Career Paths
Interior Design education can lead to a broad and varied choice of career paths.
Graduates who wish to attain Professional status should seek employment with one of the following types of firms:
Professional Interior Design Consulting Firms that provide services for a wide variety of client types or specialize in a particular sector such as Hospital, Institutional, Office, Hospitality or Retail Design.
Architectural Firms, where the graduate could provide architectural drafting, detailing and presentation skills or work within the firm’s own interior design department.
Corporations such as Banks, Hotels, and Stock Brokerage Firms that have their own internal, professional interior design departments to handle all of their facilities needs.
Government Agencies: Federal, Provincial or Municipal that employ interior designers to oversee their facilities needs.
Other career paths include:
Residential Interior Design Studios: These firms typically specialize in residential interiors and combine some form of selling product together with the design services.
Wholesale Sales: Representation of product lines from carpeting and ceramic tile to furniture and lighting. Sales representatives travel within a prescribed area and service architects, designers and retailers by keeping them up to date and providing samples and technical support.
Retail Sales: This is a huge area and can include specialty stores such as paint and wallpaper, decorative accessory and furniture stores, department stores and many other building trade related businesses.
Rendering Artist, Model Building: These specialties are highly regarded skills within the industry and may be well suited to self-employment, whereby the designer / artist provides a service for other interior designers and architects.
Education: Interior Design is a very popular area of study and teaching can be a very rewarding expression of professional expertise. Additional study may be required depending on the level of instruction undertaken.
Furniture, Product, Textile Design: These are related areas, which may require additional study, but for which Interior Design provides an excellent foundation.
Kitchen and Bathroom Design: This a related area, which may require additional study, but for which Interior Design provides an excellent foundation.
Set Design for Theatre, Television and Film industry: This a related area, which may require additional study, but for which Interior Design provides an excellent foundation.
