Start your career path to becoming a certified interior designer today. Learn about the steps, classes and educational options you will need to become a successful interior design specialist. The team at University HQ strives to provide accurate and trustworthy rankings that highlight the best programs for interior design.
What Does a Career in Interior Design Entail?
As an interior designer, you’re going to be prepared to develop interior and possibly exterior spaces that are inviting to the people and organizations that use them. The spaces you create should reach out to touch the emotions and senses of the people that see and occupy them. This is the goal of interior design graduates, no matter their interior design degree level.
Interior design graduates should have a good, working knowledge of the structure of spaces, requirements, building codes, and health and safety issues of the residential homes, offices, and outdoor spaces they may design and bring to life. They also need to be highly familiar with materials, textiles, color or other media, sustainability or environmental analysis, graphic art design, and space planning of interior architecture and design, though they may gain some of this through work experience. An interior design degree prepares students for success in working with interior architecture and design and working with a client or consumer.
How to Become an Interior Designer Online
What is an Interior Designer?
An interior designer creates functional, beautiful, and safe spaces for businesses, homes, and even exterior sites. If this is you, then you’ll be responsible for determining a location’s space requirements, looking for, and choosing the decorative accessories that will enhance the space’s natural beauty.
As you begin work on a new space, you’ll read blueprints and be knowledgeable about building codes and the regulations surrounding building inspections.
What is the Difference Between an Interior Designer and an Interior Decorator?
An interior decorator is nothing like an interior designer. The interior design profession has work processes that are quite different from those of decorators.
As a designer, you work closely with clients and architects. You get to know your clients well, so you can understand what their design needs really are. Knowing this allows you to create a space that is the most optimal for their lives or business.
You’ll have to be able to read an architect’s blueprints so that you can sketch out floor plans and walls.
Typical Interior Design Degree Requirements
While your chosen major is artistic, it’s still rigorous, with many academic requirements:
- General education courses
- Design courses, to focus on interiors
- Visual Communication classes
- Interior Design Theory
- Construction courses, including a course on interior materials and assemblies
- Design practice (Professional focus)
- Interior Design History, to include the history of architecture
- Courses on environmental controls
- Human Behavior and learning to design for this
- Internship (required)
- Specified core curriculum courses
- Nontechnical physics
- Introductory Psychology (meets social and behavioral sciences requirement)
- Architecture of the world, from Industrial Revolution to the present
- Art History
- Electives
Typical Interior Designer Certification Needed
After graduation, you’ll need to study some more so you can take your exam for state licensure. In several states across the U.S., interior designers can only work once they have taken a licensing exam (NCIDQ exam) and passed, then received a license from the licensing board in their state.
During your last semester, you’ll begin checking out where to take a state-approved exam—this is usually the National Council for Interior Design Qualification, or NCIDQ. The licensing council requires test-takers to have at least a bachelor’s degree in interior design from an interior design program, plus two years of experience. You may be able to get the required two years’ experience during your internships and you may also be able to attend architecture and design course programs from a CIDA accredited design school.
Academic Standards for Interior Design Degrees
Interior designers holding a state license are real professionals. These interior designers meet with clients to help them solve issues within their office or home environments with their knowledge of interior architecture and design, fine arts, and design skill. The main expectation of this professional role is to help enhance a client’s quality of life.
This major means you are going to be exposed to, and learn things across, a wide range of disciplines. You’ll gain real-world work experience through your interactions with classmates and clients you meet in your internship(s).
Exam/Experience Needed for an Interior Design Degree
With your online bachelor’s or master’s interior design degree, along with your professional work experience, you’re ready to apply for your interior design certification examination.
First, you should obtain a copy of the application and carefully read the instructions. You may be able to find this on the NCIDQ website. Before you begin filling it out, look for the deadline and note this on your calendar. Gather all required documentation so you can make copies to send with your application. If you will be applying online, scan each document and save them in a folder.
Fill out your application and verify that everything is correct. Include all your documentation and send it in.
Pass your exam—you must pass every portion and finish the exam within the stated deadline to earn your certification.
It’s an excellent idea to continue participating in studio culture, which will enrich your learning and interior design work. Begin to create your portfolio and insert your best work samples.
Plan your job search early. Look for basic interior design jobs while you are on school breaks. Reach out to first-year interior design majors and mentor them on their academic paths.
Important Questions to Ask (FAQ)
How Long Does It Take to Earn an Interior Design Bachelor’s Degree Online?
If you decide that you are going to take your interior design degree coursework online, you should figure out how long it will take you to earn a bachelor’s degree, or whichever degree level you choose, online. Most online Bachelor of Science or Arts online degree programs online are self-paced, moving along at the pace you set. Your instructor will set deadlines for discussion groups, exams, and assignments. You may also be required to take part in an online lecture every week, where you’ll receive a new set of required assignments.
