Category: Interior Design News

A college’s interior design school will soon host a symposium about the past and future of interior design. The University of Kentucky will shed some light on the industry’s rich history and the future of design to students and other people interested in design.

A professor in the School of Interior Design, Joseph A. Rey-Barreau, shares some information and thoughts that are interesting to all design enthusiasts.

Humans have had an interest in designing interiors as far back as the cave paintings drawn 17,000 years ago in what is now France, but the profession of interior design is relatively new as it is practiced today in the United States.

During the past 40 years, interior design has evolved from a focus on residential work to one that now draws on many disciplines to enhance the function, safety and aesthetics of all types of interior spaces. To explore the changes that have occurred in the profession, and to look at the field’s next 40 years, the University of Kentucky School of Interior Design will host a conference next weekend called “40+: Rethinking Design.” The symposium, open to the public but most attractive to design professionals, will consider the rapidly changing context in which interior design is practiced and analyze the role the profession will play in the future.

Read more from Kentucky.com

IF YOU GO

“40+: Rethinking Design” symposium

What: UK School of Interior Design hosts a symposium to explore how the field has changed and is changing. Speakers include Prataap Patrose on socially responsible design, Robin Guenther on hospital design and Cindy Coleman on workplace design; respondents include Mayor Jim Gray and Dr. Michael Karpf, executive vice president of health affairs at UK. Continuing education credit is available.

When: March 29-30

Where: UK Student Center center theater, 404 S. Limestone

Get the details here.

More on the History of Interior Design:

The History of Interior Design

Celebrating the History of Interior Design at the White House

A national interest group for interior designers and architects is calling on interior design schools and others in the industry to carefully review new legislation from the state of California. A new bill could result in stricter requirements for interior designers, both in their level of education at an interior design school and in their work experience in the industry.

From the American Institute of Architects (California):

“Each year the Legislature introduces thousands of bills, and each year the Advocacy Advisory Committee (AAC) reviews bills that could be of collective interest to the membership. The AAC will make recommendations to the AIACC Board of Directors on how the AIACC should respond to each bill, whether that response support, oppose, ignore, or suggest an amendment.

Among the 60+ bills are proposals to create a sales tax on services, establish a practice act for interior design, require the building code to include methods to reduce vehicle miles traveled by users of the building (we are not sure how this would apply to a DMV office, a car dealership, or a Smog Check station), and exempt license professionals, including architects, who are called up for active duty in the armed forces, from having to pay the renewal fee or complete any required continuing education.”

More on this story from AIACC.

The bill partially reads:

“This bill would create the California Registered Interior Designers Board within the Department of Consumer Affairs. The bill would require the membership of the board to consist of an unspecified number of members who are required to be registered interior designers and an unspecified number of public members. The bill would require the Governor to appoint the public members and the Senate Committee on Rules and the Speaker of the Assembly to appoint unspecified numbers of the licensee members.

The bill would provide for the licensure and regulation by the board of persons who engage in the practice of registered interior design, as defined.

The bill would require the board to issue a license to a person who meets specified requirements, including, but not limited to, completing an application, paying a specified fee, submitting proof of successful completion of certain education and work experience, and submitting proof of passage of an examination approved by the board or a specified examination prepared and administered by the National Council for Interior Design.”

(Read the rest of the bill here.)

More about Assembly Bill 2482:

AB 2482 Assembly Bill Introduced

Important Message – Assembly Bill 2482 Talking Points

An interior design school in Boston recently named an experienced designer, architect, and instructor as their new head of interior design.

The Boston Architectural College appointed Crandon Gustafson, recently from the Harrington School of Design in Chicago, as the Head of the School of Interior Design.

Gustafson’s professional associations and memberships include the International Interior Design Association, the American Society of Interior Designers, the American Institute of Architects, and a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified designers and educator. Although he is a professional interior designer, he is also an accomplished interior design school educator and has worked as the Director of the Center for Professional Development at the Harrington School of Design in Chicago, the Department Chair for Interior Design at Harrington.

He also teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in many areas of interior design. In his professional life, Gustafson is a practicing designer specializing in various parts of the interior design industry that includes commercial and educational architecture and design for several design firms.

The Boston Architectural College’s school of interior design offers Bachelor and Master degrees in interior design. The school boasts staff that remains active in their industry and most a practicing interior designers as well as interior design educators. Instructors have a diverse educational, professional, and cultural background that helps to enrich the learning experience from which students may benefit. (About 80% of graduates from the school become employed in the industry after graduation.)

In Design Intelligence’s list of top interior design programs of 2012, the Boston Architectural College’s School of Interior Design placed twice on the top 10 list. The Bachelor Degree program placed at number 3. The Master Degree program ranked at number 5. The school was ranked at number 6 in 2010 by Design Intelligence among the top 10 interior design programs in the United States.

An interior design school in California recently announced a new series of seminars for professional interior designers and architects, as well as students who want to one day open their own interior design business.

The Design Institute of San Diego is hosting “The Cycle of Success”, in progress, at the interior design school’s campus this month and through June of this year.

