Need a good interior design career advice

My boss has promised me to give me minimum $10,000 US Dollars bonus after the project I am working on is completed. However, my Christmas bonus this year is just half of the amount I got last year, and the reason according to my boss is that the company does not make any money this year, so I wonder how I can be sure my boss will not use the same excuse and cut my bonus to half or not to give me any bonus at all after the project is completed?! It just does not make any sense. Moreover, I have been asking my boss to put whatever she promised in writing but she refused. Can anyone give me a good advice whether I should stay and work on the project till the end and hope my boss will not screw me over or I should just resign as soon as I get another job offer?

Punked by an empty promise?

My boss has promised me to give me minimum $10,000 US dollars bonus after the project I am working on is completed. However, my Christmas bonus this year is just half of the amount I got last year, and the reason according to my boss is that the company does not make any money this year, so I wonder how I can be sure my boss will not use the same excuse not to give me the bonus or cut my bonus to half after the project is completed?! It just does not make any sense, can anyone give me a good advice whether I should stay and work on the project till the end and hope my boss will not screw me over or I should just quit now and take another job that offers better salary?

Boss quality

When I witnessed many interior design firm owners who cut in front of people in the lines when shopping or driving, and then I saw them lied to their clients that they actually designed the space all by themselves without blinking their eyes. If these are the qualities needed for being a good interior design business owners, then I think interior design field really needs a revolution.

Talented Designers' Missions

When I read an article on the Mar 2, 2009 Issue of TIME magazine that talked about a group of psychologists did a research and found a person who speaks louder, speaks up, speaks well, and provides more answers towards a question in a group often is perceived as the leader of the group even if those answers are wrong. Basically what those researchers found was the leadership is often just loudership. This finding really fascinates me because it totally reflects the phenomenon I have been observing in my profession, the interior design field.

Just like the finding of the research, many of those very well-known interior designers are not those who actually did the designs for their well published projects. By working and interacting with many interior designers, I realized the people who usually had more creative and appropriate design solutions were those who really did not have too much to say. They were always those quiet ones who listened, and only spoke at the end of the design meeting or client meeting. On contrary, the higher ranking designers, usually the owners of the companies, were the ones talked from the beginning to the end, provided lots of ideas, described their visions of designs up and down, left and right, in both design meeting with the company employees and the client meeting with the clients, but really did not know what they were talking about. Many of them cannot even draw a table or a chair correctly. They constantly provided their clients inappropriate design solutions which often needed to be corrected by their employees. In the constructions sites, those design company owners who usually only went to the construction sites probably once a month often acted like they know the job site situations better than anyone else by talking very loudly and directing the contractors to do things that were totally opposite to what those employed designers had directed previously in order to show they are the ones know everything and they are the ones in charge, and when errors occurred, those employed designers always had to reverse what their bosses’ said at the job sites and went back to the old ways in order to correct the mistakes. Behind the beautiful photographed project pictures on the magazines, behind the close doors of many those famous interior design companies, these kinds of scenes repeatedly happened over and over. Sometimes, I wonder why so many consumers are still willing to take the risk and hand over their big checks and big houses to those famous designers to design and manage? What if their employees, those who really know the designs, did not discover the mistakes their bosses made or simply didn’t dare to speak out and against their bosses’ orders? Who is going to pay for those design mistakes at the construction sites? Well, it will not be those famous designers or the contractors, but it will eventually be you, the consumers.

Study also has shown the creative individuals are usually introverted and quiet. Unfortunately, being introverted and quite in this competitive interior design business really does not help those real designers to advance their own careers much. In many social events where many potential clients will be, those quiet introverts usually either avoid attending or attend but stand at the corners and not to socialize with people which reduces their personal career opportunities tremendously. On contrary, those well-known interior designers fly around every corner of the social events like social butterflies end up getting all of the business leads and prospects.

Maybe it is because those famous interior designers know they really do not know so much about their professions, they are often very insecure about their employees-those real designers, so besides having their employees sign all kinds of non-competitive agreements, they usually do not publish their employee’s names on the design magazines when they published any interior design project that was actually designed by their employees. By keeping their employees’ names in the dark, those famous designers ensure their employees will always remain un-known to you.

Because I don’t think it is fair for the famous designers to keep making all the money and the real designers keep doing all the work, or for you, the consumers, to take the risks of paying those un-necessary fees just for the “big names” or for covering the design mistakes made by the famous designers, I have decided to create this website and provide you the different kind of platform to search for interior designers. Most interior designer searching websites out there really do not and cannot differentiate the famous designers and those really creative ones, but we have developed unique ways to identify those real talented interior designers and filter out those designers who are just talkative social butterflies.

