The path to success...all the things they won't tell you

I know things get hectic when you're trying to figure out what the heck you want to do with your life, so I just wanted to give a quick overview for any of those out there looking to interior design as their potential path.

First, In high school you want to make sure you take drafting classes. AutoCAD is a HUGE part of your daily life as a designer. If you can't take these classes for whatever reason, you will still be alright, but it would give you a huge leg up if you can. Also, anything to do with construction would also be beneficial. Just remember that you can design all the pretty things you want, but if you can't figure out how they will go together, or how they will be mounted in a room they are useless.

Next, when looking for a college, make sure you choose a CIDA accredited program (I've listed the website at the bottom of this page). CIDA is the Council for Interior Design Accreditation. They are in charge of making sure that all accredited schools are held to certain standards that insure students training to become designers will have the skill set necessary to be successful in the field. Companies that are looking to employ designers will look at the college you graduated from to see if it was an accredited program.

When you do finally graduate after all the hours of lost sleep and those spent in studio, you will want to get licenced as an interior designer in your state. To get licenced you need to first, and again, graduate from an accredited interior design program, and then get 2 years of experience. Once you have 2 years of experience you can apply to sit for the NCIDQ examination. This 2 day exam tests your proficiency in a very, very broad range of topics in interior design. Once you pass, you can apply in your state to be licenced. There are more paths that this one to be qualified to sit for your NCIDQ, and they are all on the website listed below. All of them require work experience and schooling.

Disclaimer: All of this information is stuff that I have picked up over the years while going through school and working in the field. I felt that it was hard to sift through all of the information out there, and that it was hard to find people who could give me the info I needed. So this is what I feel is important to know on a basic level about getting into interior design.

Also, if you are looking to be a decorator, none of this is necessary. You can be a decorator without going to school. However, you CANNOT legally call yourself an interior designer without a degree from an accredited school. If you are looking to just work as a designer at a furniture store, or kitchen store doing furniture layouts, a lot of this is also unnecessary. You will want a degree, but it doesn't have to be accredited. You could even just get a 2 year degree.

Websites:
CIDA (Council for Interior Design Accreditation) http://www.accredit-id.org/
IDEC (interior Design Educators Council) http://www.idec.org/
NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Accreditation) http://www.ncidq.org/

Architectural Mecca

In today's great age of technology and design one city in the world seems to be consistently "taking the cake" in terms of adventurous and interesting design. Dubai. I envy people who live and get to visit this mecca for architectural wonders. I mean c'mon, this place is like Disneyland with extra Mickey Mouse for anyone who can appreciate creative design.

'0-14 tower' was designed by resier and umemoto and rur architecture pc along with Dubai developer, shahab lutfi. the building was designed for dubai's business bay and features 22 floors covered in a double skin facade that's outermost skin is constructed from 40c, thick perforated concrete. the one meter space between the skins creates a chimney effect, cooling the building. How sweet is this? It looks like lace or Swiss cheese as a building. It even utilizes natural cooling techniques.

I guess my whole point of this particular rant is to ask why we can't do anything this interesting and innovative in the States? Is it because we are so worried about the bottom line we cannot see how positively something other than an air conditioned box can serve as a building? Everywhere you look, giant, square, air conditioned boxes. How lovely....

I guess I'm just jealous that I have to go halfway around the world to see really interesting architecture and design like the DaVinci Rotating towers, the Dancing Towers, or the Dubai Towers.

We have the know-how and engineering capabilities here to construct buildings that would add interest, beauty, tourism, and green design into our lives. Are we just to lazy and worried about the short-term bottom line that we cannot see our future in square, boring, rat cages? Maybe it is because we lost our spirit of competition? Maybe it's just the lack of oil money? But I think we as Americans, and others across the world, should look to these magnificent structures as a challenge to better ourselves, and our ideas of what buildings should be.

$9 million for some lines huh?

So someone paid $9 million for this...

I am quite a proponent for ,and lover of fine art, and I do like this piece, but what else could some rich guy do with $9 mil. I mean you could still pay the artist $1 million and have $8 left over for charity, the hurting economy, anything! It just seems like such a waste...

Hey, at just over $1 million per line I guess it was a steal!

Xerascape your life!

So this isn't so much an "interior" as it is an "exterior" blog, but it's an important design topic none the less.

Xerascaping refers to landscaping and gardening in ways that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental irrigation. It is promoted in areas that do not have easily accessible supplies of fresh water, and is gaining acceptance in other areas as climate patterns shift. Utilizing plants whose natural requirements are appropriate to the local climate isemphasized, and care is taken to avoid losing water to evaporation and run-off.

The photo at the left is an example of a beautiful xerascaped area in California.

While this is a term that was coined in Colorado, and is more popular in the Western part of the US, it is something we can all do to up our ability to be more resourceful. It is also benificial to companies who choose to landscape in this manner since they will be spending less money on upkeep and watering of plants that will thrive in their natural landscape.

Xerascaping might lower the number of plants you can select from, but it is still a beautiful choice in landscape design. Who really needs a palm tree growing in the midwest anyway?

Evidence-Based Design

As I've written before, Interior Design often gets confused with Interior Decorating. As a student pursuing a Master's Degree in Interior Design, I often get asked what exactly there is to study at a Master's level in ID. To a lot of people's shock I also explain that you can pursue a degree all the way up to a PhD in Interior Design just like any other reputable degree. People seem completely confused and ask what kind of "color matching" or "fabric selection" they could possibly teach at a PhD level. While I also had thoughts along the same path upon entering into the study of ID, I soon realized that there a million things to study at a higher level in this discipline.

Through a good education and much research I have come to realize that ID is a major contributor to the health, safety, and well being of people. At least when done correctly. Every day people enter into built spaces to live, work, and play. These spaces can be wonderful, beautiful, well-functioning, and have the occupants best interest in mind. Or they can be ugly, hard to use, fire hazards waiting to happen. It all depends on how it was laid out. Interior Design is not just picking out pretty colors. It is studying building codes, human behavior, keeping up with new health and environmentally conscious products, ergonomics, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and a ton of other information to produce the best, most user friendly designs possible. if an Interior designer is not doing all of this they are, in my opinion, a bad designer. Not just bad, but irresponsible.

That brings the conversation to a concept that all Interior Design projects should utilize. Evidence-based design is defined by healthdesign.org as "the process of basing decisions about the built environment on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes." While this concept is mainly taking root in health care design, I feel that all aspects of ID should follow this principle idea. We expect doctors and pharmacists to keep up on the latest research so that they may best treat us. Why should we not expect the same of our ID professionals? ID has such a large influence on people every day it should not even be a question. We should be basing our designs on research and evidence, not whims and our personal preferences.

There is a ton of research out there if designers will just go and look for it. Not that research should ever completely take away from the creative aspect. All projects should have their own feel and beauty to them, they should just be based on what is proven to be best for the end user. Sites like informedesign.com is a great resource for design-based research. Many other scholarly journals can be used to establish a good basis for your design that will benefit everyone that might use it.

As a Master's student in ID, it is my responsibility to add to the growing amount of design information there is out there already. I have learned how important it is to have research to utilize in the design process. Research in ID should no longer be just about programming and information gathering, it should also include research that is published in scholarly journals that has been reviewed by our peers. A great book on this subject is called "Informing Design" by Joan I. Dickinson and John P. Marsden.

Evidence-Based design seems to make common sense to me as a designer. I can't understand why there seems to be a backlash against it in the ID community. We as designers are here to do what is best for our client, and the end user. Why not use all of the resources at our disposal to do the best job that we can?