Starting Your Career as an Interior Designer: The Business of Interior Design

Reach Out, I'll Be There

As the Chinese say, “May you live in interesting times”.  Oh, my Gosh.  Is this interesting enough?  So many things are in the process of changing and I try to keep track of what goes on in our industry.  One of the things I am noticing is a general lack of mentoring or help for new, younger or questioning interior designers.  One of the reasons I continue to teach, blog and write books is to try to help those who are genuinely interested in helping themselves.  Mentoring has to be more than simply hiring a student or “wannabe” and giving them all the dirty little jobs you just don’t like doing.  Mentoring is about training and about teaching the history of who we are and where we came from.  A strong mentor is interested in the longevity of the industry as a whole as well as his or her personal success.  Mentoring is more than once a week chats about the projects in house and how the trainee might have performed better.  Yes, direction and correction are part of the whole package but a good mentor will also look into the trainee and try to find the spark that makes them special and worth training.  Simply taking someone off the street and throwing them into the office milieu is not the way to succeed.  Mentoring is not about your ego and how important it makes you feel to help train someone.  Mentoring is about the philosophy of interior design, personal growth and professional acumen.  To be asked to mentor and to succeed brings wonderful rewards.  When I see students open their own business, create interesting and successful marketing plans and enjoy the fruits of their labor I rejoice.  Not for me but for them.  They have taken some of what I taught and some of what they learned from other people and some of their best creativity and produced a unique and profitable business.  As they move forward in their career I hope they, too, will have the opportunity to mentor someone within the industry.  The rewards I receive from writing, blogging and teaching are beyond measure.  As a mentor I look for ways to reach those who truly are interested in a career in the interior design profession and want to be the very best they can be.  This helps keep me feeling young and a part of our ever changing industry.  Those of you who read my blog tell me from time to time how helpful or interesting you find my writings.  Thank you.  And remember, if you ever feel I might be able to help with questions or ideas just reach out, I’ll be there.

    

I'm on the Outside (Looking In)

As so many of you know I have been posting to this blog for over 18 months.  As part of a marketing strategy I have been so pleased with the response to my writings.  I have also been fortunate to have found a publisher for my book because I have been writing the blog.  This morning at the Carmel Chamber of Commerce monthly breakfast meeting the presenter was talking about Web 2.0 or social networking sites.  Blogs, Face Book, LinkedIn and Twitter are some of the most well known.  Like a huge cocktail party some of them can keep you posting forever.  It’s important to have something to say and know how to express yourself if you want to mount a blog.  And with a blog you will need to be consistent about when you post.  Twitter, on the other hand, is kept simple by the shortness of a tweet; only around 180 characters.  It is also the maximum length of a text message from most phones.  Funny how that works.  As for LinkedIn and Face book, you could spend the rest of each day posting, searching and answering all that happens on those sites.  Face book seems to be more social and friends oriented while LinkedIn is much more focused on professional connections.  Whichever you choose for business purposes make sure to update at least daily.  With all of them it is important to set aside a specific amount of time each day and no more.  Otherwise they can become a huge time sinkhole into which your day disappears. 

I also have another observation.  It seems those of us under about 52 are much more comfortable with all the social networking going on out there.  I know a lot in that age group who don’t really get face time with a lot of their friends.  Is that really a good thing?  I am not judging it but I have concerns.  How can anyone learn the delicate art of personal interaction when almost all the communication is through text messages, twitter and Face Book?  It may be this huge cocktail party on the internet but what happens when the party moves real people into real rooms?  Can these very same people communicate with another without the crutch of a keyboard?  I don’t really know the answer but it was a thought that came up in conversation and I thought I would share it with you.  So get out there and blog, tweet and LinkIn and make sure you know the goals for this particular participation.  If it’s just for friends and to be social that’s great.  If you want it to impact your business in a positive way you will want a plan.  Create it, stick to it and be consistent.  You’ll succeed.

 

Unforgettable

I was looking through the latest edition of Architectural Digest on Sunday and, not surprisingly, began thinking about interior design and more specifically interior designers.  Although I teach business practice for the interior designer at Monterey Peninsula College I also reference designers past who had an impact on how we do business, create editorial press and practice interior design.  I have been surprised at how many of my students don’t know the designers to whom I refer.  No one, it seems, is teaching the history of our profession from the aspect of the most successful and well-known past professionals.  Many of them have work that has stood the test of time and is, in the vernacular, timeless.  I believe each of the following designers added to the business of design as well as to the American esthetic of interior design.  Their unique contributions have made it easier for each of us to earn a living in today’s highly competitive arena of interior design.  So, guys, here are a few of my favorites.  Let me know who you like that I don’t mention.   

Elsie de Wolf

By far the most famous of the pioneering socialite decorators was affluent amateur Elsie de Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl (1865-1950).  A prominent figure in the society scenes of New York, London and Paris, de Wolfe is credited as the first female professional decorator in theUnited States.  Her early success proved to the predominately male design community interior decorating could be a profession where a women’s presence “would not offend respectability.”

A self-proclaimed “rebel in an ugly world,” de Wolfe authored the 1913 book, The House in Good Taste, and became a legend in her own time by garnering the adoration of the world media.  A skillful, self-promoting innovator, Lady Mendl was also very good at her job. She helped update the design of high-end homes from darker Victorian styles to fresher designs that featured soft colors and 18th-century French furniture.  Among her elite residential clients were families like the Vanderbilts and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. De Wolfe also notably decorated interiors for the Colony Club and (what’s now) the Frick Museum in New York, all before World War I. Thanks in large part to Lady Mendl, the word decorator came into existence and the art of interior design began drawing the interest of the mainstream public.

