Imaginative skills

Imaginative skills are perhaps most important for the traditional interior designer or concept designer, the creative thinker who is able to conceive of innovative concepts from an individual thought process. The concept designer will rely heavily on their historical and geographical knowledge, or more likely their ability to research relevant aspects related to a given concept. The need to produce visuals and visually communicative material is less important for the concept designer than in the past, as specialist illustrators now carry out this role, albeit under the concept designers guidance and supervision. A design conceptualiser must understand the technical challenges that his or her concept will create and whilst they may not involve themselves in the full creation of the technical solution, their guidance is critical if technical operatives are to produce detail drawings suitable for a contractor. Furthermore, the design conceptualiser must be very clear on his or her vision with respect to colour, detail, furniture selection, lighting moods and operational feasibility. And while they do not need to produce client-presentable visual images, the design conceptualiser must be able to produce sketches that are clear enough for both visualisers and design technicians to transform into full presentation works. Any concept designer unless it is his or her wish to select all of the FF&E themselves must also be able to guide the FF&E specialist, in order to ensure that the furniture, fittings and equipment not only matches, complements and enhances the design concept, but complies with all specificational and operational requirements. A concept designer will be expected to co-ordinate and closely follow his or her creation through to final completion and handover to the client, liaising with contract managers and interior contractors. They will have to represent the interior consultancy at presentations, site meetings and coordination meetings, and will lead the design team on a project by project basis. Therefore, it follows that the creative or conceptual designer must be informed on all aspects relating to the interior design profession, whilst not necessarily being an expert practitioner in all specialist processes.

Technical Comprehension
Whilst a fair degree of technical comprehension is required by all interior design personnel (even administrative and secretarial staff), none more so than the design technician. Note that we no longer use the term draughtsman, as no professional interior design consultancy can accept operatives who simply draw, without the necessary technical knowledge and understanding. The design technician is critical in producing accurate, scaled layouts, elevations and details, to be used to obtain competitive construction bids from interior fit out contractors. Given that, in-depth knowledge of architectural and interior design history and philosophy is not essential, but is nevertheless useful, as interpretation of the concept designers initial concepts may rely heavily on the manner in which the design technician interprets a detail, proportion or connection between elements and materials. Therefore, a full understanding of constructional detailing is required, combined with a knowledge of not only the specificational parameters of the material, but the precise manner in which all materials are fixed, jointed and worked, in order to produce technical details. One of the most underrated yet important aspects of interior design detailing is simply how it is all jointed. All interiors have junctions between walls and floors, walls and ceilings, walls and walls, and so on. Similarly, all items within the interior have the same form of connection. Therefore, a clear knowledge of how to join wood to wood, metal to metal, wood to metal and so on, is paramount in producing good design detailing. Without this understanding of the characteristics of the material there can be no logic in the connection detail. Without applying logic we end up with what constitutes as bad design the opposing properties of the jointed material may cause the opening up of joints due to expansion and contraction variances in materials. The

science of materials must be clearly understood, if not by the concept designer then certainly by the design technician. The design technician is one of the most important members of the design team, who in the fullness of time can guide both new concept designers and FF&E designers as to the practicality of a detail, a specification, or even a concept.

Visualisational Expertise
All interior designers, in all categories or specialisations, need to have the ability to visualise a concept. Some may have a picture in their head, some product sketch perspectives, some elevations, others may write down and describe the concept in words. But in todays world of competitive professional interior design, a client must be convinced that the designer he has selected is creating the right vision for his project. Whether you mean hand-sketches, watercolours, air brush renderings, marker pen illustrations, Photoshop images or 3D photo-realistic renderings, visualisation is now a very important design and sales tool for the interior design consultant. This area may be so specialised that it is not possible to test, examine or analyse the quality of the visualiser, as the visual is effectively a piece of art and, as such, open to both interpretation and subjectivity. However, whilst not all visualisers are trained interior designers, it is important that they understand the materials that they are illustrating, in order to create a realistic interpretation of the concept designers vision. All too often, visuals are produced that look effective but, upon closer inspection, demonstrate a lack of understanding of not only the materials, but in fact the 3D nature of the concept. It follows therefore that even pure visualisers need some degree of technical comprehension, some degree of specificational competence, and some knowledge of historical relevance. With a piece of furniture, depicting an incorrect style of leg for the period may not be noticeable to all, but would allow others to doubt the level of interest that the visualiser had taken in his or her work. I contend therefore that even a visualiser must understand the basic nature of the construction of an interior, the characteristics of the material he or she is depicting, the logical connections of the constituent parts of the interior and, last but not least, the relevance, or not, as the case may be, of historic, geographical and religious connotations considered to be important in the concept design. These areas of comprehension should be tested, analysed or examined, in order to assess the level of expertise of an illustrator.
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Competence in specification

The evolution of a qualified designer into a fully conversant, materialsselection adviser has in recent years given birth to the FF&E designer. The selection of furniture, fittings and equipment must be initiated from the design concept stage by, or in conjunction with, the concept designer. However, in most cases the FF&E designer should themselves be capable of intuitive, creative design, as in the same manner that we can no longer have a draughtsman, we cannot accept a materials selection clerk.

The FF&E designer requires a full knowledge of historical and period design, as well as geographical relevance, to ensure that the materials they are selecting and proposing are in harmony with the design concept or theme. Perhaps one of the most important roles of the FF&E designer is to know the technical specification of the materials that they are selecting, from weights, pile height and tufts/m in carpets to absorption rates of liquid into natural materials such as stone and granite. Given the huge and ever increasing list of materials available for interior specification, the FF&E designer must be constantly researching, cataloging and filing information for instant retrieval. The FF&E designer is the interior design consultants face to the world of suppliers and manufactures and, as such, must have excellent communication skills with both outside bodies and the team involved in the project. Furthermore, the FF&E designer must appreciate the financial implications of his or her selections, from the cost of supply, shipping, fixing and delivery.

Administrative Expertise
While it is clearly understood that most designers dislike administrative duties, because of the complex contractual nature of interior design, a company needs to formulate an effective administration system. Failure to do so will undoubtedly lead to contractual problems with clients, contractors and suppliers. All levels of personnel within the design team need to understand the design process and how their deliverables fit into the overall mix. However, it is important that one person co-ordinates these matters and ensures that the chain of communication is understood, unbroken and, most importantly, monitored and up-to-date. A design manager or administrators responsibility is to follow the project through from receipt of initial enquiry to handover of project, by monitoring letters, transmittals and all other communication.

Constructional Expertise
Naturally, everybody involved in the design process must have a high level of expertise in construction issues at the stage of design implementation. Traditionally, in architecture, a clerk of works or contract manager in the employ of the architect would supervise on-site works. In recent times, project mangers tend to be the main point of contact for contractors, consultants and clients. As interior design implementation becomes a more complex issue, requiring co-ordination of MEP services, audio visual and room management systems, to mention only a few, it follows that the specialisation of site supervision becomes increasingly important. To this end, a design construction manager who is distinct from the project manager has become an integral part of the design team. Note that this is a specialist service which may not be included within the normal scope of design services. The interior design contract manager is required to fully comprehend the design concept, and know the logic of the selection of all materials and furnishings. He or she must be involved in total co-ordination, delivery procedures, completion deadlines, contractors payments, architectural parameters, technical specifications and fixing methods of all finishes and fittings. It is clear that the role of the contract manager is pivotal to the successful completion of a project.