The series has already completed three of the six seminars on the subject of interior design business skills, with the third session occurring on March 10^th. The purpose of the interior design school’s seminar series is to provide students and professionals interested in the school’s DI Career Series the opportunity to learn as much as possible about what it takes to run a successful interior design business.

All of the seminars in the series are presented by the founder of Nobelinks, Stephen Nobel. Nobelinks is a company in New York that provides consulting services to people in the market for luxury home goods and it’s well known as a worldwide provider of business strategies that fuse interior design with marketing, pricing, and client experience.

The nest sessions in the seminar series at the interior design school will include Administration and Legal Documentation on Saturday, April 14^th; Operations and Business Processes on Saturday, May 12^th; and Research and Development on Saturday, June 9^th. All seminars begin at 10 AM and end at 3 PM and cost depends on status in the industry. Interior design school students can get in for $15 per session or $75 for the series, recent graduates pay only $35 per session or $175 for the series, and interior design professionals can attend the series for $260 or $65 per session.

All seminars are part of the “Second Saturday at DI Career Series” program at the design school and interested parties can contact the school for more information and reservations.

An interior design school in Atlanta, GA hosted an industry expert for a lecture on the important aspects of interior design businesses.

The lecture is based, in part, on highlights from The Business of Design, Balancing Creativity and Profitability by author and lecturer Keith Granet and took place at the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center.

Students from the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Atlanta attended the lecture that focused on the art of design and business. Most ideas of art and entrepreneurship seem to conflict, as if one cannot be both a great designer and business owner. However, Granet says that all of that is a myth and that the aspects that rule artistic design and logistical business sense do intersect.

(Read more about Granet and his book here.)

The interior design students and industry professionals were treated to a keynote speech by the designer that discussed the tools needed to create and manage a successful business. This lecture included elements of good business practices, hiring and managing a good staff, and how to properly delegate functions within the interior design business.

Granet’s firm, Granet & Associates, also created the Design Speakers Bureau; an organization that provides lectures and training to interior design schools as well as professionals in the interior design industry. The DSB boasts many expert speakers in the interior design industry, including eight interior designers as well as architects and other related professionals.

The Savannah College of Art and Design provides interior design schools and other forms of art training to students at four campuses, including Atlanta, Savannah, Honk Kong, and Lacoste. It also boasts online classes and studies for distance learning students. SCAD was founded in 1978 and offers studies in interior design, communication arts, fashion design, digital media and film, building art, liberal arts, and performing arts.

An interior design association keen on furthering the education standards at interior design school recently announced that a prestigious industry publication awarded five of its members among the most admired educators in the design industry.

The International Interior Design Association (IIDA) released the news that Design Intelligence had published its list of the 25 most admired educators in the architecture and interior design industry; a list made up in part by the five award winners who are also members of the IIDA.

The IIDA’s members making the coveted list include instructors from several schools of design around the country. From the interior design school at Florida State University, Lisa Kinch; from the School of Architecture at Woodbury University, Randall Stauffer; from the Savannah College of Art, Margo Jones; from the School of Architecture at University of Texas at Austin, Lawrence Speck; and from the New England School of Art & Design at Suffolk University, Karen Clarke.

This is the second most-admired educator to hail from the University of Texas in as many years according to the publications list of 25 educators. All of the interior design schools and programs at the universities provide superior design education, partially thanks to their faculty’s membership in organizations such as the IIDA. Professional network organizations allow teachers and students to stay at the top of their professional game and make sure that while they are away from the industry to teach interior design students, they are staying current in their own profession.

Many instructors of interior design classes maintain their own businesses and working relationships outside of the college classroom. This is important to the quality of education that occurs at an interior design school. Informed instructors who are connected through the professional network at IIDA are doing their part to keep students “in the know” about their future careers.

An Oregon Senate Bill that might have encouraged more aspiring interior designers to attend an accredited school in the state failed in the original committee meetings last month.

Senate Bill 1521 would have provided more regulation in the state around the interior design industry, requiring more rigid licensing and education requirements.

More opponents than supports showed up to the committee hearing on the bill that would require a state licensing program for interior design professionals. The opposition claimed that requiring interior design school, certifications and licensures would limit the public’s options unnecessarily and cause harm to current interior designer’s businesses.

The bill was discussed in town hall meetings throughout the past year, but supporters of the bill say that the opponents of the bill were not present in that part of the process. The Interior Design Collaborative is one of the primary supporters of the bill, which in their view protects small interior design businesses in the state. To the surprise of supporters at the committee hearing, many of the missing opponents showed up to voice their opposition to the bill. One of the more surprising opponents may have been another professional design organization, the Oregon Chapter of the American Institutes of Architects.

Because of the opposition turn-out, the bill never went to vote and is marked for further research and review. In a report by the Daily Journal of Commerce Oregon, Interior Design Collaborative Oregon’s president, Alicia Snyder-Carlson said they were surprised by the turnout of opponents.

“We did not expect there to be as much opposition as there was, which might have been a little naïve on our part; nevertheless, (the bill’s opponents) did appear,” she said after the meeting. “We hadn’t heard much from them all year. There was not a whole lot of attendance at the town halls we held to discuss the bill, so that was unfortunate.”