Usually those famous designers cannot design on their own, so they must hire someone who really knows the design to work for them, so in addition to the already over-priced design fees those famous designers will charge you, they must also charge you the “overheads” to cover the costs of hiring those real interior designers who actually perform the work. So, why not just hire those real designers who really perform the work directly?! It is making not only the design sense, but also the financial sense. Moreover, we do not charge a dime from any interior designer who posted the profile on our website so we do not have any conflict of interest. Therefore, we will not advertise any designer just because he or she simply can afford the expensive ads like those on other interior designer searching websites or interior design magazines. So, please sit back, relax, and start searching for the right interior designers for your current and future projects via Talenteddesigners.com

ASID Worth it?

Time to pay ASID membership fee, but what does ASID do for you? Well, depending on if you have your own design firms. If you have your own business, ASID provides a great platform for you to advertise your firm, but if you work for someone else, ASID really does not help you that much. Why? if you work for another designer, how are you going to use ASID to advertise yourself?! Moreover, people who come to ASID website to look for a designer, they will contact those who own companies, not those who work for someone else. Here is the best part, the design firm owners pay exactly the same amount of membership fee as their employees while the income difference between them is huge.

Pretentious interior design business and professional events

Every time I went to those interior design events at the showroom when I was working for another company, I had always tried to socialize with other designers, but every time when they asked me what my company's name was, and I answered I didn't have my own company, I worked for someone else, and those designers always turned around and left. I know I was poor when I worked for my greedy boss, but it was not my fault, I was poor which did not mean I was not a good designer. I helped my boss make a lot of money! Now, I treat the designers who work for someone with respect, and because those un-happy experiences, I never really enjoyed any interior design event even after I do have my own business now. I hate the pretentiousness.

ASID, say what?!

Discussed about how useless ASID membership for those un-established interior designers before, here is another example. ASID recently launched a service on line that allows design firms comparing fees to their competitors. How is that going to help those interior designers who do not own design firms?! and yet, they have to pay the same amount of membership fee as those interior designers who own companies and will enjoy this new service. That is wrong!

Used to the ultimate

I spent around $800 to get myself LEED certified and my employer never wanted to pay for the classes, books, or exam fees, but they mentioned my LEED status on company's website, ads, and business cards when advertising, and that is low.

Company's Strengths

At an office meeting talking about marketing strategy and was told to list the strengths and uniqueness of the firm, and then we all came up with some of them that we thought other design firms do not have, and when I analyzed what everyone wrote in more depth, those strengths and uniqueness were all listed on my resume, but why all these good characteristics of mine did not translate to my salaries? Well, when I was told I could not have a salary raise due to the bad economy while the owner of the firm still could go on the luxury cruise vacations, purchase an expensive car, or remodel home, I wonder why.

Integrity in interior design

Many people mentioned about integrity in interior design field usually was about billing related issues such as designers bought very inexpensive things from foreign countries or whole salers but marked up 200% - 300% of the whole sale price and sell them to their clients. For me, that is stealing. However, there is another kind of stealing in this business which is tweaking other designers' designs to become their own. To me, it is just like piracy. In China, you can buy name brand stuff in very low price, and after you look into the trade marks, they are always missing one letter or spell one letter wrong, even if the manufacturer changed one letter of the trade marks, it is still considered piracy. Many interior designers including some of those famous ones do not want to spend too much time on design developing, they want to move from one project to the next quickly in order to make more money, they cut corners on design development. They read different magazines and "borrow" this idea and that idea and combine them together or make small changes on other people's designs and become their own, for me, that is also stealing. If the only thing they know is tweaking other people's designs, why not calling themselves interior tweakers?! Have some dignity and integrity!

Is 4-year interior design college education wasting time?

I spoke to an interior designer today who told me she was graduated from an university in Ohio and was majored in interior design. I was shocked since there are so many interior designers out there do not even have any interior design related education. I told her that she and I were the minority in this field. Despite of her success in this field, she thinks the 4-year college was totally wasting time because there are so many people in this field do not have the interior design related education and yet still make big bucks. She said she could have used the 4 college years to make even more money by starting early and be student loan-free. I totally agree with her. Don't give me wrong, I think the college education is important, but if I can turn the clock back, I would not choose interior design as my major. I would choose business administration as my major and golf as my minor so I can easily run an interior design business and meet wealthy clients on the golf course.

