The Interior Design Profession

    Education is required if one is interested in pursuing an interior design career. To often do people assume that interior design is simply the decoration of an interior. It is much more than just decorating, interior designers create safe, functional, and visually appealing spaces. To create a safe space interior designers must go through years of schooling to learn how to design spaces that are safe for the public. During the education process, students also learn about the steps they must take during the design process in order to create an efficient and functioning space. During this process students will learn how to conduct research, think critically, analyze spaces, propose new ideas; and at the end of this process they will learn how to present their creation. This design process that students learn during their four years of education is the key element that decorators lack.
   
    Different from interior designers, decorators do not need an education to pursue their profession. Decorators generally are not concerned with the functionality or environmental impact a space has on their clients day to day life, for they are literally only decorating a space which is something that everyone could do. The TV networks tend to call decorators interior designers but they do not have the education nor the licensing or skill set that is required of a true interior designer. Interior designers must have a minimum of four years of college education, two years of experience under a licensed interior designer, and must pass the NCIDQ exam in order to become a licensed interior designer.

    In order for the interior design profession to be recognized as is its own separate profession and not grouped with decorating, I believe it is important that design professionals reach out to the general public and educate them about the differences of the two professions. I think this can be done by using social media outlets such as Facebook, blogs, Twitter, forums, etc. I think one of the most important changes that need to be made is to stop decorators from using the interior design title. I believe that if decorators continue to claim to be designers this confusion between the two professions will continue and the general public will keep associating interior design with decorating.