I enrolled and completed The Professional Interior Design Course with the Interior Design Academy in 2016. The course is a fantastic introduction to interior design and prepares you for a career in the industry. Importantly, it gives you a good grounding which you will build on once you work as a designer in the real world.
The course covers many interior design principles, from colours and textures to designing bathrooms and kitchens to furnishings, furniture and styling, and commercial and environmental design. The final tutorials require you to prepare a design and design documentation for a mock client, which gives you a good insight into how you would do this in the design world and helps bring together what you have learned during the course. You also get to make up a pretend interior design business. I went on to register mine and used it to prepare designs for wonderful clients.
The feedback from assignments and support you receive from your tutor is invaluable. On many occasions, your tutor will share additional information on certain topics and their experience in the industry. My assignment feedback was received a few days after the submission, so timely feedback was really important to my learning.
I have always loved houses, interiors, and design, so completing the course was a wonderful way to gain insight into these areas and help me understand my design style. I also learned that you can turn any passion into profit.
I established Inside Interiors in late 2018 and operate as a sole business owner from a purpose-built design studio in my home. I operate the business as a bit of a side hustle to other things happening in my life, and this gives me a great home and life balance around the needs of my family. I manage mainly residential design projects, from initial design consultations to helping clients work out what they want to achieve to complete new builds and renovations. I won the 2020 Houzz service award based on clients' wonderful testimonials and feedback. An accolade such as this is incredibly invaluable to my business and helps set me apart from my competitors.
There are so many things you need to do when establishing a business – don't rush into it; really plan it out and use the course modules for information, advice and templates that you can use and refine for your own business. It is really important to establish your brand and the services you will offer – think about what you want to offer and what you want your brand to say about you. It is also invaluable to know local suppliers and tradespeople you will either engage in doing work for you or recommend you to help them with their client's design.
Always read about design, buy a subscription to an interior design magazine (either online or hard copy magazine), read the articles and look at the picture. Look at how designers work and use colour and texture and how they bring balance and harmony to a space—always build on your knowledge and learnings from the course.
I would recommend the course through the Interior Design Academy.
