A lot of people don't know the difference or that there even is a difference between those two titles. Well, there is and so today is your end of the week education class with Anna.
Interior Decorator
You typically see these people in the residential world of design although many of them are designers. Decorators do mainly what the word describes, they decorate a house, office, etc; however they are limited to changes that do not involve having to get a permit with the city. In this case they would have to use an architect/designer to get drawings developed and stamped in order to go to the city for approval.
Interior Designer
To call yourself an Interior Designer you have to have (in most cases) a 4 year degree from an accredited college, so many man hours working under a licenced designer, and have taken the 2 day NCIDQ test and passed. You also have to maintain a certain amount of continuing education credits and pay a yearly fee to maintain your licence each year. Okay, so why you ask would someone need this licence as opposed to just being an Interior Decorator? Well, if you work in the commercial side and want to survive you need your licence. Interior Designers have the ability to stamp drawings that go to the city for permit. In most cases for interior projects you can hire a designer without needing an architect to plan out and design your space, get drawings developed, and see it through construction. The limitation with designers is that we would need an architect when dealing with a structural change.
Tiffany and I are both Interior Designers at a company called AM Design Associates. We do mainly commercial projects, and office spaces are the majority of our workload. Let me walk you through one of our projects so you can see what we do here.
Programming/Space Planning
The first step is to sit down with the client and figure out their needs in the space, ie; how many offices they need, what spaces need to be next to what spaces, etc. This is the programming stage. Then after we figure that out we do a space plan for them at the chosen location. We do this on a computer program call AutoCad. Here is what it would look like:
Design Development
Next, we turn the 2-D drawing into 3-D. This is the phase where we design what the space is going to look like and what finishes we will use in the space. We usually would do several drawings, elevations and boards showing the client what it will look like. Some of these might look like this:
Construction Document/Construction Administration
After all designs are approved we move to developing construction documents that go to the city for permit. These would include plans on the wall locations, all electrical placement, lighting, and furniture. We also include elevations, sections, and details on how things will be built and put together by the contractor. We include everything the city will want to look at to make sure it meets all city codes and requirements. I won't bore you with what these look like. Lastly is construction administration. This step in the process is where we oversee the construction. We might go to weekly meetings and site visits to make sure everything is going as planned. We field any contractor questions and sign off on any changes that get made.
And finally, here are some finished photos of this space:
Thanks for sitting through my lesson! I bet you never thought you would learn something on this blog (ha, ha). I will post some more photos of projects we are working on or have worked on in the past in other posts.
Happy Learning!
Anna Landers
