6 Essential skills you need to be an Interior Designer
People often ask me what are the essential skills you need to be an interior designer. For me, some are less obvious than others. Outside the core skills (which I will detail below), you need to be driven, focused, and patient. A project may start out as one idea and end up morphing into something quite different. You enter into a journey with each brief, some with twists and turns. A successful interior designer needs to have the ability to adapt and problem solve whilst keeping the original vision in mind is vital.
Here is my guide to the top 6 essential skills to be an interior designer.
1. Creativity
Understanding a look and mood the client wants, and being able to achieve this through colour, fabrics and furnishings brings creativity in at number 1. As colours come in a vast range of hues, having creative skills to create complimentary colour schemes is crucial. Sourcing fabrics and furniture alongside this is a balancing act, making sure they all work in harmony. Design can come with a certain set of rules, but you should also know when to break them.
2. Good Communication & People Skills
Interior designers’ work with a broad range of people and personalities. Whether you are dealing with clients, vendors or contractors, having good people skills is essential in this customer service-oriented business. Cultivating and building good relationships with clients will also help bring return business. Successful designers should be able to communicate their vision and adapt their style to suit different tastes. Clear communication is at the heart of this.
3. Spatial Awareness
Having a keen sense of spatial awareness will help you plan your interior design efficiently. Creating a beautiful space that considers the flow of movement and is useful to the clients’ requirements is vital. This is often one of the first considerations when designing an interior space.
4. Education of Design History and Trends
A good interior designer will be well-informed of all historic design styles and be able to mix them up if needed. Having a solid education in interior styles from French to Industrial or art deco to farmhouse gives a designer a source to take inspiration from. At the same time, keeping up with the latest trends allows designers to advise their clients of new ideas, styles and even new technologies.
5. Organisation
Equally as important as the creative process, the timeline and budget of every project will have to be managed very carefully by an interior designer. It’s the responsibility of the interior designer to ensure that things deliver on time and within budget. Time and money are the two pragmatic factors in interior design that gel everything together. Good organisational and negotiation skills are essential here – along with the ability to adapt ideas and problem solve when things don’t go to plan.
6. Critical Thinking
Every room in a home or space in a building has a specific function that needs to be addressed. A bathroom, kitchen or art gallery have very different functional requirements. The ability to adapt to how a client will use a space, along with maintaining the overall creative vision is a careful balancing act an interior designer will need to master. A family of four in the country will have wildly different needs to a young bachelor in a city. The ability to adapt to a wide range of clients and requirements for each space is essential for any interior designer
I hope you found my guide useful, maybe you are considering a career in Interior design? – if so, you must read my previous blog ‘A day in the life of an interior designer’ I think you will enjoy it.
Also see our other blog ‘Top 5 interior Design schools’ as getting an education in interior design will help lay the foundations for your future career.
As always, if you have any projects ideas you would like to discuss or even would like more information on our current ‘Crush of the week’, get in touch here.
Till’ next time,
Geraldine & Pia xx
6 Essential skills you need to be an Interior Designer
People often ask me what are the essential skills you need to be an interior designer. For me, some are less obvious than others. Outside the core skills (which I will detail below), you need to be driven, focused, and patient. A project may start out as one idea and end up morphing into something quite different. You enter into a journey with each brief, some with twists and turns. A successful interior designer needs to have the ability to adapt and problem solve whilst keeping the original vision in mind is vital.
Here is my guide to the top 6 essential skills to be an interior designer.
1. Creativity
Understanding a look and mood the client wants, and being able to achieve this through colour, fabrics and furnishings brings creativity in at number 1. As colours come in a vast range of hues, having creative skills to create complimentary colour schemes is crucial. Sourcing fabrics and furniture alongside this is a balancing act, making sure they all work in harmony. Design can come with a certain set of rules, but you should also know when to break them.
2. Good Communication & People Skills
Interior designers’ work with a broad range of people and personalities. Whether you are dealing with clients, vendors or contractors, having good people skills is essential in this customer service-oriented business. Cultivating and building good relationships with clients will also help bring return business. Successful designers should be able to communicate their vision and adapt their style to suit different tastes. Clear communication is at the heart of this.
3. Spatial Awareness
Having a keen sense of spatial awareness will help you plan your interior design efficiently. Creating a beautiful space that considers the flow of movement and is useful to the clients’ requirements is vital. This is often one of the first considerations when designing an interior space.
