Deciding to hire a designer is an act of trust. These days, it’s especially hard to establish trust with potential clients. Clients want as much information as possible prior to making a commitment, and that is completely understandable. When you are skeptical of the source and you’re investing significant resources, you want greater assurance of a successful outcome.
Everyone is looking for the sure thing. They are looking to hedge their bet. They think the way to do that is to go with a proven quantity, a remake of something you have already seen. That is their mindset.
When making the calculations to decide whether to hire a designer, the unknown quantity is most obviously the design process. There is a process required to come up with a design that is truly personal, unique and lasting. That process involves the client and the designer working together. The experience of the process is not something that is quantifiable, most especially at the beginning.
Instead of looking at the design process, many clients just focus on the design itself. That’s why demand for information up front among prospective clients is skyrocketing, and that is why many designers simply can’t afford to stay in business. They spend too much time giving prospective clients a ton of information for free in order to convince the client to hire them. It’s not good for the prospective client or the designer, because the information doesn’t represent what’s truly possible. A proposal submitted up front can never truly represent what it would be like to work with that designer. And because a quality process engages both designer and client, the proposed work product is never going to be as satisfactory as the final product.
In sum, this dynamic repeated throughout the industry explains why you’re seeing a lot of ‘design consultants’ working in retail and the balance of interior designers focusing on commercial design. Residential interior design as an independent profession is disappearing, succumbing to the widespread belief that the free consultations at local retailers are an adequate substitute for a holistic design process and plan for the evolution of the home environment.
This makes me sad. But ironically, the experience of a pandemic may offer some additional future insight into the value of hiring an independent interior design professional. Spending so much time at home with your loved ones likely made a bad relationship with your space even worse. Or, perhaps you discovered some ways your good relationship with your space could be made even better. Right now, everyone just wants to get out of the house. But eventually, when we all come back into balance, we’ll look to fall in love with our homes again. Consider a trustworthy designer who has your best interests at heart.
Sara L. Hinkel, M.S.Ed. 