Category: Interior Design News

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Interior Design News

Interior Design Schools Coordinate Design Disciplines

An interior design school is being born in Michigan as school officials decide to expand their arts program.

Schools across the nation are doing more each year to coordinate disciplines to create a more rounded curriculum for their students.

Coordinating interior design schools with other, related areas of art and design is critical to student success in the future. Interior designs are not simply “interior decorators”. They are tasked with taking conceptual or existing spaces and turning them into the “right” space for their client. This task involved everything from lighting and flooring to knocking down walls and adding sky lights.

In order to create competitive students, schools like the Andrews University School of Architecture expand their program selections and coordinate between art disciplines. Soon, Andrews will bear a new name to match the addition of interior design school programs, construction management, and media curriculum. The new school will be named the School of Architecture, Art & Design to indicate the addition of the new programs. The interior design school will offer four-year degrees to students who successfully complete their programs.

Interior design schools prepare students for a career in the discipline through practical and technical training courses. Classes involve aspects of construction, electricity, and other building industry knowledge. This puts students at an advantage in their field because all interior designs, and especially remodels, require elements of understanding in how the new design will impact code requirements in the area and the existing framework of the structure.

Interior design schools must also convey the message that a collaborative effort with those who will actually be implementing future designs is an important part of an interior designer’s job. Electricians and carpenters are especially helpful allies for an interior designer, so communication and team work are key elements to a successful career in the field.

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Interior Design Students Work Retail Angle

Interior design schools recently competed in a national competition by the Planning and Visual Education Partnership (PAVE) and winners of a separate competition will have their work displayed at a huge industry event next month.

PAVE has awarded interior design schools over $6,000 and $21,000 have been awarded to student grants through the 2011 Student Design Competition. Another competition, the 3-d Design Challenge, will display a winning student’s work at an event in Las Vegas.

The student design competition awarded interior design schools at the University of Cincinnati, Fashion Institute of Technology, Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for having students who placed in the top three in each category. Twelve students were awarded prizes in visual merchandising and store design categories at the event.

For the GlobalShop 2012 event this year, the 3D Design Challenge presented by PAVE asked interior design students and others to try to earn even more in grant prizes by submitting a three-dimensional floor fixture design. The winner of that competition worked with B+N industries to create a prototype of their winning design to be on display at the GlobalShop conference, which will be held at the end of February in Las Vegas.

For this newest competition, interior design students as well as store design and industrial design students who are attending classes at an accredited school  needed to design and develop a store fixture, branding included, for a specific brand of cosmetics. The details of the competition left much of the work up to the imagination of the design students.

Interior designers and the like created fixtures that advertised the cosmetic brand of the student’s choice and it needed to be “concise” according to the official contest rules. The unit must be portable, so it is important that it can be broken down and shipped safely with minimum potential for damage.

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In Oregon, a battle has been waged between interior designers who feel that their industry should be strictly licensed and those who do not.

An important consideration in making a decision about this is how this will ultimately impact and entirely different industry in the state: interior design schools.

The arguments are years old, now, but the Interior Design Collaboration of Oregon is still talking with legislatures about the need for licensing among interior designers. After all, interior designers are more than decorators. At schools across the nation, students are learning how to visualize the empty shell of a structure and redesign it for the best use possible. This task is closer to architecture according to the IDC, who wants to see interior designers licensed and knowledgeable about fire codes, building safety, and more.

Interior design schools certainly touch on these topics, but would a bill with this type of detail change the landscape for them? It is possible that some schools would only need to make moderate changes to how they talk about these items, but few are preparing students for the licensing exams that professional constructing contractors must pass. The IDC seems to view this type of law as a way to even the playing field between the disciplines, but opposed interior designers see things differently.

On the other side of the argument, interior designers say that it is unnecessary. Furthermore, they think that it’s more “red tape” than an interior designer needs and will put a burden on the industry. They claim that consumers should have the right to choose the designer of their choice, and that the government should stay out of the to-date private matter.

Interior design schools will be directly impacted by any new legislation, but it is unclear of what type of impact it would have. It could cause an increase in new students who head back to class, but it could also cause enrollments to fall because of licensing requirements in the state.

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Interior Design School Teaches Success through Exhibition

Students from interior design schools are often called upon to create concepts for competitions and community projects.

As part of a standard curriculum, it is not uncommon for schools to try to partner up with community organizations that will bring about opportunities for their students to get involved in real-world interior design projects.

Interning often happens at a late stage in the education process, when junior and seniors at an interior design school spend much of their time focused on their future career through rigorous class-work that is divided up between hours spent with a certified firm. Occasionally, students are afforded the opportunity to receive critiques from entities that are not typically a part of the education process.

