An exercise in understanding other peoples professions

Posted: January 23, 2009 at 10.07 pm
Posted by Graham Smith in creativity

Seeing as how this site has been set up as a community site for artists, designers and really anyone in a creative field, I thought it would be appropriate to have this post be a bit of a discussion. This topic below came up the other day in a conversation I had with a good friend of mine who is a graphic designer.

I hope it is helpful and interesting.  Please read my little ramble below to see what I am talking about and then please add to the discussion.

A little bit about me:

I am both interior designer and graphic designer by education and experience.  I have spent the majority of my career (the past 12 years) working with various Architecture and Interior design firms around the US. As some of you know, I am inspired by all things modern, drool over dark chocolate, love yoga…sorry…back to my point…

I have found throughout the years that I often have very low tolerance for people who do not understand my profession.  Actually, I should clarify that, a low tolerance for people that mistakenly say insulting things to me because they do not understand my profession.  I admit, this is wrong.  In my heart I know most people are just misinformed (probably mostly due to stupid home improvement TV shows) but I still cringe when people say thing like:  “So you must be really good at picking out paint colors”, “Do you know a good place where I can get some throw pillows?” or “wow, you the smartest interior designer I have ever met” and then there is my favorite “so do you know how to sew too…like curtains?”  Granted, I know these people are not “trying” to insult me, most of the time they are friends and family, but you can see where I’m going with this, right?

I am sure these kinds of things happen to everyone in every profession.  There are always going to be some people that do not understand what each of us does for a living.  I know I am just as guilty of this ignorance when it comes to some professions out there.  I try not to say stupid things about other people’s life’s work, but I am sure I have done so too.

I know that the key to minimizing this ignorance is really through enlightening and informing the general public and each other, I thought it would be nice to open this post up to all of you lovely people to inform the rest of us about something in your profession that is commonly misunderstood or misinterpreted.  Teach us about what you do so we do not ask you something to the equivalent of “do you know how to sew, too?”

This is what I do

I’ll start.  Here’s a little bit about my profession, Interior design: (if you already know this- you are awesomely well informed and brilliant! If not, don’t worry, that is the point of this post –and you are still brilliant J )

Interior design is not the same as decorating. It is not a home-economics study. (Sorry, I had to throw that in J ) Interior design is the study and design of human interaction with an interior space. Interior designers look at positive and negative space in a three-dimensional way.  With that comes the study of light, hierarchy of form, texture, joinery of architectural materials, transition between and circulation through spaces. (All in-keeping with building codes, fire codes, accessibility codes, etc) Basically anything you see in an interior space that is non-structural or non-mechanical falls under the realm of interior design.  Yes, we can specify furniture but it is not necessarily part of each job.  While interior design can be focused on residential spaces, it is just as equally focused on commercial spaces (i.e., restaurants, offices, retail shops, hotels, etc).

So, what do you do?

Ok, that’s me. Now it’s your turn to teach us about you…