What’s The Best Course To Do To Become An Interior Designer? – idbs.online

2 | The Best Interior Design Courses

The problem with interior design as a profession, however, is that the vast majority of people who want to become an interior designer, just want to create beautiful homes for families and work on small or non-complex projects. The good news is, that there is a strong market for this type of designer, the bad news is though, that this area of interior design has a mass amount of confused and incorrect information out in the world!

In most parts of the world, we don’t complicate this. We don’t put rules on interior design and we don’t pretend to be anything we’re not. In some places in the world (including some states in the USA) the title of interior designer is protected – as is the title of architect for example – so you can’t just call yourself an interior designer like we can pretty much everywhere else in the world.

If you feel that doing a vocational course in interior design is going to be the best route into the interior design world for you, then I would suggest looking out for courses that specifically give you the information relevant to the type of interior design work you want to do as an interior designer. For example, if you want to be more of a decorator or stylist, then a styling course will be more appropriate than one that goes into detail about using CAD and detailing lighting designs.

Also, looking out for some kind of accreditation MIGHT be necessary – although I wouldn’t dismiss courses if they haven’t got one. Accreditations give you an inflated sense of importance but all they do to a course is make it the same as every other course.

I’ve been through this process a few times now and what I see is that in order to check a box a course must include certain things. Yawn. Certain things that someone who doesn’t know anything about interior design has specified in order to make the accrediting job a lot easier for the accrediting body or so that they can justify their fees to “monitor the quality” of a specific course or program. (This is a whole other article so I won’t go on about this here, it’s just a note not to dispel a course you’ve fallen in love with if it hasn’t got a stamp of “approval” by no one that matters).

I’ve seen fantastic courses with zero stamps and I’ve seen the worst courses on the planet with accolades shining out of every orifice – that still won’t get you any closer to becoming an interior designer.

Again, we have to single out those unique states in the USA who do protect the title of interior designer and inflate the importance of interior decorators by “certifying them” and therefore have to have courses that are accredited by bodies such as the CID. If this is relevant to your state in the USA, I feel for you, as you’ll have another task to add to this and that will be needing to check what accreditations your courses (supposedly) need as well. But don’t fall into the trap of thinking it’s the only way.

There is a lot of scaremongering going on by bodies who try to tell you that you have to be accredited but it’s absolute nonsense. Check it out for yourself and get the facts – don’t just listen to what someone has written on a blog (like this one!) Call a government body in your state (if this applies to you) and get the answers from someone who knows and understands the law SPECIFICALLY to the state you want to practise interior design in.

And just a note about the BIID. The British Institute of Interior Design, besides its impressive name is not a governing body and has zero power over interior designers anywhere in the world. It is simply a club that you can be part of, just like the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects). Just a side note – I have nothing against the BIID or the RIBA, in fact, I feel that they should govern the title of architect in the UK over the current body.

Phew. Now that, that’s out of the way, here are my list of top interior design vocational courses – I have chosen online ones because the majority of people who want to do a course like this are thinking of transitioning into interior design and are most probably working full time or working around a family (ok the KLC one is an online degree – but it’s exceptional and I wouldn’t propose anything else!)

  • USA | New York Institute of Art & Design Online Interior Design Course – CLICK HERE
  • EUROPE & UK | Online Structured Interior Design Degree – CLICK HERE
  • AUSTRALASIA | International School of Colour & Design – Online Certificate In Interior Decoration (MSF40113) – CLICK HERE … although if you could make it to study in Sydney, I’d choose this course from the Sydney Design School: Advanced Diploma of Interior Design MSF60118 – CLICK HERE