When competitions come along, some interior design schools allow students to incorporate them into the curriculum to provide a better understanding of how the business aspects of design are an important facet of their careers. More often, however, students are allowed to participate in an exhibition where they can proudly display their concepts.

This is the case with an exhibit at the Upton Hall in New York that will display student creations. Recently, students at Buffalo State’s interior design school were asked to participate in an annual Interior Design Student Show where they can showcase their skills for a little positive reinforcement from the show. The students are permitted to submit three dimension designs as well as digital renditions for the showcase.

The students also get to participate in all the aspects of setting up the exhibition, which offers experience that they would not normally receive in the classroom. Presentation and communication are critical parts of a successful career in interior design, so schools have to make extra effort to make sure students understand that their future depends on far more than great design ideas.

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Interior Design and High School Students Solve Space Problems

An interior design school program might be a tool employed to help a local high school with a design project soon.

Students from the interior design program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have submitted a design proposal meant to overhaul the common area at Crete High School in Saline County.

Interior design schools, and any art program at a respectable institution, may be called on to assist the community in this manner. Programs from interior design to graphic design are a great resource for finding free or discounted works thanks to students who need to gain real-world experience. This is valuable endeavor for the high school and UNL, both for the schools and the students.

Students at the high school are driving the changes and are in charge of coordinating the consultations and focusing on the needs of the students. They are working closely with the UNL interior design team to discuss the potential improvements that can be made in these areas at the high school. In this type of relationship, both sets of students learn important lessons about the real-world of negotiation.

Back at UNL, interior design teams of two or three students are working together to propose different solutions for the commons area, which the high school would like to see updated to a more contemporary style. Crete High School already has an area set aside for juniors and seniors to sit in the auditorium where they should be able to work on assignments or projects together. The interior design groups have just a couple of weeks to submit their redesign ideas to their teacher for review.

According to the news report from Crete News, the high school’s assistant principal, Jim Moore says that this is an important area at their school “These areas are places where students should feel comfortable and work together. The school is literally open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days for our students and their activities,” he said.

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Interior Design School Hires Business Guru as Instructor

The New York School of Interior Design will soon have a guest instructor to facilitate training in leadership, market trends, and more.

Steve Nobel is a specialty interior design consultant and will be teaching entrepreneurship studies at the interior design school this spring.

The new courses at the interior design school will include instruction in developing business plans, contracts and other legal work, as well as how to operate an interior design business. The spring 2012 schedule has been released and classes are expected to continue at the school in future semesters.

This term there are two courses being taught at the interior design school by Nobel. “Survey: the Business of Design” begins on January 27th and will provide a general view of how the business of interior design functions and what business owners must know to be successful. This course will feature information about the basic processes that affect all types of design businesses and will include information about what business owners need to be able to do.

On February 24th, another class headed by Nobel will begin at the interior design school. “Leadership: the Vision for a Design Business” will discuss the conception of an interior design business. This class will feature the challenges facing business owners, how to determine if an interior design business is successful, and how to be a balanced interior design business owner.

Steve Noble heads up a consulting practice and is well-qualified to provide instruction to the students at the interior design school. He is already an active participant in the interior design industry and speaks about luxury interior designs at events and conferences. He is also the author of Aiming at Affluence: Marketing Interior Design to Luxury Clients. The New York School of Interior Design will host several seminars around the focus of Nobel’s business wisdom.

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Interior Design Schooling Requirements Post Constitutional Issues

Interior design schools across the nation train students for a future career in interior design, but few are preparing students for licensing exams.

There are only a few states that require interior designers to pass a licensing exam following their studies in interior design school.

Those states that do require licensing have recently come under fire by opponents of these types o regulations in the industry. Some opponents feel that licensing exams are unconstitutional and use the fact that 47 states find the exams unnecessary to make their case. They also claim that licensing exam requirements put an extra burden on both students who are seeking a career in this field and the interior design schools who prepare them for that career.

Such is the case in the state of Florida, where interior design schools must prepare students to successfully pass the licensing exam requirements in addition to traditional and contemporary interior design practices. Opponents of the state licensing requirement claim that the law is unconstitutional and want to see the Supreme Court hear a case to that effect this year.

An interesting article published by Law.com asks the question: Does the First Amendment protect your right to speak for a living? Many might ask what this has to do with interior design schools and licensing exams in the state. According to the article, the requirements to become an interior designer in Florida are too stringent and are based on “occupational language” regulations that should be protected under the First Amendment.

