A Typical Day

Dawn Gordon, an established interior designer, meets with 5 or 6 clients a day to give advice on their projects. She also organizes and handles the trades and develops plans and sketches. She has done many residential projects around Toronto and some restaurants, hotels, and offices too.

Top 3 Perks

1) Build relationships with clients
2) Flexible hours
3) Seeing your work payoff (you get to see your drawings and ideas come to fruition)

Job Culture

Thinking creatively, drafting plans and sketches, talking face to face with clients, scheduling trades, working with architects, indoors and outdoors, lots of driving

My Experience

I had the pleasure to job shadow the experienced designer, Dawn Gordon. The morning began running an errand as Dawn had to pay a carpenter for a job since she handles that for some of her clients. Dawn uses the same group of trades for most of her jobs, which gives her trust in her trades and expectations. She tries to use the same carpenter, painter, contractor, tiler, wallpaper hanger and other trades for all her jobs.

Dawn and I visited a new house/mansion in the midst of being built that she was hired to design. Dawn tried to make this new house look beautiful, but her client was too stubborn and basically did all the design work her self. Even though a lot of the design was not done by Dawn, we toured the house (which was incredibly bizarre looking) and Dawn made sure the trades were doing the right things. It is a very challenging job because everybody likes to express their personality through their house, which isn’t always the most flattering. Dawn tries her best to take a client’s personality and make it look its best so that each client has a unique look and flair.

It was a great experience job shadowing Dawn. Although one client didn’t really listen to all of her advice, Dawn has a lot of clients that really trust her.  She can offer advice to clients on paint colours, fabric selection, furniture placement, and purchases of all household items. She says she has built great relationships with many clients and that seems obvious because she has unbelievable people skills. Word of mouth referrals drive her business so she has to be great each time.

Surprising Fact: Interior designers have to drive a lot. In just a few hours Dawn can visit many clients all over the city. So if you’re going to become an interior designer be prepared to drive.

Requirements

1) Complete a design program at an accredited college (2-3 years) or a university interior design program (4 years)
2) Get experience with a qualified designer
3) Pass the National Council for Interior Design Qualification exam

Skills Needed

Interpersonal skills, creativity, design sense, organizational, social perceptiveness, persuasion, near vision, drawing ability

The Field

- The interior design business is driven by relationships
- One client can refer 5 or 6 more clients
- There is a green movement to use eco-friendly materials