Online Interior Design Schools

Interior designers work to plan the spaces in which we live and work on a daily basis. Using a mixture of principles gained from their education combined with inherent creativeness and the experience gleaned from previous projects, designers make our homes, public buildings, and community spaces more functional and pleasant.

Online educational offerings in this highly functional and rewarding endeavor range from certification workshops to associate and bachelor�s degrees. The gamut of available courses not only allows existing designers to further their education and to learn new skills, but it opens the field to those who must continue in their existing jobs as they seek a career change.
Certification courses tend to be self-paced and open ended. They serve as an excellent entree to the field and give the student a nationally recognized diploma that can serve as the basis for acquiring an entry-level job. Later on certification coupled with work experience makes an excellent stepping stone to a further course of study as living and working circumstances allow.

Basic interior design courses concentrate on core principles of color and design, lighting and scale, and balance and harmony. Students work with textures, patterns, and line forms, learning which coordinate and how they function fluidly in given spaces. There is an intricate psychology inherent in color that crosses the scale of cool and neutral to warm. All color schemes are based on combinations of these values paired with hue and lighting in artificial, natural, direct, and indirect arrangements. A working knowledge of these basics is key to building a successful interior design career.

Armed with basic knowledge a student will easily transition into an associates or bachelor�s program with more specialized courses in a variety of residential and commercial applications. Note that in these more intense programs an internship will most probably be required. Methods of accomplishing this hands-on experience will vary from program to program.

By its very nature, interior design can be a highly lucrative field. Designing and outfitting custom rooms and spaces that communicate a specific aesthetic is not an inexpensive process. When a designer has established a reputation and built a clientele through referrals and recommendations, they can and do command excellent fees.

We have attempted to provide links on this page to additional information on interior design programs at all levels. We hope this material will be useful to you in your investigation of the potential of not only interior design as a promising career but also to the methodology of online education as an instructional venue.