Working in interior design is incredibly rewarding. You’ll meet many exciting people and face multiple creative challenges allowing you to fulfill your clients’ dreams!
The professional title of “interior decorator” barely existed only 10 years ago. In recent years, home staging has exploded and it is often used as an experience enhancer for home selling everywhere - from small towns to large cities.
As the industry grows, so does the competence and level of colleagues and competitors. As the profession broadens, there are more opportunities to educate yourself and develop your skills. As an interior decorator, you can specialize within any areas of your choosing such as public environments, offices, digital productions or private homes. You could even become an interior design influencer!
It is possible to become an interior decorator without an education. In fact, some of the best Nordic interior decorators are self-taught and passion-driven, inspiring interior decorators everywhere. However, in general it’s a lot harder to succeed as an interior decorator without an education.
If you are ready to invest in your interior design career and strengthen your skills, it’s advisable to get yourself a solid foundation with skills in coloring, material science, drawing floor plans and styles, presentation techniques, marketing, design and style history and more. This way, you can advance faster in your career. Instead of spending years working for a low fee or even for free just to gain experience, you begin your new career as a certified interior decorator with your skills on paper. It will help you feel confident in your new role.
What does “learning by doing” mean?
We value the term "learning by doing" highly and believe that internships in combination with our courses is the recipe to success. We also believe theory mixed with practical exercises is a winning concept. Therefore, almost every course lesson includes a practical exercise with feedback from our teachers. It’s important to learn guidelines and rules for decorating. That way you can also break them. Controversial, right? Sure, but that’s what it is to work creatively! You need to know the rules to lay a foundation for your project. Then you can tweak and make minor changes that make a big difference. Sometimes you’ll even go against the rules, but to be able to do that you need to know the rules. After your course you’ll have multiple projects to include in your portfolio for future job applications!
Interior decorator, interior stylist or home staging consultant?
Home Staging Consultant A Home Staging consultant styles homes for sale. The purpose of home staging is usually to attract many potential buyers so the home can be sold quickly at the highest possible price. The difference between styling a home for sale versus styling a home in which someone has to live or work is that home staging does not have to be practical. The focus is entirely on the aesthetics.
As a Home Staging Consultant, you often work closely with real estate agents.
Interior Decorator An interior decorator decorates environments such as private homes, offices, public environments and hotels. An interior decorator creates environments for someone to live or work in. Therefore, the required knowledge in e.g. coloring, lighting and furnishing is much higher than for a home staging consultant. Unlike the home staging consultant, an interior decorator has clients with very specific requirements. Often, the work of an interior decorator includes problem solving to achieve the optimal interior design based on the client’s wishes and needs.
Interior stylist Stylist assignments are mostly about aesthetics. As an interior stylist, you may work with styling for still photography (various camera angles, flat lay, moving image) but you may also style entire room environments to sell a product or style homes for sale. The interior stylist's work may also include styling and designing environments for trade fairs, catalogues, magazines, commercials or TV shows.
The work of a stylist is not just about aesthetics. In addition to being responsible for coloring, product selection, lighting and so on, you must also maintain a dialogue with the photographer, client, etc. The stylist may often act as project manager between different parties involved in a project.
What does the future hold for interior decorators?
Many talk about "the death of retail", meaning the traditional store concept is about to disappear and be replaced with experiences and lifestyle concepts. What does this mean for those who work with interior design as Visual Merchandisers (someone who builds shop windows and signage, for example) or sales person in a physical store? Well, if you’re a Visual Merchandiser, you need to start thinking about the 360 experience and start adding scent, feel, tactile materials and experiences. As a salesman in an interior design store, you need to broaden your knowledge in areas such as materials and various environments. Interior designers will continue to be needed for home staging, digital productions and magazines.
Our career course
We are incredibly happy to see developments in the interior design and styling industry and hope to emphasize the value of getting certified as an interior designer. Your education will speak volumes regarding your credibility and trustworthiness when you enter the field.
If you want to read more about our career course, click the link below: