Starting Your Career as an Interior Designer

Robert K. Hale, Thomas L. Williams

• Publisher: Allworth
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781621535102
• eBook ISBN: 9781621535164
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Advertising
• Index: Business

Starting Your Career as an Interior Designer contains all the necessary tools and strategies to successfully launch and grow a professional design business in the competitive world of interior design. Drawing on the authors' extensive experience, this book includes case studies, and personal anecdotes that help teach you how to: • Choose a design field
• Obtain and keep clients
• Garner referrals
• Market and position your business
• Bid competitively on projects
• Manage sales
• Organize a budget
• Manage start-up costs and cash flow
• Promote your business
• Branch out into product and architectural design
• Design within a retail environment
• Set pricing guidelines
• Sell to your target demographic
• Set up your officeReaders will find a history of the business side of interior design as well as various career tracks available to today's budding entrepreneur. This updated second edition also examines the current state of the interior design industry, and what's in store for the future of firms. Any early career interior designer or student looking for practical advice on the ins and outs of running a design firm will need this one-stop guide.Allworth Press, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, publishes a broad range of books on the visual and performing arts, with emphasis on the business of art. Our titles cover subjects such as graphic design, theater, branding, fine art, photography, interior design, writing, acting, film, how to start careers, business and legal forms, business practices, and more. While we don't aspire to publish a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are deeply committed to quality books that help creative professionals succeed and thrive. We often publish in areas overlooked by other publishers and welcome the author whose expertise can help our audience of readers.

CHAPTER 1

DESIGNS ON AN INDUSTRY

It’s Not a Job, It’s an Adventure

“Destiny is not a matter of chance;
it is a matter of choice.
It is not a thing to be waited for;
it is a thing to be achieved.”

—WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN

When we began flirting with the idea of writing a design book, the first question we asked ourselves was whether or not we had anything startlingly new to say about operating a successful design business that hadn’t been said before (ad nauseam). Neither of us had any desire to write yet another bone-dry design textbook that readers typically dread, skim, and then forget; nor were we interested in condensing our life’s work into a CliffsNotes guide on interior design for students with Attention Deficit Disorder, so we decided to write a book that essentially acts as a “paperback” mentor for young design professionals who, we believe, must not only understand the fundamentals in order to succeed, but must also develop agile business minds to go with their creative designer souls. To be sure, neophytes, it won’t just happen overnight. You have to make your destiny come to you.

But isn’t interior design a creative calling? Yes, indeed. However, like many artists, most interior designers starting out fail to grasp the obvious fact that interior design is a business and that, regardless of how much creative talent you have, if you aren’t skilled in the art of commerce, you’re going to crash and burn.

So, for the sake of simplicity, we’re going to assume all of our readers are talented “creative designers” and focus our attention on the other essential parts of the design business that will go a long way toward determining your professional success. A good sign for you, and for your career, is your savvy choice to buy this book. We think you’ll find it full of lessons on the business fundamentals as well as healthy doses of reality and inspirational supplements for novice designers interested in building on their education and eventually starting their own interior design firms.

So dive in, have fun, and learn how to innovate, adapt, and prosper as an interior design entrepreneur without selling your soul or losing the farm.

BIRTH OF THE COOL

We aren’t going to get into a comprehensive account of the evolution of the industry, but we do feel it’s important to highlight some essential moments in design history so you aren’t left entirely speechless when a wise guy at a cocktail party tries to flummox you with the question, “So, who was the first interior designer, anyway??”

In the Beginning

For all intents and purposes, modern interior design emerged out of the eighteenth century in Western Europe, specifically in London, Paris, and Florence, where design work was primarily overseen by upholsterers who sold furniture and fabrics and architects who employed artisans to complete their design schemes. Some of the craftsmen on the job were:

• Painters

• Builders

• Sculptors

• Upholsterers

• Cabinet makers

• Drapery makers

• Shopkeepers

• Antiquarians

A few of the dustier design tomes credit English architect and furniture designer William Kent as the first person to design an entire interior space, while others cite neoclassical architect Robert Adam as the best-known example of an architect who designed entire interiors “down to the doorknobs and fire-irons.”

Society Dames Lead the American Revolution

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, interior design was considered a genteel art form plied by groups of society women, or well-heeled “ladies with taste,” who weren’t in it for the money but, rather, because they loved designing interior spaces.

