Advice for managing a successful interior design career. For the interior designer and interior design student. A valuable guide to today’s interior design careers and survey of the interior design field.
ASID and the Public's Perception of Interior Designers
by Elizabeth A. Bennett
Let’s admit it; we are all feeling the pain. For those of you running an interior design business,
the impact of home decor shows has clients questioning your fees and services. Rooms done for under
$500, interior designers having the clients’ neighbors finish the rooms for free, interior designers
having entire an entire staff behind the scenes and making it all happen in 30 minutes (minus commercials)
and of course the information and encouragement for a client to “Do It Yourself.”
“Designer’s Challenge” shows three interior design firms competing for one client’s project. CAD
drawings, sketches, colored renderings, full-scale modeling and the interior designers’ concepts
(intellectual property) are all given to the client 100% for free. The client gets to decide which
interior designer is best for them, which is the way it should be, but did you notice how the winning
designers end up using some ideas from the rejected interior designer’s plans?
This is not a profitable way to run a design business, but clients are learning from television how an
interior designer works. None of us want to give away hours and hours of service with no reward - with
only the “hope” of landing the project. Even worse is this example of providing creative and critical
information to sell your project and having it ripped off by the customer.
The show, “Find Your Style” is the worst example of how an interior designer works. No written interior
design program is created. Clients are told to go ahead and design their rooms the way the think they
should be done and the designer whooshes in on stiletto heels, wearing a party dress (two sizes too small)
and “fixes” the client’s “errors” with a team of moving men and several changes of furniture. The designer
then proclaims, “Your style is Mexican-Modern-French Provincial!” Isn’t interior design all about planning?
Interior Design is not tricking a client into your opinions. Why is no design plan formed and executed?
I don’t know of any interior designer who works this way, yet this is how the general public perceives what an
interior designer does.
“Devine Design” shows boring rooms turned into luscious makeovers! The final rooms are gorgeous, but any interior
design professional realizes the cost of transforming these rooms is upward of $50,000 and some rooms $100,000.
There is no mention of designer’s fees, charges for labor, timeframe or cost of the project materials. Candice
Olson, the designer has her cool and witty electrician, Chico magically install an entire ceiling of “pot” lights
in two minutes of commercial time. Wouldn’t it be great to have a full staff of electricians, painters and
carpenters just standing around to obey your every command?
My clients tell me how much they love Devine Design. I agree; it is a great show for entertainment purposes.
It just doesn’t reflect how a designer works in the real world.
On the flip-side you have the really low-end shows like, “Decorating Cents” that shows the interior designer
slopping paint on the walls, dressed in overhauls and gym shoes and making vases out of coffee cans. The rooms end
up rather depressing looking. It makes you wonder how much the homeowner is going to have to pay someone to paint
over that horrible faux mural - done in one day!
Design 