The Question Is, Are You a Designah or a Designer?

I've just completed my first year of a three-year masters program at the New York School of Interior Design and now the moment I have a chance to rest (God bless summer breaks!) I've decided to throw myself right back into the design world and start an interior design blog. 

I started out as graphic designer dabbling in administrative and marketing duties for an architecture firm in Manhattan. Ordering pens and staplers for people who were so passionate about their jobs made me realize I had to quit and follow my own dreams.  When I finally applied and got admitted into the master’s program, I was ready. I had my schedule, my notebooks and folders and pens. I thought I was entering the program with an upper hand because of my graphic design background, excellent organizational skills and tolerance for long workdays. I entered my first class, Design & Drawing I and was taken for a spin.

When I first entered the program, I thought interior designers were glorified interior decorators. I knew there was a difference between the two but I had no idea what it was exactly. I had this hierarchy in my mind of interior decorators at the bottom, followed by interior designers, followed by the revered architects up top. When I entered that first class and found out I would be drafting, lettering, scaling and d-e-s-i-g-n-i-n-g, I thought I had been mistaken for an architecture student. Who knew interior designers were in charge of a design from beginning to end??

This past year has broadened my ideas about the role of the interior designer as well as the entire discipline of interior design. I had no idea that interior design careers could stretch so far. I started the year, convinced that I wanted to do residential interior design. By the time we were assigned to design a museum, I had changed my mind that that was my niche in interior design. By the time we were assigned to design a hotel, that was my niche in interior design. Memorials, commercial spaces, residential spaces, hospitality spaces, furniture design, industrial design, graphic design, lighting design – the list goes on and on.

I learned that interior designers design. More importantly, I learned what design means. I learned how to tell the difference between good design and bad design. A good design is a cohesive, aesthetically pleasing, mood-evoking environment that plays off an appropriate and well-understood concept. Good design happens when the interior designer has considered everything.

I realized interior design was a skill and a knack that not everyone possessed. It’s a skill to be able to transform 2d and 3d designs in your mind and in your hands. I developed the skill of building a concept. I learned the concept of having a concept.

This blog will chart my journey in becoming an interior designer. And if you're impressed and ever so inclined, please hire me circa May 2012.