Top Tips: How to become an Interior Designer

If you love doing up your home, love incorporating new trends into your existing decor, or look forward to helping and guiding others when they’re decorating maybe you’d be looking for a career in Interior Design?

Let’s just clarify what that means:

Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an “effective setting for the range of human activities” that are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects. Interior design is a multifaceted profession that includes conceptual development, liaising with the stakeholders of a project and the management and execution of the design. Source: Wikipedia

So you have a passion for design and interiors and want to take that to the next level, what’s the next step?

Finding an Interior Design Course:

Firstly on of the best things you can do is look around for online courses to really gain more of an understanding of the what the job entails. There are lots of free online short courses that you can do in the comfort of your own home that will give you the basic elements of interior design. It’s a great way to identify if you really have the skills to take it further, and if you really enjoy it, before you embark on anything more costly or serious.

If you get on well then the next stage would be to look around for a longer course that can give you a qualification or an accreditation certificate. With these types of courses you can do them at a college or University, or study at home. Many courses offer a litle of both with maybe one or two weeks spent in a classroom, and the rest done under your own motivation at home.

In the United Kingdom the Inchbald School of Design was the first institution to offer interior design education, starting in 1960. Kingston University in London is seen by many as the “home” of interior design education in the UK and has produced many of the country’s leading interior design professionals who have shaped the nature of the profession over the last forty years. Middlesex University and Nottingham Trent University offer Interior Architecture and Design programs that are not only well-established but offer the potential of a professional practice placement prior to the final year. (Source: Wikipedia)

If you’re wanting more of an online course take a look at sites like Hotcourses that an help you find exactly what you’re looking for.

Finding an Interior Design Job:

Finally, you’re a qualified Interior Designer, but what now? It’s time to find a job and start putting your hard work and education into practice. There are a few options here and firstly you can consider finding a job with an interior design firm and work your way up. It’s a great way to get hands on experience and develop your skills.There are lots of online sites you can use to set up a profile and look for work. Don’t forget to build a LinkedIn profile and use jobsites like trud.co.uk, which trawl the internet for you finding you the perfect job from the thousands out there.

Or you may like to set up in business on your own and become an independent interior designer, and work freelance. Of course this will take time to build up a client base and you’ll need to develop some business skills around marketing and accounting but sometimes this can be the most rewarding career path, knowing that all of your hard earned money is yours. And if you do it well, your reputation will be your best marketing and advertising tool.

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