Interior Design Career Gridlocks

Interior design is a competitive business, design firm owners have plenty of tricks to prevent their employees from becoming their future competitors, besides asking you to sign non-competition agreement, here are some tricks usually employers used to block their employees' career path:


1. Dividing Tasks: You will only be asked to perform certain task(s). If you are a CAD drafter, then you will only do AutoCAD, you will never be asked to do purchasing, estimating, or supervising construction sites, or if you do purchasing, you will never get the chance to do AutoCAD or estimating, or you will only supervise construction sites without ever being asked to draw, purchase, or estimate. Even if you are asked to do CAD drafting, purchasing, job site supervision, you will never be asked to do contract signing, profit, over head, mark up calculations. By doing that, you will never be able to become a real professional interior designer because you do not know all aspects of design but few.

2. Selective Learning Opportunities: When you take CE courses, usually your employers will let you take those classes are solely about interior design, not those classes that will teach you how to run interior design business or how to do marketing.

3. Keep You In The Dark: You work your butt out on a project, but when the project is enrolled for a design competition or wins an award, your name will never be mentioned, or when the project is published on the magazines, your name will never be listed on the magazine. By keeping you in the dark, your talent will never be recognized, so for the potential clients out there, you will always be unknown to them.

Usually when the employer him/herself is a very talented and creative designer, he/she will be less likely to use these tricks on their employees, those who use these tricks are often the ones who do not have any talent or creativity but just business savvy. So, if you realize your employer is using these dirty tricks on you, please resign as soon as possible. Otherwise, you will never become a successful interior designer.

Admired or Punked?

When I was working for a designer, I was always put on the front line to deal with contractors, vendors, and millwork shops. When the work was delayed or the craftsmanship was not met, I was always the one confronted those people. I always wondered why everytime when bad news happened at the job site, my boss was always angry at the office but all over the sudden became a nice person at the job site, I asked "why were you so angry with the contractor at the office but when you saw him at the job site, you always acted so nice?" My boss said " because I want you to be in charge, you are the project manager, so I want to give you the full responsibility, and I don't want to step on your toes." Initially, I was thinking " wow! I must have done great work so my boss trusted me to handle things all by myself." Later on when I went out on my own and I bumped into the contractor I used to work with, I was asking how is business, he replied, great, then I was joking with him "any job for me?" he said " Na...no one dares to work with you.." I finally woke up. My boss made me piss off all of those contractors, vendors, millwork shops...etc to make me play the black cop in order to cut off my future referal opportunities from those people if I ever go out on my own. That is scary.

Selective Continuing Education Classes

Some interior design firms generously paid for their employees to attend CE classes, but usually those classes are selective, I remember my former employer told me to attend some classes, that classes came with 3 parts, but I was only notified on the 2nd and 3rd part of classes but not the 1st one, so I was wondering why, when I went to the 3rd part of class, the class provider mistakenly handed out the handouts for the 1st part of class, and I quickly read through the handouts and found the 1st class was about teaching interior designers how to run their own interior design firms, then I finally understood why my employer didn't want me to go to the 1st part of class.

Nature Selection in design field

I always thought this economy downturn will wipe out those companies that have bad reputation, well, what I see is many of those good companies are gone and bad ones still there, now I know why. There is a metal shop I used to work with, the owner was a very skilled metal smith who was extremely artistic and skilled, but the reality is that creative and artistic people usually are not business savvy, their artist mind just can't compete with their competitors who are more business minded but not skilled or artistic. So, now, those true craftsmen are all gone but those un-skilled, non creative businessmen all survived. That is freaking sad.

ASID, Dee Dee Dee!!

Most of interior designers in the US are the members of ASID (American Society for Interior Designers), they pay big bucks for the annual membership fee each year ($445 for 2011). However, I think this fee is a little bit too expensive for the interior designers who work for someone else. In the interior design business, the salaries between the interior designers who run their own firms and interior designers who work for someone else are very different, the $445 annual membership fee seems like it was made for those interior designers who own businesses. Most of the intermediate level interior designers who work for someone else make around $40k-$45k/yr, and the beginning level of interior designers' salaries can go as low as $25k/yr, so I wonder how they can feel comfortable to pay $445/yr to pay for something that will take such big chunk of money from their modest pay checks. Moreover, I feel ASID is only helpful for the well established interior designers who own businesses because they can use ASID's website to advertise their firms and network with other well established interior designers. There is no any well established interior designer on ASID's website wants to network with those interior designers who work for someone else because they don't bring them clients. There is no ASID industry member will want to associate with those interior designers who do not have their own firms because they can not sell stuff to those designers who do not have their own firms, of course, there is no any potential client will be willing to hire any interior designer who does not have his/her own business. So, I really do not see the $445 membership fee will do any good to those interior designers who don't run their own businesses. It is not like ASID will introduce wealthy clients to those interior designers who don't have their own businesses and help them establishing their own companies, so my take is - why bother?!! Maybe it is better to take that out from your business card so people will not misunderstood you have AIDS.