In general, courses last about 15 weeks during the fall and spring semesters. During summer sessions, courses may last 8-10 weeks. If you participate in each online lecture and finish your assigned work on time, you will move easily from semester to semester.
How Much Does an Interior Design Bachelor’s Degree Cost?
Depending on whether your classes are set up in semesters or quarters, current student's tuition costs will vary. For instance, some online interior design degree programs use quarters for each term. The tuition cost per credit often sits around $375, though this can be significantly higher if you attend a private program or specially focused interior design schools. Interior design programs often require each student to pass 180 hours to graduate and programs may cover 165 instructional weeks. By the final quarter, your total tuition may average around $67,500, not including fees and your estimated digital textbooks (on an e-reader).
Interior Design Online Bachelor’s Degree Coursework
Once you’ve completed all your general education classwork and gained acceptance into an interior design program, the hard work begins. Depending on your university or interior design school's program, you may be working in the architectural department because interior architecture and design are closely related.
In your first year, you’ll begin with basic design courses and interior design classes. Even your communication courses will be visual. Next, you might take a design theory class, a fine arts course, and a few construction classes as well, which focus more on the interior materials and assemblies. You may also have a class on environmental analysis along with your interior architecture and design course.
Your classwork progresses into interior design practice, where you begin working on the actual practice of designing interiors. Then interiors and society, design history, and history of architecture. Some of your classes may be more difficult as you move into environmental controls (acoustics, lighting, electrical and information systems in architectural interiors). Sometime in this term, you’ll also work on design for human behavior (privacy, mood, perception, and individual preferences).
You’ll also take elementary physics, which is geared toward students who aren’t majoring in natural sciences. Finally, you’ll finish with world architecture, spanning the Industrial Revolution to current times. Round out your other requirements with art history, electives, and any additional core curriculum classes you need before graduating.
Does the School Have the Major You’re Considering?
You know you want to major in interior design. Before you commit yourself and enroll in a university program, double-check to make sure it carries interior design as a major. Once you determine which schools offer interior design as a major, check for its rankings and accreditation.
How Many Students Graduate “On Time” in Four Years?
While universities plan out their majors so that students can graduate within four years, different factors can affect that goal for students. You don’t want to miss this goal. Universities and interior design professors structure their programs so you’re able to take your general education courses and your required interior design classes within the allotted time.
To assist yourself so you graduate within four years, listen closely to your advisers and take a full-time load every semester. Visit your registrar’s office and request degree audits as you get closer to graduation. This will help you to spot deficiencies in your academic program. If you do spot any, plan to correct them during a summer session.
Interior design professors and administrators tweak their curricula from year to year. What was offered two years or even one year ago won’t apply today, so don’t rely on old catalogs. Always work from a current-year catalog. This way, you know what classes you’re supposed to be taking now or planning for future semesters.
What Kinds of Accreditation Does the Online Program Hold? How is it Regarded in the Field?
Accreditation is vital to every academic program and student. This is a status that’s conferred on an academic program to indicate that it meets or exceeds current educational criteria and quality. Accreditation agencies examine programs at universities seeking new accreditation or to renew an existing accreditation. These agencies and academic institutions want to be consistent in their programs and curricula. This allows you to know that what you are learning is the latest material.
Accreditation also serves to encourage academic and institutional improvement. Universities and colleges can receive institutional accreditation, which covers the entire institution. Regional accrediting agencies cover different regions of the U.S.
Program accreditation is aimed solely at a single program, such as interior design. This is a professional level accreditation, ensuring that educational requirements are met or exceeded. Programs receiving accreditation are placed onto a published list, which helps prospective majors to decide which to choose. Once you have graduated, you’ll be required to have your official transcripts sent to employers who are interested in you. They will check your transcripts and your interior design program to look for evidence of accreditation. Your eventual salary may benefit from this.
Professional Interior Design Organizations
ASID
American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)
ASID works with others, promoting the value of interior design. Members are encouraged to excel in this growing and dynamic profession. Education, advocacy, and community building all combine to keep interior design in the sights of the public. Members celebrate and demonstrate the power of design.
CIDQ
Council for Interior Design Qualification (CIDQ)
The main purpose of the National CIDQ is to ensure the safety, health, and welfare of the public are protected. High standards are maintained, ensuring that designers demonstrate competence in the field. Those designers who have met minimum standards by passing the NCIDQ exam are certified, so they can work in this field.
IDEC
Interior Design Educators Council, Inc. (IDEC)
This organization is dedicated to the support of education and research in interior design. The members of this organization encourage the exchange of information, educational standards, and development of the field of knowledge related to quality of life and human performance in this field.