 Eleanor S. Brown

One of the most influential early interior designers, Eleanor McMillen Brown, was a serious presence in New York’s high society scene.  She was also a serious professional.  Brown founded the legendary design firm McMillen, Inc. in 1924, and then ran it for nearly six decades.  In that time, Brown’s firm never strayed from the McMillen style: a reassuring traditionalism with a contemporary flair and feminine look that still has an enormous appeal to owners of rambling summer cottages in Southampton.  To this day, McMillen, Inc. remains one of the best, most professional interior design firms in the country.  

Dorothy Draper

Another socially connected “lady” designer from New York and Philadelphia’s elite set, Dorothy Draper will forever be remembered for her use of large floral prints on fabrics and paper.  Founder of Dorothy Draper Design, she was a master at utilizing over-scaled furniture, custom-built for a specific area.  Draper did her part to help bring America out of the doldrums of the Depression and World War II by using bright colors and large scale to remodel commercial spaces like the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. 

Other Pioneering Superstars [B head]

Of course for decorators who needed the money, making a living from interior design didn’t begin to factor into the equation until the moniker “interior designer” grew out of the fashionable world of the Socialite Decorator and into the bloodstream of the American popular culture. 

     In the early part of the 20^th century, aspiring designers on the outside of the society scenes in New York, London and Paris saw the public’s growing interest in design as an opportunity to make a living doing what they loved.  Scores of young designers leapt at the chance. 

     Soon, the American public began to see work from a diverse cast of trendsetting Superstar Interior Decorators who established their names on talent alone and had few society connections or formal design educations.  Some of the notable pioneers in the field were:

Syrie Maugham

Maugham introduced the "white look" to American design in the early 1920s and like many designers of her time, kept a shop and sold goods as well as her design services.  Maugham was an excellent mentor to a number of designers and is still remembered today for the style and wit she employed in her designs.

Rose Cumming

An Australian who came to America during World War I, Rose Cumming was another talent who demonstrated women could be very successful interior designers.  A self-described shopkeeper at heart, Cumming enjoyed the idea of never knowing who might walk through her shop door with a new challenge, work of art or new project.  The creator of many memorable fabrics and wall-coverings, many of which designers still use to this day, Cumming mentored with famed New York decorator Mary Buel and drew from that experience to create one of the best-known “brands” in interior design.  

Michael Taylor

Another great example of an interior designer with superb branding skills, Michael Taylor was a revolutionary whose influence helped shape a new generation of design artists.  Formally trained in San Francisco, Michael is one of a group of young designers who came out of interior design schools just after World War II.  The founder of Michael Taylor Designs in 1985, he was the first to bring natural materials like concrete, wicker and timber in from the outdoors and did more for the “white room” than any designer since Elsie de Wolfe or Syrie Maugham.  Before his death in 1986, Taylor’s over-scaled furniture designs had become virtually synonymous with the California lifestyle.

Mark Hampton

One of our all-time favorite “gentleman” designers, Mark Hampton’s career is a study in diversity.  Yet another excellent branding success story, Hampton was a student at the London School of Economics before switching gears to earn a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from New York University.  With a thoughtful and educated design style, Hampton began his career with David Hicks in London then returned to the states, and New York, to work with the design firm McMillen, Inc.  Hampton eventually created his own design house, Mark Hampton, LLC and is known for his design vocabulary, which uses color, print and luxury finishes to create clean interior designs.  His book, Mark Hampton on Decorating, is a must read for any student of interior design.  

As Time Goes By

Writers for the Wall Street Journal, Dottie Gaiter and John Brecher, have a wonderful Friday piece all about wine.  They also talk a lot about food.  They are not wine snobs and quite often talk about how accessible wine should be for all of us.  They make it interesting to discover different types of wine and I often want to run out and try one or two of their suggestions.  For the past ten years they have also written about an event they call “Open That Bottle Night”.  On this special night we are all meant to take a look in our wine cellars (well for Robert and me it’s the top shelf in the pantry), and select a bottle of wine we’ve meant to serve but just haven’t over the years.  What’s nice about this whole idea is looking back and remembering happy events or times in which that wine played a part.  This year we selected a bottle of wine that had been given to us last July at our wedding.  I cooked up a storm on Saturday and we served the bottle of wine.  What was so nice was getting to talk and remember the day and the people who had given us the wine.  After the evening I got thinking about how in the business we sometimes forget ideas and suggestions that have been sitting “in the cellar” for the past few years.  Haven’t we all had ideas we shelved for one reason or another?  Just like Open That Bottle Night now may be the time to celebrate ideas that might just help us move our business forward.  What about the call list of people you have meant to call since last May?  Didn’t you meet someone who wanted to talk to you about design concepts and how they might work for their particular space?  You know you have that card stuck someplace in your office.  Now might be the time to take a look at advertising or marketing ideas.  Do you think a small black and white ad in the newspaper might help right now?  Little ideas or big ideas should all be candidates for “Open Up Your Business Night”.  As a matter of fact I’ll declare Open Up Your Business Night for Monday, March 9, 2009.  Find an idea or suggestion and dust it off.  Get it ready to be served to your public and think about what you might serve with it.  What kind of enticement, or bait, should your little bit of marketing include.  Just like a fine wine it isn’t really meant to be savored alone.  Create a little campaign around this once forgotten idea and run with it.  Put together it might be the idea of the month.  I enjoy looking at other people’s ideas and trying to see how they might work in our business.  Open up your business to new ideas or those ideas that have been languishing on the back shelf for a while.  Try something new or old but try something.  Let us know how it works out.