By far the most famous of the pioneering socialite decorators was affluent amateur Elsie de Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl (1865–1950). A prominent figure in the society scenes of New York, London, and Paris, de Wolfe is credited as the first female professional decorator in the United States. Her early success proved to the predominantly male design community that interior decorating could be a profession in which a woman’s presence would not offend respectability.

A self-proclaimed “rebel in an ugly world,” de Wolfe authored the 1913 book The House in Good Taste and became a legend in her own time by garnering the adoration of the world media. A skillful, self-promoting innovator, Lady Mendl was also very good at her job. She helped update the design of high-end homes from darker Victorian styles to fresher designs that featured soft colors and eighteenth-century French furniture. Among her elite residential clients were families like the Vanderbilts and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

De Wolfe also notably decorated interiors for the Colony Club and for what is now the Frick Museum in New York, all before World War I. Thanks in large part to Lady Mendl, the word “decorator” came into existence and the art of interior design began drawing the interest of the mainstream public.

Eleanor McMillen Brown was one of the most influential early interior designers as well as a serious presence in New York’s high society scene. She was also a serious professional. Brown founded the legendary design firm McMillen, Inc. in 1924, and then ran it for nearly six decades. In that time, her firm never strayed from the McMillen style: a reassuring traditionalism with a contemporary flair and feminine look that still has an enormous appeal to owners of rambling summer cottages in Southampton. To this day, McMillen, Inc. remains one of the best, most professional interior design firms in the country.

Another socially connected “lady” designer from New York and Philadelphia’s elite set, Dorothy Draper, will forever be remembered for her use of large floral prints on fabrics and paper. Founder of Dorothy Draper Design, she was a master at using oversized furniture that was custom-built for a specific area. Draper did her part to help bring America out of the doldrums of the Depression and World War II by using bright colors and large-scale items to remodel commercial spaces like the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia.

Other Pioneering Superstars

Of course, for decorators who needed the money, making a living from interior design didn’t begin to factor into the equation until the moniker “interior designer” grew out of the fashionable world of the socialite decorator and ran into the bloodstream of the American popular culture.

In the early part of the twentieth century, aspiring designers on the outside of the society scenes in New York, London, and Paris saw the public’s growing interest in design as an opportunity to make a living doing what they loved. Scores of young designers, like you, leapt at the chance.

Soon, the American public began to see work from a diverse cast of trendsetting “superstar” interior decorators who established their names on talent alone and had few society connections or little formal design education. Some of the notable pioneers in the field are mentioned below.

Syrie Maugham introduced the “white look” to American design in the early 1920s and, like many designers of her time, kept a shop and sold goods as well as her design services. Maugham was an excellent mentor to a number of designers and is still remembered today for the style and wit she employed in her designs.

Rose Cumming, an Australian who came to America during World War I, was another talent who demonstrated that women could be very successful interior designers. A self-described shopkeeper at heart, Cumming enjoyed the idea of never knowing who might walk through her shop door with a new challenge, work of art, or project. The creator of many memorable fabrics and wall coverings, many of which designers still use to this day, Cumming was mentored by famed New York decorator Mary Buel and drew from that experience to create one of the best-known brands in interior design.

Michael Taylor was another great example of an interior designer with superb branding skills, and was a revolutionary whose influence helped shape a new generation of design artists. Formally trained in San Francisco, Michael was one of a group of young designers who came out of interior design schools just after World War II. The founder of Michael Taylor Designs in 1985, he was the first to bring natural materials like concrete, wicker, and timber in from the outdoors and did more for the “white room” than any designer since Elsie de Wolfe or Syrie Maugham. Before his death in 1986, Taylor’s over-scaled furniture designs had become virtually synonymous with the California lifestyle.

The career of one of our all-time favorite “gentleman” designers, Mark Hampton, is a study in diversity. Yet another excellent branding success story, Hampton was a student at the London School of Economics before switching gears to earn a master’s degree in fine arts from New York University. With a thoughtful and educated design style, Hampton began his career with David Hicks in London and then returned to New York to work with the design firm McMillen, Inc. Hampton eventually created his own design house, Mark Hampton, LLC, and is known for his design vocabulary, which uses color, print, and luxury finishes to create clean interior designs. His book, Mark Hampton on Decorating, is a must-read for any student of interior design.

Department Store Divas

As is the case with any “start-up” profession, most U.S. designers coming out of the early modern era never achieved superstar status, but some were still able to make a living doing what they loved.

