What Benefits Can Be Obtained from Interior Design School?

By Darren Williger

The interior design industry is always changing. Few years back, you had to go to a proper design or art school to study interior design. These days, interested students can have interior design as major in almost any college or university.

Today it is compulsory for professional interior designers to have an industry license in order to practice their skill. Much like an architect, they must go through intensive study and testing before even being allowed to take any licensing testing. The NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Qualification), requires all testers to have a combination of:
six years of work experience,
two years of schooling plus four years of work experience,
Four years in a FIDER recognized university or college plus two years of work experience in order to qualify. This intensive method ensures that trade licensing helps to generate
responsible and educated designers.

Students interested in interior design study should go for a college or university that is FIDER recognized and works towards a bachelor's degree which is required for commercial career.
Even some of the high-end designers prefer to achieve a master’s degree or a doctorate in design.

There are few extra courses that ‘would-be designers’ should consider such as: AutoCAD by Autodesk is an excellent computer aided drafting course. Those with some experience and knowledge of this software program can command a higher starting rate than those who haven’t taken the time to learn anything about it.

Business classes along with variety of marketing courses are also a plus that many students ignore. Remember, interior design is 90% networking, marketing, selling, and knowing the right people; 7% paperwork and only 3% design.

Some professional designer’s even advocate taking acting classes that can help you learn how to make better sales pitches.

Art classes too can help you be better prepared when talking with clients. People are visual and you’ll have a better shot at convincing a new client of your ideas if you can sketch them. Also consider taking an art, furniture and antique history class. They all come in to play every day in the design industry.

Design school can be very intense. You will have to take traditional classes; a normal workload of reading, tests and other class work, as well as you will have to complete very large-scale design projects along the way.

One vital aspect where the design school can really help you is to find most successful and rewarding stream of interior designing matching your skills. They’re many different fields to enter in this profession. There are residential interior designers whose only purpose is to serve homeowners, and then there are commercial interior designers who work on offices, restaurants, banks, malls, hotels, and so on. And, all of these specialties need a project manager heading up the entire project, a draftsperson, and a product sales representative.

Some designers go for their own drapery workroom or fabric warehouse, a design firm, or decide to be a partner in a firm, a painter, wallpaper hanger, carpet layer or any of a hundred other design specialists. How you eventually use your designer’s education and skill is totally depending on you, your interest, and the level of your designing skills.

Darren Williger writes for InsidePlanning.com, ErgoWebsite.com, and ParentingProcedures.com