In order to become an interior designer in Florida, a person must successfully pass six years of interior design school, complete an apprenticeship with a state licensed interior designer, and pass the state exam. Because interior designers do their job through speech, as opposed to actually conducting any physical work, opponents of the regulations feel that Florida’s law is clearly a violation of the Constitution and subjects the speech based occupation to unlawful regulation.

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Interior Design Students can Soon Earn their Degree in Dubai

Interior design students interested in an interior design school outside of the United States will soon have other options.

An American interior design school is set to unveil its newest program in opulent Dubai soon, adding to the already growing number of programs at the institution.

According to Trade Arabia, the American University in Dubai is expanding its education program to include architecture, art, and interior design specializations. The university has always offered an interior design school, architecture school, and communication. This new program is expected to seed these three core competencies together for the purpose of a more fulfilling curriculum at the design schools.

The one question that may come up with students, who are now more than ever aware of international issues, might be: Is it safe?

Over the past few years, stories have circulated about some of the labor forces in Dubai that offer excellent pay and benefits to workers to help build the super-flashy, manmade city on the water, who later find that they are stuck in Dubai  with minimum payment (if any) and the inability to come back home. For students of interior design schools, however, Dubai is relatively safe.

Perhaps the best way to safe-guard against becoming stuck in Dubai is to follow the guidelines for travelling to any country for higher education studies. Students seeking interior design schools in a city like Dubai need only practice commons sense, remain in contact with family and friends, and be sure to stick close to people they know and trust.

The American University of Dubai will offer interior design degrees through a four-year curriculum in to grant students a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Interior Design. The University is accredited by the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

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Interior Design Schools Agree to Offer Bachelor’s Degree

A major college in California made it possible for interior design students at a smaller college to achieve a bachelor’s degree in interior design recently.

The Arts Institute of California and Lakeland College have entered into an agreement so that students at Lakeland’s interior design school are able to transfer credits to the four-year college.

The interior design school at Lakeland College is a two-year program, but offers students an in-depth education in the concepts and practices of interior design. According to a report in the news publication The Vermilion Standard, the Art Institute of California is confident in their curriculum.

“Lakeland’s two-year diploma program produces graduates who are very talented but who need additional opportunities to pursue a degree. Because the Arts Institute of California recognizes that Lakeland’s program is comprehensive, is academically advanced, and aligned with industry standards, our students will be able to receive transfer credit for course work that they’ve completed at Lakeland,” according to VP of Academic, Innovation, and Research Alice Wainwright-Stewart of Lakeland College.

As an added bonus, the Art Institute’s campus is located in Los Angeles, a city teeming with opportunity for interior designers. Home to Beverly Hills, Los Angeles is loaded with plenty of star-studded neighborhoods, top of the line boutiques, medical spas, and more opening up all the time. Each of these is willing to pay top dollar for the best interior designers in the market place.

Contrary to news reports a couple of years ago that claimed LA’s declining creative market would wreak havoc on these types of industries, interior design schools like the Art Institute of California are turning our hundreds of new professionals each year. Interior designers who are flexible in price point, design ability, and commercial interior design are able to survive and thrive despite the ominous economic climate.

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Interior Design College Helps Special Needs Students

Students at an interior design school in Illinois took an opportunity to help younger students recently.

Students from the Advanced Design program at Lewis University took on a project to help design a new type of school in Bolingbrook, IL which will assist students with disabilities.

The Brooks Elementary School in Bolingbrook is launching a new program for students with disabilities aimed at helping those students find job training following school. The interior design students took part in the new launch by creating designs for the new building where the Secondary Transition Experience Program (STEP) will reside.

Advanced interior design students coordinated with the school district’s students and coordinators to gain information about the new structure and program. As part of their research, the interior designers-to-be took a tour of the campus, talked with employees of Brooks Elementary School, and helped the students in the STEP program design a painting for their new facility.

An instructor at the interior design school, Leslie Colonna, said “This project was a great opportunity for our students to step out of the classroom and to apply their design skills to a real-world situation. It was a great success to involve the STEP students in the actual making of the artwork for their school.”

Lewis University and the school district entered into a learning partnership some time ago, which spawned the effort between the interior design students and Brooks Elementary School. Interior design students garner important experience from projects such as this that allow them to coordinate with “clients” and develop concepts to meet the needs of their customers.

By enabling students to meet the needs of the community while earning important wisdom in their trade, interior design programs are able to create programs that have an impact in the lives of their students and the lives of others in the community. Students at the STEP program will use the new facility for their own purposes, likely remembering their time with the interior design class each time they glance at their cooperative art work.