achieve project goals.
8. Career Stability
The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that this occupation will grow steadily, with 8300 jobs created yearly over this decade.
Today, a demand exists for interior designers in housing projects, offices, restaurants, hospital facilities, hotels, and other significant construction projects.
Professionals may consider working in prominent, high-paying cities like Rogers, Arkansas, Portland, Oregon, San Diego, California, and Los Angeles, California.
You could pursue alternative careers as a visual merchandiser, exhibit designer, and architectural and structural designer.
9. Work Environment and Work-Life Balance Strategies
Most interior designers who work for major companies or design companies put 40 hours weekly in their cozy offices or at clients’ sites.
Smaller companies or freelance designers’ schedules are adjusted to meet their client’s requirements and typically work long hours.
To maximize their output, designers preserve their time by walking, driving to work meetings, or even having a quick bite of food in between hunting for design resources.
Current interior design professionals encourage time-management strategies when searching for materials and other supplies, making allowance for additional time in answering client emails and thoroughly planning the day’s schedule.
10. Passion and Career
It’s fun if interior design is your passion. As hustling is the key to success in the early career stages of an interior designer.
Therefore, it’s critical to have passion in this career. Finding out why you want to do this is a great place to start.
With innovative marketing skills, independent designers could secure their first client and set the foundation of a successful business.
As you can see, this profession allows you to balance and blend your passion and career!
11. Stressful and Demanding Work
You can often miss project end dates, and deadlines can be challenging in this field. This is especially true for newcomers who often balance several distinct design projects.
To create the best graphic design in this environment, individuals may need to spend more time at the office, which can lead to burnout.
Although the interior design industry is quite profitable, earning a large salary can take some time.
Additionally, a disadvantage of being self-employed is that your initial earnings could be less.
Conclusion
If you want to progress in your career as an interior designer, you must be ready to put in a lot of work from the beginning.
It’s a job that necessitates creativity on the individual scale, which is hard to come by but is well worth the effort.
Overall, the entire experience will be highly fulfilling for you and could also open up new pathways for you later in life!