LEED Certified

I went "Green" because I realized I pooed green after eating lots of vegetables. 2 years and 5 months after passing the LEED exam, I finally found the purpose of it.

Am I a charity and do everything for free?!

When I just got into design business, there was a client came to me and acted like he was interested in hiring me and asked me whole bunches of interior design related questions and then never heard from him again. Later on, I found out he found a contractor by himself and started to build his house based on the suggestions I gave him just few weeks back. Well, a hard lesson learned, and I have never talking about any design detail until I'm hired since. There are a lot of people out there who are trying to save money by digging as much information as they can from designers and then cutting them off the hook. Low down dirty shame.

Only in South Florida

One of the contractor's sub-contractors arranged a meeting with the clients directly behind the designer's and contractor's backs and tried to pursuede the clients changing the designs. That was a fundamental business portoco screwed-up, and that just happened to me this week.

Students or competitors?

Some people suggested designers taking some interns and mentoring some interior design major students. Personally I think it is not to my business' interests at all. Why should I train my future competitors?! Those people who suggested people hiring interns are asking designers to commit career suicide. They have no idea nowadays where those students come from. A lot of them are from privileged families who have a lot of connections. Those so called "students" can simply open their own design firms without any interior design knowledge, education background, or related working experience by using their parents' money and taking advantage of their rich parents' social connections and generating unlimited client source. Those juniors can easily out-compete any designer out there who is like me who has many years of work experiences, holding an interior designer license, NCIDQ certified, LEED certified, interior design majored in college, and extremely creative. So, mentoring those "students" is like they already can kill me with bare hands and now I'm giving them pistols. It is April 1st, but I'm no fool.

Do they really care about your interior design businesses or just another way to make your money theirs?

During the economy downturn, I got many emails from those interior designers who asked me to take their classes, seminars, and webinars and learn how to get the clients, how to market yourself, how to advertise, how to run interior design business... Yeah right! I think those designers just got no clients, no jobs, so they found other ways to make money. I admire their quick thoughts in order to survive, but deeply feel piles of bull shits. When the economy was good, they would never share those business know-hows with anyone, now the market is in deep shit, and they all come out and start to teach people these things. Well, if there is no clients out there, no matter what kind of trick you learn, how fancy your facebook, twitters, or blogs look like, how search engine friendly your web site is, you will not get any client period! Moreover, if there were so many clients out there, those interior designers would not have so much time to give out seminars or classes, they would be so freaking busy working on their projects, and if their tricks were so good, how come they don't have any project to work on and have to spend all of their time on giving out seminars?! C'mon! If you are an interior designer, do what interior designers are supposed to do which is designing spaces, stop using this tough time exploitating other interior designers and wasting their time and money because in deep inside of your heart, you know whatever you teach them will not help them getting any clients because there is none!

Interior designer license or just a piece of paper?!

Many so called interior designers out there do not have any interior design related education or credential, they are not even talented or know how to draw, but because they have connections and are business savvy, they will be able to get clients and hire someone who knows how to design and draw to work on the projects. I would like to know how the interior designer license will be able to keep that kind of people from practicing interior design and protect the real interior designers?! I am not afraid of competing with other creative interior designers because my creativity is very competitive and I am confident I will survive in this business if I compete with other interior designers on creativity, drawing skill, and project management ability, but I can't compete with someone who was born to rich and have lots of connections because those people will take most of the potential clients on the market no matter what and people like me will end up working for those fake designers and making joke-like salaries. So, I really don't care about the governor is going to de-license the interior designers because interior designer's license really has not helped me a bit.

Who is the designer and who is the sales?!

When a car was built at the factory and sold by a dealership, what do you call the person who sold the car? the sales, duh! Well, so how come an employer who does not know any interior design who can hire a person doing all of the design work but the employer still can declair him/herself as the interior designer? Well, why can't we call the employer an interior design sales, or maybe we should start to call the car dealership's sales automobile designers?!

