More and more people are looking for interior design professionals to help them decorate different spaces in order to acquire a distinctive and exceptional style and functionality. It is gratifying to see that this is a profession that is gaining more and more recognition and that it is understood that there are specialists to work correctly and efficiently in interior spaces. It’s good to see, honestly! For a long time I saw this job being seen almost as a joke. People thought that designing interior spaces and doing decoration was just arranging nice furniture by someone who had “the touch”, that’s all! Times are changing, thank God, and more and more people value the study of proportions and the original way in which the decorative pieces are organised in space. We are on the right path but there is still a long way to go…
Today there are many professionals with different skills and qualifications and it is necessary to understand what you need at the time of choosing.
But I’m sorry that there are still so many people who don’t really understand how to choose their interior design.
Hiring an architect or interior decorator implies an extra cost, so it is necessary to be sure that this hiring brings benefits and added value, or rather, we must be sure that the work of the chosen professional will add value in the lives of those who hire him.
It is natural, legitimate and correct that when you start the selection process you start by a random exploration of professionals on the internet. The choice is made naturally, I think, by identifying with the style of the professional. The aesthetics and the degree of professionalism is noticeable in a first search and is a first selection criterion but after that, the choice has to be more consistent and has to be thoroughly evaluated.
There are thousands of sites with beautiful images but they do not correspond to work that has been done, they are merely inspirational. They are gathered from image banks or are rendered images. All right! But they don’t correspond to work done, to actual experience. They are only conceptual images that have never been applied in real life. In principle, those who upload these images do not have any work done to present. For this reason, the work of an experienced interior design professional cannot be compared to that of people with little experience who give advice or consult on interior design and decoration.
In order to select the professional, it is fundamental to have a meeting so that both parties get to know each other, interact and exchange impressions. Evaluating the professional’s capacity is crucial. Understanding how she interprets each client and verifying her degree of experience and knowledge are fundamental at the time of selection and can only be assessed after a conversation with the interior designer. The trust we can place in the professional is the beginning of the whole relationship that should be generated. I can not understand how someone can want to put the work of designing their home in the hand of an interior designer without knowing him, without knowing who she is, how she works … only by exchanging emails.
Does the professional inspire confidence just by seeing his website? I can’t understand…. It is important to understand if the work you want fits the capabilities and aesthetics of the interior designer. If there is empathy between both parties and if the client’s satisfaction is guaranteed on several levels, after all, we are talking about who will take care of our most precious asset and how the professional can touch the potential client’s life.
In my day to day life, I receive the most diverse requests for proposals and quite frankly it makes me very confused that in some cases the first concern is the price and not the value. Obviously, resources are scarce and their optimisation depends on the best choices, I never question that valuation and I strongly respect it but that cannot be the first criterion to choose the right professional. I do not devalue this very important aspect but I understand that the choice of architect or interior designer has to start with the empathy we have with the professional and how we identify with his work. Their approach, their degree of creativity, their experience and their professionalism, are criteria that should not be overlooked because these are what make the difference! It is so important to make sure that the person we hire is the right one for us! It’s obvious that experience and know-how are super important factors but the work of the interior design professional has to meet the client’s needs, their style, their level of demand, their target. Only then should you consider the price. First the value and only then the price.
It saddens me that many people don’t understand the real difference!
This only leads me to think that they don’t give importance to value. It doesn’t matter to them if the interior architect is good or bad. The important thing is to do any decoration. The work of an interior architect, designer or decorator should add value. And like everything in life there has to be a selection according to the type of work and who you work for, it’s all a question of positioning.
Margarida Bugarim
Arquitecta de Interiores
