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.