One tier of the modern design community got its start designing homes for the clients of large upscale department stores like Bloomingdale’s, Harrods, Harvey Nichols, Sloans, and Liberty of London. These early department store designers made a nice living designing homes using in-house furnishings, fabrics, and accessories to create residential interiors that embodied the styles of their department stores and had that “Bloomingdale’s” or “Liberty” look.

The Retail Designer Cometh

Despite all the efforts of our pioneering forefathers (and fabulous foremothers), most interior designers in the middle part of the twentieth century found trailblazing to be tough going, especially on their bottom line. Unless you were a socialite decorator, a superstar in the field, or a department store designer, few were paid well enough to make a living strictly on their “art.”

An enterprising solution to the modern problem of “how to make money doing what you love” was to supplement one’s creative passion by starting hybrid businesses, where designers owned and operated retail spaces while offering free design services to their clientele. Following in the footsteps of Rose Cumming and Syrie Maugham, designers who embraced the model of the retail merchant/interior designer found they were able to support their passion for design by procuring inventory (for clients) through wholesale distributors in large metropolitan area design centers.

Take a look around one of today’s design meccas (London, New York, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong) and you’ll notice these pioneer retail designers carved out a prosperous segment of the industry that still thrives today. But if you ask the opinion of a “superstar” or “pure designer,” you’ll find that some take issue with their retail brethren’s hybrid business model. Why?

Because some “pure designers” don’t believe designers should be earning the bulk of their income as merchants or salespeople. Ask us, and we’ll tell you it doesn’t matter how you do it, just as long as you do it.

Furniture Boom

Socialite decorators, superstar designers, department store divas, and retail designers weren’t the only design games in town in the middle part of the twentieth century; yet another business model materialized just in time to play a key role in the interior design boom of the 1950s. Large furniture chains like Ethan Allen capitalized on the growing public demand for custom home furnishings by opening stores around the country. Their timing could not have been better.

Like their booming department store competitors, custom furniture stores played a key role in the advancement of the designer cause by minting yet another new job title for young decorators: the furniture store designer. To this day, these in-house interior stylists assist clients with the purchasing, design, and placement of customizable interior furnishings for homes and offices.

Try socializing with a few furniture store designers and you’ll find that most aren’t (yet) the high-end design divas they always aspired to be, but they’re still artists pursuing their dreams while making a buck and satisfying a huge consumer demand.

Like Jazz, an American Art

Though practiced all over the world for some three hundred years, many consider the rise of the modern interior designer to be, like jazz, a fundamentally American creation. Some historians attribute this rise to the favorable times in which the American designer emerged and flourished, while others cite specific factors like:

• A humming economy after the end of World War II

• The thriving American media that exposed the impressionable masses to glamorous interior visions from superstar designers

• A never-before-seen baby boom from a war-torn nation of new couples

• A great family migration from the big cities to the suburbs

• The founding of professional interior design associations

Without a doubt, America helped to broaden greatly the appeal of interior design by taking it out of the realm of the elite and into the world of anyone who could afford it. As an American art form, it empowered many designers to create styles for a much wider audience than ever before. This was not so in the rest of the world.

Finally, one can’t disregard the impact of the “domestic decade” (the 1950s) on the modern design boom. Who was going to decorate all those new family homes in the suburbs? You guessed it: a new generation of interior designers.

EARLY CAREER TRACKS

Believe it or not, although some designers were earning fine arts degrees, the study of interior design was, for years, taught through the home economics department. To this day, some design degrees are still obtained under the home economics umbrella. If you find that to be an archaic pairing, you’re not alone.

To whom do you think a home economics degree...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Designs on an Industry: It’s Not a Job, It’s an Adventure
• Chapter 2: The State of Interior Design: Staking Your Claim in a Boom Industry
• Chapter 3: Cutting Your Teeth in the Real World: Do You Have the Chops?
• Chapter 4: Understanding Design Segments: The Art of Interior Design
• Chapter 5: Plunging Off the Designer High Dive: On Starting Your Own Business
• Chapter 6: Defining Your Dream: Understanding Models, Pricing, and Fees
• Chapter 7: Marketing Your Business: Networking, Public Relations, and Advertising
• Chapter 8: How to Attract Clients: Selling Yourself in the Design World
• Chapter 9: Setting Up Your Design Studio: Getting It Right the First Time
• Chapter 10: Building Your Village: Procurement, Delivery, and Installation
• Chapter 11: Client Management: Game-Planning Your Design Business
• Chapter 12: The State of Interior Design: Now and Beyond
• Index