Design Trends or Sales?

I always received the newsletters from ASID which had many articles talking about kitchen design trends or green design trends...etc, for me, they are just bunches of companies trying to sell their products. Kitchen companies sell contemporary Minimalist kitchen cabinets detect Minimalist design trend is in. Furniture companies sell traditional style furniture say the traditional style trend is coming back and on the rise. The paint companies say the certain color trends will be popular the next coming season which the paint company happens to be the only one sells those colors they claimed to be in style. C'mon! Since when the design trends are detected by the businesses?! Aren't interior designers should be the ones detect the design trends?!

Tips of finding a right interior designer

There are many interior designers out there, but many of them do not have any formal interior design related education or necessary creativity. Here are some tips that will help you to find the best interior designer:

1. Check the credentials:

When interviewing interior designers, asking for a copy of NCIDQ certificate. NCIDQ stands for National Council for Interior Design Qualification. This organization gives out grusome exams twice each year to qualify interior designers. Interior designers must have 4-year BA or BS degree of interior design or 2-year associate degree related to interior design plus 2-year work experience as an interior designer in order to qualify to take this 3-part exam. Interior designers have to answer many multiple choice questions that test designers' professional experience and knowledge in interior design for the first 2 parts of exam and quickly finish up series of drawings to demonstrate the abilities to design an interior space in a very short time as the 3rd part of exam. Many interior designers I have seen working in the field for years could not even pass these 3 parts of exam all in once, many of them only could pass the first 2 parts of exam all in once but flunk the 3rd part of exam multiple times. For the designers who pass all 3 parts of exam, NCIDQ will issue a certificate with a 6-digit certificate number. Write down the 6-digit number and log onto www.ncidq.org to find out if the designer is NCIDQ certified.

If you want to design your house to be energy efficient, water concerving and eco friendly, you might want to hire a designer who is a LEED AP which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional. These LEED APs also need to pass a very difficult exam to be certified. You can easily find out if the designer is a LEED AP by logging onto www.usgbc.org and look for the designer in the LEED AP Directory.

At last, just like hiring a general contractor or a builder which you want to make sure he or she is state licensed. Nothing is different from hiring an interior designer. Make sure you ask for the copy of the license issued by the state government and write down the license number, and log onto the state's professional regulation department website to find out if the designer you are hiring is state licensed.

2. Ask for the designer's portfolios:

Looking at designers' portfolios not only helps you understand the designers' design styles and principles, but helps inspring you to find out what you really want for your future new home. However, most of designers will only show you those beautifully edited finished project photos done by professional photographer, but you should also ask for the design drawing set called construction documents which includes floor plan, furniture plan, lighting plan, reflected ceiling plan, electrical plan, finish plan, elevations, sections and details, and schedules, plus 3D perspectives. The reason to see these design drawings is to see if this designer is practicing "designs as it builds" design method. For maximizing the numbers of the projects he or she designs and minimizing the time spent on each project, many designers don't even design a space on paper in advance, instead, when the builder is building the house, the designer just goes to the construction site and looks at the space and starts to design on spot verbally. Projects done by this design method usually lack of sophisticated design details and creativity, and this kind of design method constantly caused un-necessary demolitions of the already built structures in order to allow the "later on" design ideas to apply. Also, mistakes can occur easily if any project is not designed or planned carefully on paper in advance, and usually the customers like you will be the ones to swallow these costly mistakes. If the designer can't show you a set of well drawn construction document with 3D perspectives, it is very likely this designer is practicing "designs as it builds", of course, he/she won't have any drawing to show you because everything was designed verbally at the construction site.

3. See free-hand sketches:

During design meetings, observes if the designer can express his or her design ideas through quick free-hand sketches. This is the best way to see if the designer can view space 3 dimensionally, without the ability to view space 3 dimensionally, the designer will not be able to visualize the scale and proportion correctly. Another benefit of seeing free hand sketches is to make sure the designer you are hiring is the designer who actually has the design talent, not those designers who simply are just good businessmen but knowing nothing about design. Of course, no one can stop you from hiring a "designer" who knows nothing about interior design but just business savvy. Those designers still can provide you the design service by hiring someone else who really knows the design to do the design work, but you should be very worried if those real designers resign while the project is under design or construction phase. It is like you always go to a very nice restaurant because you like the taste of the food, but one day you go there and realize the taste of the food changed, not as delicious as before, but the name of the restaurant is still the same, the owner is still the same, the waitress is still the same, well, but the original chef is gone...

