The Top Five Traits of Highly Effective Interior Designers
by Wendy Croix
Interior Design School Review Columnist
Designers of interiors, whether in school or out, must have a "designer's personality" if they are to succeed in the highly competitive field of interior design. Do you have the right stuff?
Designing interiors for a living. What could be better? Schools are full of hopeful interior design students, drawn by the bright job prospects. Top design students go on to do interiors professionally because they marry their schooling to these five temperament traits:
- Psychological Diplomacy. Good designers read the interiors of people as well as they create the interiors of environments. A touch of Freud helps you discover what your clients really want, and satisfied clients love to show off those perfect interiors you designed.
- Practical Artistry. Passion for design and uncanny sensitivity to interior spaces - two gifts that school alone can't give. But design school does give you the skills to turn your great imagined designs into fully realized interiors.
- Clear Communication. Interior designers must communicate their ideas in writing, through images, and via conversation. Whether you're talking to clients, exchanging ideas with colleagues, supervising an assistant or taking orders from your boss, clear self-expression - and good listening - are essential.
- Time Management. Designing interiors means meeting deadlines. Time budgeting, project management, administrating, reviewing catalogs, ordering samples - daily, your lists will grow lists. You must be able to multi-task.
- Persistence. Interior design is an extremely competitive field. Both in interviewing for design positions and in interviewing clients, fortune favors the persistent. If at first you don't succeed, you must try again till you get the job or create the clientele of your dreams.
If you, the design student, can count these traits among your personal qualities, then an thriving interior design career will follow your schooling, as surely as summer follows spring.
About the Author
Wendy Croix, Ph.D. is a freelance writer, cultural critic and university professor. In her twenty years as a professional educator, Wendy has guided hundreds of students toward the careers of their dreams.
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