Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Bridge For Design Spring 2014 Issue | Page 56

DESIGN TRENDS | view point

LEARN YOUR TRADE
Jenny Gibbs explains why training is essential for today’s interior designers

I

have lost count of the times that I have been asked
if interior design is just a matter of common sense.
While no one would deny that this is important, as it
is with any profession or career, the slightly worrying
implication of the query is an assumption that no real
specialist knowledge is involved at all.
The early decorators such as Elsie de Wolfe, Jean-Michel
Frank, Eileen Gray and John Fowler may not have had
to contend with the technicalities of today’s interiors but
they ensured that they found ways to gain knowledge and
experience, recognising that they needed to develop their
skills, understand the materials they were working with and
learn the fundamentals of design theory.
Elsie de Wolfe drew on her experience of set design and
studied 18th century French design. Jean-Michel Frank
followed work experience with a spell at a Paris Atelier.
Eileen Gray originally studied at the Slade but when she
became interested in interior and furniture design joined a
workshop specialising in lacquer work, while John Fowler
was known to pull old curtains to pieces to establish exactly
how they had been constructed.
Others ask if it is possible to learn interior design on the
job and, of course, in an ideal world that is exactly what
would happen. Many of today’s leading names in the design
world learnt their trade and built up their experience and
confidence with an established designer, apprentice-style.
However, in today’s fast moving world, design practices need
new employees to hit the ground running and do not have
the time to teach the now extensive fundamentals.
The demands on the interior designer today are huge.
The design skillset is broadly definable as a combination of
both intellectual and practical skills and is fundamentally a
decision making and problem solving activity. It requires
a blend of thinking and acting, learning through doing,

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Bridge for Design Spring 2014

testing ideas and assumptions through action. It is also a
holistic process and allows for the vagaries of human nature,
incorporating intuition, and even emotion into decision
making.
All of this requires a framework, a methodology which
design students need to grasp as a platform for the
development of their ideas. Similarly students can be
introduced to processes which help them access creative
ideas when faced with a raft of practical information from the
client brief, design survey and analysis.
Designers often work as part of a team with a variety of
other professionals during both the design and construction
stages. Inevitably, they need to understand the role of these
professionals to collaborate with them successfully.
In addition to the basic skills; design theory and
knowledge, a grasp of relevant technology is now essential to
facilitate the design. Illustration and administrative functions
also play a key part within interior services, providing
considerable learning challenges for the design student.
Interior designers carry high levels of responsibility.
Good design is critical to the competitiveness of many types
of businesses and contributes to quality of life at home,
work and leisure. To meet these demands students need to
understand the benefits of in-depth research and to learn
about the environmental performance of materials and
products. With all this in mind, in-depth design training
is really the only way to get started and to compete for
employment. B

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Jenny Gibbs is the principal of KLC school of design
503 Design Centre East , Chelsea Harbour, London SW10 0XF
T: [phone] | www.klc.co.uk