Today it is compulsory for professional interior designers to have an industry license in order to practice their skill. Much like an architect, they must go through intensive study and testing before even being allowed to take any licensing testing. The NCIDQ (National Council for Interior Design Qualification), requires all testers to have a combination of:

• six years of work experience,
• two years of schooling plus four years of work experience,
• Four years in a FIDER recognized university or college plus two years of work experience in order to qualify.

This intensive method ensures that trade licensing helps to generate responsible and educated designers.

Students interested in interior design study should go for a college or university that is FIDER recognized and works towards a bachelor’s degree which is required for commercial career. Even some of the high-end designers prefer to achieve a master’s degree or a doctorate in design.

There are few extra courses that ‘would-be designers’ should consider such as:
AutoCAD by Autodesk is an excellent computer aided drafting course. Those with some experience and knowledge of this software program can command a higher starting rate than those who haven’t taken the time to learn anything about it.

Business classes along with variety of marketing courses are also a plus that many students ignore. Remember, interior design is 90% networking, marketing, selling, and knowing the right people; 7% paperwork and only 3% design.

Some professional designer’s even advocate taking acting classes that can help you learn how to make better sales pitches.

Art classes too can help you be better prepared when talking with clients. People are visual and you’ll have a better shot at convincing a new client of your ideas if you can sketch them. Also consider taking an art, furniture and antique history class. They all come in to play every day in the design industry.

Design school can be very intense. You will have to take traditional classes; a normal workload of reading, tests and other class work, as well as you will have to complete very large-scale design projects along the way.

One vital aspect where the design school can really help you is to find most successful and rewarding stream of interior designing matching your skills. They’re many different fields to enter in this profession. There are residential interior designers whose only purpose is to serve homeowners, and then there are commercial interior designers who work on offices, restaurants, banks, malls, hotels, and so on. And, all of these specialties need a project manager heading up the entire project, a draftsperson, and a product sales representative.

Some designers go for their own drapery workroom or fabric warehouse, a design firm, or decide to be a partner in a firm, a painter, wallpaper hanger, carpet layer or any of a hundred other design specialists. How you eventually use your designer’s education and skill is totally depending on you, your interest, and the level of your designing skills.

In 2004 in the US, there were approximately 65,000 interior designers according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. The interior design industry will continue to see growth at a rate of approximately nine to seventeen percent over the next ten years. Interior design is an extremely competitive profession. This, it is important to obtain the proper education, whether it is from attending school in person or an online interior design school. Either way, you may not have to travel far to find an excellent art school offering an Interior Design Degree.

If you are creative and have a flair for decorating then it is possible that you would enjoy and excel as an interior designer. Another statistic indicates that approximately thirty percent of interior designers are self-employed. If you cannot find the specific design firm that meets your requirements then try taking on some clients of your own.

At an online interior design school students will learn the same concepts as their studio attending brethren. There are many areas of interior design that students can become specialized. Here are a few but certainly not all areas:

• Corporate/Office Design
• Bathroom Design
• Health Care Design
• Feng Shui Design
• Exhibit Design
• Green Interior Design
• Modern Interior Design
• Hotel Interior Design
• Residential Interior Design
• Set Design
• Zen Interior Design

Once you have obtained your online interior design degree you must decide whether to work for your self or work for a design firm. With a large design firm you will likely have the resources for quite a comfortable work environment and plus state of the art equipment. If you are just starting out on your own, you most likely will not have the resources that a design firm can offer. Working for your self may mean many long hours, while working for a large design firm may mean hours that are more set. Being self-employed means you will have to find your clients, whereas with a large firm most of the clients are passed on to you.

Many Interior Designers have used online interior design school to obtain an interior design degree to get their design career started. Once your career starts to progress you may find a particular area of design that interests you the must. Alternatively, you may find an area of design that is more profitable or you may just be a better designer in a particular design field. If your specialty is colors and fabrics maybe, you would rather focus on interior decorating instead and leave the technical aspects of interior design to someone else.

RESEARCH

Interior design schools have websites on the net. To get the one that best suits you, study the programs contained in their sites, as well as the literatures about the study mode. Perhaps, you are too busy to attend a full-time program, check the distance program that will be convenient for you, one that will not throw your well-laid-out schedule into chaos.

ACCREDITATION

The worst mistake a student can make is to attend an interior design distance education program, which is not accredited or to participate in a course with an online credit that is not recognized in the chosen industry and field. The implication of this is that time, money, and effort has been wasted in the exercise. To prevent this from happening, you must ensure that the online program is accredited and that the credits will be recognized in the job market.

People choose to take an interior design distance education program for different reasons. But for many, this option is taken because they like to work at their pace. By carefully studying the literature, the websites, and study modes of interior design distance education programs, you can choose the one that best fits your need as regards time.

PROGRAM RECORD

To choose the best interior design distance education program, there are a few other factors that you should take into consideration. These factors are the resources of the program, the performance of former students in the interior design industry, the experience of the staff, as well as the relevance of the program to your plans. The information about these becomes crucial when you recognize that you will spend a lot of time studying on the program.

CRITERION

You should have a criteria to appraise the interior design distance education programs. You do this by basing the criterion over ten marks. Get the best three programs by this process and apply to them, making sure that you have the credentials to meet their entry requirements.

PHYSICAL INQUIRY

To choose the best interior design distance education program, you may need to discuss with students of the program or graduates of the exercise. You may contact the school to inquire about issues which are not clear to you and on which you need clarification before you make your choice.