4. Meet the design team:

Requesting to meet the entire design team members is very important, especially if you realize the designer you hired is not a real designer but just a businessman. Including those real designers in design meetings is very essential because you want your design needs to be expressed smoothly and efficiently directly to those real designers. Another benefit of knowing those real designers is maybe one day those real designers will be able to provide you the same or even better design service directly in the future in much lower cost because you just helped yourself cutting off the "middle man".

Taking the LEED exam?

Many of you are preparing LEED exam and trying to be LEED APs, but I will suggest you spending the time on playing golf which will be more beneficial to your businesses.

Advices to anyone who wants to study interior design at schools

If you have the following characteristics, you shouldn't study interior design and become interior designers. Otherwise, you will hit the career hurdles like you have never imagined before:

1. Introverted, not social: If you are not a social butterfly, the chance for you to meet the wealthies and establish the client base is low. Anyone who is born to rich or married to a wealthy will have more chances to become a successful interior designer than you do even if you have all the interior design education and credentials. This is especially hurting those creative individuals because most of creative people are usually quiet and not very social.
2. Not knowing wealthies, no connections: If you don't know wealthy people or well connected, no matter how creative you are or how well you can draw or design, you won't be able to compete with any designer who doesn't know anything about interior design but know many wealthy people because those well connected people will have more potential clients than you do.
3. Having Integrity: If you have huge integrity, then you shouldn't become an interior designer unless you are going to work for someone for the rest of your life because most of the interior designers started out on their own by taking away their ex-employers' clients. That is just what it is in this field. Other people's loss is your personal gain. That is how you climb up to the ladder.

Being an interior designer

After 11 years into the interior design business and designed celebrities' houses' such as the famous wrestler turned actor, The "Stone" and Former music mogul "Tummie" boy (I have to change the celebrities' names for confidentiality reason), what I have learned? alot, how much I have made? Not much! Why? because I had worked for somebody.

One thing I regret about entering this business is not knowing wealthies or having connections. I also blame myself for not being social or having "charisma". It seems like being a successful interior designer, the creativities and drawing skills are no longer necessary because many of the successful interior designers out there are either very social, talkative with lots of connections to the wealthies or very business savvy, they don't necessarily have any interior design education, credentials, creativities, or drafting skills, they only hire someone who has the design skills or background to work for them, and they claim all the credits and make all of the money. They pay very little to those real interior designers who did all the work, many of the senior level interior designers are making less than 50K/year but working like dogs. When their bosses published the projects on the magazines, those designers' names usually were not on there, so when the potential clients read the magazines, they came to the bosses if they want to have design work done for their houses or spaces.

Maybe it is for protecting their status quo or the sense of insecurity they have due to their own conciousness about how little they really know about the designs, those bosses usually divided the tasks for designers to do, some designers only do drawings, some do furniture /equipment purchasing, some do construction supervision, some do estimation, and some do bookkeeping or contract writing so they will never be able to learn the full procedures of interior design and know how to run the business. They also barely hire the interns because they simply just don't want to train their own future competitors. I don't blame their insecurity because they know anyone can easily take away their businesses just because the person who was born to the rich and has connections or who is business savvy.

I ask myself why interior design business is so screwed up? Unlike other businesses, a well known and famous doctor is well known and famous because of his/her great professional medical skills, a well known lawyer is well known because of his/her professional law related knowledge, a well known interior designer could just be a good businessman without knowing anything about interior design. Too many un-professionals lead the professionals in interior design field, no wonder we do not have the respect we deserve.

I met many very creative interior designers in this business who are just not very social or business savvy, they are usually introverted and quiet, but they shouldn't be punished for that! Why do they deserve to be enslaved by the businessmen and get paid with almost nothing? Why can businessmen hire interior designers and claim themselves interior designers but not interior designers hire businessmen to run their businesses and be called interior designers?! That is what ASID, NCIDQ, or IIDA really should do! To help those talented interior designers who do not know how to run business, who do not know rich people,  who do not have connections, or who are not good at socializing to be successful designers, the business owners, and prevent them from being design slaves hired by those fake designers who claim themselves interior designers but actually just bunch of businessmen.

Any of you out there who is looking for an interior designer to design your project, you absolutely have every right to go for those name brand interior designers who are actually just businessmen, but when you do that, please ask them to introduce you his/her entire design team and get to know those real interior designers work behind the scence and establish good working relationship with them. They might be the ones who would design your next projects with much lower price because you just helped yourself eliminating those "middle men".