Starting Your Career as an Interior Designer

Starting Your Career as an Interior Designer contains all the necessary tools and strategies to successfully launch and grow a professional design business in the competitive world of interior design. Drawing on the authors' extensive experience, this book includes case studies, and personal anecdotes that help teach you how to:

- choose a design field - obtain and keep clients - garner referrals - market and position your business - bid competitively on projects - manage sales - organize a budget - manage start-up costs and cash flow - promote your business - branch out into product and architectural design - design within a retail environment - set pricing guidelines - sell to your target demographic - set up your office

Readers will find a history of the business side of interior design as well as various career tracks available to todays budding entrepreneur. Any early career interior designer or student looking for practical advice on the ins and outs of running a design firm will need this one-stop guide.

Hale and Williams (business practices for interior designers, Monterey Peninsula College), who have managed several design offices between them, present a guide for beginners on the business aspects of starting a career in interior design. They discuss issues such as competition, business models and pricing, start-up costs and cash flow, licensing and accreditation, getting and keeping clients, referrals, managing sales and budgets, promoting the business, setting up an offsite or home office, and choosing a design field, including product, architectural, and retail design. Case studies of firms are included in each chapter. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Robert K. Hale has opened and successfully managed residential design offices in Philadelphia, London, Baltimore, and most recently co-founded Hale-Williams Interior Design, with offices in Carmel and Palm Springs, California. He has appeared with his partner, Thomas L. Williams, on the popular television show Designers Challenge. Hale is a member of the Best Practices Network, a division of Designing Profits, Inc. (a national group dedicated to the business of interior design). He lives in Carmel, California.

Thomas L. Williams is the author of 20/20: IFDAs Vision for the Future, a series of articles on design and the business of interior design, and has taught business practices for interior designers at Monterey Peninsula College. As a cofounder of Hale-Williams Interior Design, he has drawn on his years of experience with interior design firms to create seminars and multi-day classes for private schools. Williams, an avid blogger, lives in Carmel, California. Hale-Williams Interior Design was named the 2008 Design Firm of the Year by the Business Practices Network.