4. Education of Design History and Trends
A good interior designer will be well-informed of all historic design styles and be able to mix them up if needed. Having a solid education in interior styles from French to Industrial or art deco to farmhouse gives a designer a source to take inspiration from. At the same time, keeping up with the latest trends allows designers to advise their clients of new ideas, styles and even new technologies.
5. Organisation
Equally as important as the creative process, the timeline and budget of every project will have to be managed very carefully by an interior designer. It’s the responsibility of the interior designer to ensure that things deliver on time and within budget. Time and money are the two pragmatic factors in interior design that gel everything together. Good organisational and negotiation skills are essential here – along with the ability to adapt ideas and problem solve when things don’t go to plan.
6. Critical Thinking
Every room in a home or space in a building has a specific function that needs to be addressed. A bathroom, kitchen or art gallery have very different functional requirements. The ability to adapt to how a client will use a space, along with maintaining the overall creative vision is a careful balancing act an interior designer will need to master. A family of four in the country will have wildly different needs to a young bachelor in a city. The ability to adapt to a wide range of clients and requirements for each space is essential for any interior designer
I hope you found my guide useful, maybe you are considering a career in Interior design? – if so, you must read my previous blog ‘A day in the life of an interior designer’ I think you will enjoy it.
Also see our other blog ‘Top 5 interior Design schools’ as getting an education in interior design will help lay the foundations for your future career.
As always, if you have any projects ideas you would like to discuss or even would like more information on our current ‘Crush of the week’, get in touch here.
Till’ next time,
Geraldine & Pia xx
6 Essential skills you need to be an Interior Designer
People often ask me what are the essential skills you need to be an interior designer. For me, some are less obvious than others. Outside the core skills (which I will detail below), you need to be driven, focused, and patient. A project may start out as one idea and end up morphing into something quite different. You enter into a journey with each brief, some with twists and turns. A successful interior designer needs to have the ability to adapt and problem solve whilst keeping the original vision in mind is vital.
Here is my guide to the top 6 essential skills to be an interior designer.
1. Creativity
Understanding a look and mood the client wants, and being able to achieve this through colour, fabrics and furnishings brings creativity in at number 1. As colours come in a vast range of hues, having creative skills to create complimentary colour schemes is crucial. Sourcing fabrics and furniture alongside this is a balancing act, making sure they all work in harmony. Design can come with a certain set of rules, but you should also know when to break them.
2. Good Communication & People Skills
Interior designers’ work with a broad range of people and personalities. Whether you are dealing with clients, vendors or contractors, having good people skills is essential in this customer service-oriented business. Cultivating and building good relationships with clients will also help bring return business. Successful designers should be able to communicate their vision and adapt their style to suit different tastes. Clear communication is at the heart of this.
3. Spatial Awareness
Having a keen sense of spatial awareness will help you plan your interior design efficiently. Creating a beautiful space that considers the flow of movement and is useful to the clients’ requirements is vital. This is often one of the first considerations when designing an interior space.
4. Education of Design History and Trends
A good interior designer will be well-informed of all historic design styles and be able to mix them up if needed. Having a solid education in interior styles from French to Industrial or art deco to farmhouse gives a designer a source to take inspiration from. At the same time, keeping up with the latest trends allows designers to advise their clients of new ideas, styles and even new technologies.
5. Organisation
Equally as important as the creative process, the timeline and budget of every project will have to be managed very carefully by an interior designer. It’s the responsibility of the interior designer to ensure that things deliver on time and within budget. Time and money are the two pragmatic factors in interior design that gel everything together. Good organisational and negotiation skills are essential here – along with the ability to adapt ideas and problem solve when things don’t go to plan.
6. Critical Thinking
Every room in a home or space in a building has a specific function that needs to be addressed. A bathroom, kitchen or art gallery have very different functional requirements. The ability to adapt to how a client will use a space, along with maintaining the overall creative vision is a careful balancing act an interior designer will need to master. A family of four in the country will have wildly different needs to a young bachelor in a city. The ability to adapt to a wide range of clients and requirements for each space is essential for any interior designer
I hope you found my guide useful, maybe you are considering a career in Interior design? – if so, you must read my previous blog ‘A day in the life of an interior designer’ I think you will enjoy it.
Also see our other blog ‘Top 5 interior Design schools’ as getting an education in interior design will help lay the foundations for your future career.
As always, if you have any projects ideas you would like to discuss or even would like more information on our current ‘Crush of the week’, get in touch here.
Till’ next time,
Geraldine & Pia xx
