Design or Decorating?

Many people are not sure if they should look for an interior designer or a decorator to design their space. Before deciding who to hire, you must understand what are the differences between an interior designer and a decorator*.

 

Many  people use the terms "interior design" and "interior decorating"  interchangeably, but these professions differ in critical ways.

Interior  design is the art and science of understanding people's behavior to create  functional spaces within a building. Decoration is the furnishing or adorning of a space with fashionable or beautiful things. In short, interior designers  may decorate, but decorators do not design. Interior designers apply creative and technical solutions within a structure that are  functional, attractive and beneficial to the occupants' quality of life and  culture. Designs respond to and coordinate with the building shell and acknowledge the physical location and social context of the project. Designs  must adhere to code and regulatory requirements and encourage the principles of  environmental sustainability. The interior design process follows a systematic and coordinated  methodology—including research, analysis and integration of knowledge into the  creative process—to satisfy the needs and resources of the client. Many U.S. states and Canadian provinces have passed laws requiring interior designers to be licensed or registered—documenting their formal education and training—and many of them specifically require that all practicing interior  designers earn the NCIDQ Certificate to demonstrate their experience and qualifications. By contrast, interior decorators require no formal training or licensure.

 

*Information provided by NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Qualification)

Tip on Selecting The Right Designer

The best way to know if an interior designer is artistic and able to visiualize space three dimensionally is to ask the designer presenting his/her design ideas with quick free-hand sketches (as shown on the left) right in front of you during a design meeting. Usually when designers are lack of ability to visualize space three dimensionally, they will not be able to judge the scale or proportion accurately during the design development phase, so after the space is built, those designers will have to constantly make changes or adjustaments at the job site because they only realize the elements they designed do not have the right scale or is not proportioned compared to the space overall. Changing designs at the job site usually will increase the costs and delay the construction. You might also have seen some designers out there used computer generated 3D drawings as the presentation tool which is fine. I also use those programs. However, the person who can use fancy 3D computer drafting programs does not mean he/she is artistic, instead, he/she might just be a good computer program operator. Therefore, it is hard to judge if the person is artistic by looking at the computer generated drawings. I also encourage you to see the free-hand sketches done right in front of your eyes because you can be very sure the designer you are about to pay a lot of money for his/her name is artistic and creative him/herself, not their employees or someone they outsourced.