The Painful Perspective

It’s a painful fact I try to avoid as a student but also as a future designer that I might have to explain what I do for a career almost every day to clients or outside friends. That is the power of the public perspective always assuming that every career is similar another or that certain people should stay to a certain path. Telling people even if we were born from interior decorators, designers started to venture out and wanted to change the way an average space or form, started thinking as an interior architect. Another ways the population see designers is a female only career similar to nursing or lower level teachers. But in this day and age males are entering those career paths the same with females now entering fields that the public believe is meant for men.  For example during the 60's there was a famous male interior designer David Hicks and he brought unique design and style to the lifestyle.

I never thought it was so bad on how interior designers were seen until I was showed a video where a student would stop and ask random people what they thought an interior designer is and does? Out of , I am going to say , twenty people maybe two or three answered it correctly or even close to an appropriate answer. Most of them would say the purpose of a designer just arranges furniture and chooses color swatches for a client it actually killed me both heart and mind it made me sick to my stomach I wish designers had better advertisement instead of people randomly deciding to pick that as a career path. Since some perspectives are changing this century so is the areas where decorators or designers were hired, back then decorators were used in real-estate so they can stay with assisting clients on how to make their home more comfortable while designer were used in commercial estates for a more refine look to draw more customers meant for the space now decorators can be hired for commercial areas while designers can only focus on real-estate. So if that why of looking at decorators and designer changed there still hope for the other assumptions. All those types of perspective can be difficult to handle but it just means that I, as a student, and other designing student just have to be a more passionate so later on when we describe our career to others who don’t fully understanding why this chose in careers we just have to show them how we benefit them and the economy in the future. So don’t lose hope future designers we can still change the population’s perspective.

(This video is where random people were asked what an interior designer means to them)    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuaZbFduzG4

Ethics: A line between Personal and Professional

As a student I’ve been told about new vocabulary terms to understand what it means to be a designer and one word acts as a guild line to help me remember why I chose this career, ethics. Ethics is major factors in a designer’s life and so designers have what is called the “The Ethics Codes”, these codes help a designer realize what kind of interior space they aim to design but to also enter the shoes of the client. The first code in ethics is to remember who the client is but sometimes what the client does or wishes for a space that can impact the moral beliefs as a designer or/and as a person. Even if there is a code saying designers to enter the client shoes and think like them it can sometimes be impossible to push back ones opinion, the way they were taught or how they were raised as a human. That is the main issue accruing within each firms some designers are forgetting that they have studied their whole life to act as a professional but when introduced to a project they have no intention of taking they decline it with such raw emotions   which reflects poorly on the firm they are working for. Even if the project goes against their beliefs designers should be declining them with respect to show that interior design is a professional career. Another issues happening is the idea of clients and how they will see a designing firm that worked or is working for a certain client how do they respond do they drop a client because it can endanger a current or future client. Sometime a designer is lucky because the firm will handle those types of situation but there is the chance the designer will have a say in that day. Me, personally I am a very open minded person it was the way I was raised in this world but even students have their limits that they sometimes don’t voice out and when accepting an exercise the outcome can be horrible because you show no passion to be part of it and that is the result when not know what kind of designer you are, ethics kind of fades away.