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How to Become an Interior Designer and Turn a Profit

If you really want to figure out how to become an interior designer you can do it with ease and be making money before you know it.

Have you been looking to make a career change but aren’t really sure what you want to get into? Well then, you should definitely be looking at some of the careers that require less generalized schooling and will get you into a career a whole lot faster. One of those careers would be an interior designer. If you don’t know how to become an interior designer, however, you should definitely take a look at the steps.

Getting Your Degree

The interior design degree is actually an official program that you can take through a community college or university to learn how to become an interior designer. You may even be able to see some specialized programs in your area. These help you get to know more of the finer aspects of how to be an interior designer including some of the CAD skills, drawing and more that you’ll need to know. This helps you become even more successful.

It’s important to pay attention in these classes and make sure that you pick up on a lot of the elements. These will be important to the clients that you take on later on. Even if you think you know a lot about design and how to create something special you need to pay close attention here to get better. The degree is a bachelor’s degree in arts and design after all, which means it’s going to require you to work hard.

Pass the Exam

Did you know there’s actually an exam for interior designers? Well, it’s a qualification exam and passing that is the only way you’re actually going to get certified to be an interior designer. While not everyone is going to require you to have certifications to work on designing their house, it’s going to be a lot easier to get jobs. The exam by the National Council for Interior Design is going to test your knowledge.

You will need to have some on-the-job experience in order to even take the exam and it’s usually going to be a two-year period. During this time you need to be working with an interior designer though you can have your own company if you like. Once you’ve got two years (or whatever the requirement is in your state) you’ll be able to take the exam and see how you do. With any luck, you’ll pass it right away and be able to add that license to your credentials.

If you really want to show off your skills you can find a number of specialized programs to test in as well. These will give you more certifications and really show off the things that you can do. It may be the difference between getting that next project and not.

Get the Experience

At this point, you need to get some experience and that may not be as easy to do. That’s because you don’t have any experience to show off and people don’t really like that. They want to hire someone who’s done the work before and has a nice portfolio to show off. But how do you create a portfolio without having a portfolio? You’re going to have to do some jobs on a pro bono basis in order to get the help you need to get off the ground.

I know, you probably thought you were done working for free when you got that degree, right? And when you got that license you really thought you were going to be golden. Unfortunately, you are going to have to create a portfolio to get paying jobs and that means you need to work for someone for free. It doesn’t have to be quite as bad as you may be thinking, however.

The best thing you can do is call your friends and family members and see what they’ll let you do in their house. They’ll probably be willing to let you move things around and create a great atmosphere in their room so you can take pictures and use them in a portfolio. You may even be able to help small businesses in your area or community organizations.

Create Your Portfolio

Now that you’ve had the opportunity to get a little bit of work at how to become an interior designer you can start creating the portfolio. Make sure that you take a whole bunch of pictures at every job you do and then start organizing them. Put the absolute best pictures in the book and anything that showcases a variety of talents. You don’t want everything to look the same, after all. You need to show range to get the jobs.

Get the Jobs

Once you’ve got the education, the certification, and the portfolio it’s time to start really looking for work, so make sure you’re doing everything you can to find that great job, and definitely, make sure you push your abilities to anyone (and any company) that will listen to you. You never know where that next great job is going to come up. And that’s all there is to it. That’s how to become an interior designer in a nutshell.