How to choose an interior designer?

You can graduate from high school and become an architect, take courses and become an interior designer. In the first and second cases, with a quality education, the specialist receives a universal algorithm of actions that is applicable to almost every object. And here a natural question arises - what is the difference then and what does the customer pay attention to when looking for a designer? Let's analyze in more detail all the main criteria for selecting a specialist for the implementation of an interior project.

1. Recognizability - I think everything is clear here - famous people are trusted much more often, because even before a direct meeting with a person, the customer has already drawn his image in his head and approximately imagined future communication, which means he provided basic comfort for the upcoming work.

2. Recommendations of authoritative people. It can be both public figures, and just friends or acquaintances, whose opinion is trusted. If there are positive reviews, then the chances of project failure are sharply reduced.

3. Education - helps the customer to orient in absentia in the possibility of solving his issue by one or another candidate.

4. Portfolio - gives an understanding of the priorities in style, color solutions, combination of materials, convenience of planning solutions, which the designer prefers.

5. Experience - despite the recommendations and good reviews, each project is individual and each object has its own characteristics. Therefore, when there is no way to avoid pitfalls, you need to soften their passage as much as possible and nothing but experience will help here.

6. Deadlines - they play a crucial role, especially when it is not about a single element of work, but about a long process that involves dozens of links such as: a customer with financing, a designer with ready-made drawings, a team of builders with specialists available at the right time, suppliers of building and finishing materials, logistics chains for the delivery of everything ordered to the site, etc.

7. Cost is the most sensitive topic. The spread of prices on the market is quite large and many customers who think in terms of "all designers are the same" do not understand why prices for work vary significantly. It seems to me that every professional deserves the value of his services, which he voices. You just need to understand that the ability to solve complex problems in the shortest possible time is the result of many years of work, training and experience, and it cannot be cheap.

8. Quality assurance is what every customer wants, regardless of the money they paid. And if we are talking about a product, then the manufacturer usually fixes faults during the warranty period and a single item can be either repaired or replaced with a new one. But this is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to do with a design project, since it is integrated into the workflow and any changes can only occur due to the work already done by different specialists, but then a fair question arises: "Who will pay for this?" Agree, the responsibility of the designer is much higher than the sofa manufacturing factories. Therefore, when a specialist puts his signature under the adopted technical solution, he guarantees the quality with his own name. And if this is not an "experimenter at the expense of the customer", he will value his reputation and take the most responsible approach to work.

Another very important point, which cannot be ignored, is the moral side of the cooperation between the customer and the designer, their human qualities.

In difficult times of wild capitalism, with a reduction in the solvency of customers, specialists often use dumping in the supply market. Often, customers take advantage of this, and some of them also boast of their multi-million objects and projects, but as soon as they hear that due to adjustments and alterations, the cost of the project has grown a little, with a cry: "You want to ruin me!" grab the heart. This is not normal - neither on the part of the designer, who does not respect himself and his work, nor on the part of the customer, who by such actions shows that he perceives the designer not as a reliable and worthy assistant in solving complex problems, but as a slave who owes him. With such people I recommend not to work at all.

Thanks to many years of experience in real design and implementation of interior projects, I know how important the first acquaintance is, even if it is in absentia. Only after that it is possible to form an understanding about each other, to see the train of thought, life priorities, and, accordingly, the possibility of productive cooperation. In many ways, I write my articles for this, so that the reader can get to know me in absentia and if what I am talking about resonates with his views, without any obstacles, contact our Architectural Studio for interior design, consultation and other design services, or TVOYCREATIVE School of Architecture and Design, where we teach what we are good at doing ourselves. See you!