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".
