7 Career Options after Becoming an Interior Designer

Interior Designer is the most demanded profession in India right now. Due to reduced living spaces and growing cities need of reusing and remodelling of the available place is most needed. And also due to rapid change in thoughts of today’s youth of India, importance to interior design and theme setup of houses and business places has become vital. Statistics also prove that most of the interior design graduates are placed well.

status Percentage

Employed – 80.7
Further study – 4.4
Studying and working – 1.1
Unemployed – 6.8
other – 7

Voila.! This drops down to a pool of career options to interior designers. Let’s navigate through them.

All the available options can be broadly categorized into 3 sectors.

• Own business
• Government sector
• Private firms

Own business

If you have strong entrepreneurial skills and decent financial backup, you are all set to start your own interior design firm or a consultancy. And also, decent relations with giants in the industry would greatly advantage
you.
Other than designing a complete interior of a house u can also consider designing furniture, utility products, and graphic designs and so on. Basically, anything you have expertise in can be made and sold yourself.

Government sector

Even though this sector for interior design sounds a bit distorted, it’s true that even the government offers a few jobs for interior designers. The main recruitment happens for PWD’s, municipal corporations and town planning departments.
And also as government is launching new schemes for providing housing facilities to needy there would be a need of interior designer to plan out a functional interior in a very limited space and budget.

To know more about these jobs reach the concerned local authorities and their websites too.

Private firms

[1] Design firms

However, As an interior designer in a designing firm, you will have to work on designs and talk with clients and higher authorities.
Responsibilities: The common responsibilities would include working on design strategy, site measurements. Likewise, making layouts, technical drawings, using technical software’s and taking up Client meetings
Key skills: 2D drawings, 3Ds max, site handling, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, MS Office.
Pay: Average pay ranges from 1.2 to 2.4L/annum and depending on the experience it can go anywhere up to 4.8L/annum.
Top firms: These are top 3 firms in interior designing industry
1) Spaceler
2) Decorpot
3) Allegra designs

[2] Furniture designer

Being an interior designer, you will already have a keen eye on furniture. Apart from designing the interiors, you can also design furniture for furniture production companies. However, always there is an option to establish you and set up a furniture boutique.
Responsibilities: The main responsibilities of a furniture designer would include receiving orders, drawings from front end designers. Similarly, preparing a cut list, feeding drawings to CNC machine and knowledge in google-
Sketchup.
Key Skills: AutoCAD 2D, 3D, V-ray, Google sketch-up are the key skills to be considered.
Pay: Average pay for a furniture designer can vary anywhere from 60K to 2.5L/annum.

[3] Product designer

Interior designers are generally considered to have creative brains. Consumers in today’s market are craving for artistic pieces and artefacts with functional importance & appealing looks. So we can see a lot of scope in being a productive product designer. Also, These products include lights, home décor, rugs, curtains, gift articles, artefacts, showpieces and so on.

Responsibilities: A product designer should develop product design, conceptualize, make a prototype and develop the end product. The key responsibilities might also include talking to clients explaining ideas, for this you might need to develop new visual concepts and multimedia presentations.
Key skills: Therefore, Design thinking and design research are the key skills required for any product designer. One Should have good knowledge of materials like wood, glass, iron, natural fibres etc.
Pay: Product designer salary can be anywhere between 2.5L to 10L/annum (provided having sufficient experience and excellent knowledge).
Top firms
1) Artisans
2) Designer
3) 24d-studio

[4] Graphic designer/ Portfolio designers

The need for good graphical images and videos is the sky. An interior designer learns about visual design and presentation. And also has hands-on knowledge about software’s like Photoshop, Corel Draw, Indesign, Sketchup, AutoCAD, V-ray, 3DsMax etc. So it would be a cakewalk for interior designer to turn up as a graphic designer.

Responsibilities: Graphical designer has to conceptualize visuals based on requirements, prepare rough drafts. Similarly, present ideas develop illustrations, logos and other designs using software or by hand, use the appropriate colours and layouts for each graphic. Likewise, work with copywriters and creative director to produce final design and test graphics across various media.
Key skills:  Good knowledge about software’s like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After effects, InDesign, and Corel Draw, Bootstrap, HTML5, CSS3 & Responsive layouts is a must.
Pay: A graphic designer can earn anywhere between 1.8L – 7.5L/annum.
Top firms:  
1) Quick radius
2) Verve logic
3) Multia

These graphical designers are also hired to make portfolios. However, All the designers in various fields hire other designers to showcase their work and make attractive portfolios. This could be another way to get work and eventually income for a graphic designer.

[5] Set designer/temporary Interior designer

Considering the growing market value of film industry, filmmakers are giving huge importance to the quality of interiors presented in movies too. And also TV shows, release events and another such kind of event planners are hiring set designers. Also designing sets for marriage and other parties have been increasing. So set designing has become a considerable profession.

Responsibilities: The key responsibilities of any set designer would be planning the design, estimating the cost of making, managing inventories and executing the design.
Key skills: Skills of a set designer would be very similar general interior designer and additionally knowledge in materials used in construction has to be considered. Should be familiar with 2D drawings, 3Ds max, site handling, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, MS Office. 
Pay: In general pay for a set designer would be contract and firm based. So it could be between 1.5L to 4L /contract.
Top firms: These companies are amongst few doing well inset designing

1) D’fine art
2) Fizz films limited
3) Theme weavers
Anyway, local event managers will also hire set designers so these companies can also be considered.

[6] Photographer/Blogger/V-logger

However, After gaining good knowledge in arts, design and graphics, one can get to make valuable photographs. And also have good writing skills can make you write articles and turn into a blogger and presenting it in a better way can make you a vlogger too.

Responsibilities: The responsibility varies depending on the work being done. Also, Photographers can make good photos and sell them on websites like Pinterest. However, Bloggers and vloggers can create meaningful content and publish. So making content, editing, and publishing it would be main responsibilities.
Key skills: Having sound knowledge in content writing, taking pictures, editing software’s like Photoshop would be a must need. Digital marketing skills would be plus point.

Pay: Earnings would completely depend on the amount and quality of work done. But slowly the makings can go up to a few lakhs of rupees.
Top firms: These are few firms where photographs can be sold
1) Pinterest
2) Fancy
3) Deviantart

[7] Teaching

Nevertheless, where do all skills come without a teacher! It is undoubtedly a high demand profession (considering having good knowledge and communication skills). As a result, Inspiring and making students think out of the box by nurturing their design dreams would be the most satisfying job for any teacher. Students have started to think diverse and considering various other career options available as a result demand for design professors is also increasing.

Responsibilities: Responsibilities of a teacher would be vast. Experience in innovative and creative activities, a high-level understanding of current and emerging technologies. Also, production processes related to digital media is a must.

Key skills: Excellent knowledge in 2D drawings, 3Ds max, site handling, AutoCAD, SketchUp, Photoshop, MS Office is needed. And also being in the update of new software releases is required too.
Pay: A designing lecturer could expect to pay from 1.2L to 4.8L per annum.
Top firms/schools: These are top schools for designing which may hire a
design lecturer
1) Pearl academy
2) Symbiosis Institute of design
3) Parul university

If you are a creative head who have interest in playing with colours, textures and art, interior designing is the best job for you. So, if you think you are connected to all the aspects of this profession go ahead and rock your career with all the colours.