Jump into the world of interior design with this comprehensive lesson, where you'll learn about various business models in interior design and considerations to keep in mind when setting up your own practice. From sole proprietorship to partnerships and corporations, to ethical considerations and professional development, this lesson lays the groundwork for a successful interior design career.
Key Insights
- The article discusses various types of business models available for interior designers such as sole proprietorship, partnerships, and corporations, each with its own advantages and considerations for operations, billing, and liability.
- Professional development, maintaining ethics, and legal considerations, including licensure and insurance, are vital aspects of running a successful interior design business, with various organizations and programs available for support and growth in the field.
- There are several professional organizations available to interior designers, including the American Society of Interior Designers, International Interior Designers Association, U.S. Green Building Council, and the National Kitchen and Bath Association, among others, that offer resources, networking opportunities, and education to stay current in the field.
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Welcome to Lesson 3, Introduction to Interior Design. In this lesson, we'll be talking about the business of interior design. We'll talk about anthropometrics and how it relates to interior designers and their goals.
And I'll be discussing Project 2, your second assignment within this course. Okay, to start us off, we're going to talk about the business of interior design. And I'd like to speak on the types of businesses that are out there.
Now, there are a variety of different business types, and I think it's important for you to be aware of this. Sole proprietorship essentially is when you work on your own as an independent contractor. Sometimes freelance designers will utilize this.
And this business type is really designed for an individual that would like to do the entire business on their own. And interior designers can sometimes obtain a retail license, and there are ways to bill for your projects as a sole proprietor. So one is to bill on an hourly basis.
Another is for you to bill on a project basis. So the client has a certain budget, and you take a small percentage of that budget, and you charge your services, your drawings for that. When you retain a retail license, this gives you also the ability to sell furniture.
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So a manufacturer may sell you a piece of furniture for 20% off because you're a designer. And then you have the opportunity to either extend that discount to the client, or you can upcharge the client and essentially earn a certain amount of income based off of commission. Now, the second type is a partnership.
And a partnership typically involves two or more individuals. They come together to form a business relationship. This business is co-owned, which means all profits and or losses are shared between all parties.
This is very important to know. Corporation, or an LLC, is a legal entity that is separate from the owner or the shareholder. Now, to understand this, you have to understand that the business could continue or will continue even if the owner leaves.
So they're two separate entities. The owner does have limited liability, and a lot of times this is used to protect themselves for insurance liability. Now, some of the considerations with these businesses you may want to think about is licensing.
Licensing, if you hire an architect to help you, we want to make sure that the architect is licensed. And actually, as an interior designer, you can go for what's called the NCIDQ, which is a national recognized exam that allows you to become a certified interior designer. Some other aspects of considerations could be accounting, how you're billing for the projects, and how you're keeping track of your accounting.
And a very important consideration when it comes to business is ethics. Now, ethics involve making appropriate professional decisions, both with the client and throughout the business. So, as an ethical firm, you're being honest with the client, you're being professional, you're following codes, regulations, and this enhances the ethical nature of your business itself.
Now, in response to that, we could also talk about professional development. This is a way of developing yourself. You know, in the field of interior design, the field is changing daily, right? We now know that there's artificial intelligence making its way into the world.
We know that clients are asking and demanding for different things now than they did 20 years ago. Well, the wonderful thing about the field is you can constantly go to workshops, lectures, and you can train yourself to stay up to speed. CEUs, or continuing education units, is utilized when a professional wants to stay up-to-date in the field.
And another consideration is legal matters. Now, it's very important that you own some type of insurance as a business owner. It is possible for something to go wrong as an interior designer, and although there are many parties involved, the chance of one or more of those parties potentially making a mistake could cause a liability or a legal issue.
So, it is very important that you consider having insurance as a business owner. Now, in interior design, the business of interior design, there are a variety of different organizations, and there are a lot more organizations that you're seeing here. But just so you understand the most important ones that I see out there on a yearly basis, the first is the American Society of Interior Designers.
There are American Society of Interior Designers chapters all over the world. There's a San Diego chapter, there's a San Francisco chapter, there's an Atlanta chapter, and San Diego Interior Designers Association has meetings, they have workshops, it allows you to stay up to speed in the field of design. Now, the IIDA, the International Interior Designers Association, takes it into the international realm.
Very similar to ASID, except you're now coordinating with designers all over the world. Now, another organization that you may see is the American Institute of Architects, or AIA, and USGBC, which is the U.S. Green Building Council. And this is an organization where individuals focus on sustainability and look at trends and ways to progressively improve sustainability in projects.
You may decide to be a kitchen and bath designer as an interior designer. And if you do, there's the NKBA, which is the National Kitchen and Bath Association, which again allows for meetings, for lectures, for you to stay up to speed with what's happening in the kitchen and bath arena of interior design. And then we have the IDEC, which is the Interior Designers Education Council.
This is, myself, I've been a member in the past, and the Interior Designers Education Council looks at how to best create authentic education that teaches our students to progress as the field progresses in the field of interior design, whether it's sustainability, looking at individual strategies for functionality or even aesthetics. And then you have LEED, L-E-E-D, and this is Leaders in Energy and Environmental Design. Now, you might have heard, oh, this building has a gold LEED standard.
Well, there's a series of checklists that buildings have to meet, interiors and architecture, to become LEED certified. And depending on how many sustainable aspects that you incorporate, or basically how many things you check off that checklist, will determine how many LEED points you receive for your project. And there's a whole organization out there that incorporates this.
