I want to start with why I chose the profession of a designer in general. Since I was a child, I liked to create something beautiful: to dress up beautifully, make beautiful accessories for the house, come up with some jewelry, souvenirs that were popular with my friends. When the question of choosing a profession arose, I did not doubt for a second that I would become a designer.

So, I decided to become a designer, a person who sells beauty to people. The fact that in addition to beauty, there is also strength, usefulness, the cost of implementing the plan and the opinion of the client, I somehow did not think about it…

Understanding of the situation came not even in the process of studying at the institute in the specialty "interior designer", but in the process of the first job. I remember very well the moment when one of my first clients asked: "And where will we have sockets?" What do sockets have to do with an interior designer, it didn't fit well in my head. It seemed to me that my main task was to come up with something from the world of high fashion, that is, something completely individual, impressive, perhaps even shocking. And here are some sockets… I'm not an electrician, after all!
Further - more. It turned out that the designer's duties include knowledge of building materials and technologies. (What, for example, will be the thickness of a wall made of a particular material? And plastered? And if you use ceramic tiles? Will the bath fit after that? It will definitely fit, otherwise it goes from Germany for 3 months?)
And in addition, you need to be able to: make estimates; identify the true needs of customers, and sometimes be able to find a compromise between opposing interests within the same family or company; manage construction work at the level of an experienced foreman; navigate the huge market of goods and services and be able to quickly turn into plus the harm from other people's mistakes; and, of course, competently perform measurements of the object. When the measurements are made, you need to be able to create working drawings, make a photorealistic visualization, being ready to make one hundred and one corrections to the color and texture of that little pillow on the sofa against the far wall.
Oh yeah… I forgot to say that it is not enough just to demonstrate the project to the customer. Most likely, it will have to be seriously argued and defended as a doctoral dissertation. At the same time, no one guarantees that even in the case of brilliant answers to tricky questions and a well-founded project, the designer will not hear a thoughtful: "But I still don't like something ...". It is worth considering that unlike, say, haircuts in a barbershop, the project can be redone until the designer's patience breaks. After all: "You can still try to draw somehow, and I'll see...". In such cases, it makes sense to introduce a limitation on the number of alterations in the contract.
Once a friend of mine, an expert in a completely different field, and who repaired his apartment on his own, said: "Interior designer is a wonderful profession! You can realize your fantasies at the expense of the client!" In my experience, this is one of the most common misconceptions about the profession of a designer. In reality, the designer serves to process the client's wishes with the help of his knowledge and skills. And nothing else.
The most difficult thing in the profession, in my opinion, is to combine two opposites: a manager and an artist, that is, logic and creativity.
I hope you were interested in my story❤️