The Harsh Truth About Interior Design Education | Cab Confessions Ep.2

0:00Are you a morning person? Are you quite early? Sadly not, I'm more of a night owl, but you get used to it. You have to get into it when you start 9 to 5.

0:19What did you have to adjust? Just have to start going to bed a bit earlier because I feel like I'm most creative at night. so yeah I had to kind of shift that slightly but that's alright you get into it and lots of people are like that right? yeah are you worried about AI? I think it will go through its own journey as a creative person I think it's a shame to use it too heavily like you have an individual way of thinking and I think AI has a way of boxing that so I think we should be wary of it I think it's a fantastic tool I think it can really help design it can especially with the speed of this industry it can turn around things so fast and to a quality that previously we weren't capable of just doing things by hand but it can't replace I don't know human abilities and ways of thinking so I love that you touched on personality because I think every designer has got their personality and you need to embrace it, lean into it.

1:26So how long have you been in the workplace, like from graduating to in doing your role? So I graduated two years ago now and took some time off to travel and kind of worked in between just in hospitality. Then I started my internship just over a year ago now. That was a year long so that was in office design and build and then I've just started my new position as a junior designer so I've kind of only just emerged into the industry really I suppose. What surprised you most from education to real life? The speed at which you learn. It's a lot quicker than doing a degree. There's not a curriculum you're just kind of like based on what projects happening at that time and you're learning what needs to be done as you're going.

2:16Yeah I think it's it's fast-paced but for me it's the best way to learn it's a bit sink or swim just chuck you in the deep end see how you do. What is one bit of your job you would love to like just not do? Oh that's really hard um I think pitching is always quite intimidating um I think you have to get good at it, you have to kind of be confident in what you're saying but it is quite hard when you're also learning yourself so right now I'm like I'm not even too sure always what I'm saying because I'm learning and it's like learning a whole new language sometimes some of the like abbreviations and things so I think for the moment definitely being in pictures is quite intimidating.

3:03If you were to write the university curriculum for interior design what would you put in there that you feel they've missed out so from for my course specifically because i i did just interior design and i think to be fair i could have done well doing an interior architecture course because there is a lot of that knowledge that you have to lean on i suppose um but i think just a more basic understanding around like building regulations and it's not that exciting but something that's kind of you don't even think of like the way a door should swing when you're doing a space plan in university because they haven't necessarily explained that in in my course anyway so yeah I think a little bit more understanding on what's realistic I know they try to lean in towards like make like letting you be creative because it's the only chance you'll get to kind of explore your style and go crazy because it's not real but I think a few more restrictions would help okay that's nice is there anything from your course that you're absolutely like clinging on to and it's been really useful I think a lot of just the the technical skills In my new job I'm now leaning on my CAD skills again, which is really nice and it does kind of come back to you and also just kind of going over your work and analysing it again, seeing how you can improve it because you don't have a lecturer saying, oh maybe optimise it this way.

4:19So you have to become that person for yourself and that's been a learning curve. But yeah. Yeah, no that's cool. When you went travelling, tell me about that. Oh that was amazing. I think it also interestingly translates so well to interior design I think I literally I've made a post of all of the inspirational pictures that I found from that trip because it's just a completely different way of designing because it's so rooted in like different cultures and a lot of like handmade fabrics and I went to Laos and there was a whole village of women that just like made like weaved scarves and so lining the houses was everything they'd made as like their shop front and it was incredible like it it almost didn't feel real but this is like their like livelihood i suppose in like 10 years time how do you hope like the workspace and your job role has evolved it's it's nice to see that office design is kind of coming into its own i think almost it still feels like quite a recent steer away from boxy offices of like the 70s 80s and I think it's still it's an emerging industry I think there's a long way for it to go but people are recognizing that we spend such a large portion of our lives in an office and that space should be somewhere people want to come and that is a attitude that people are adopting more so now I think so I think just to see that develop and to see people take pride in their offices and we want to yeah foster that mentality I suppose would you say you're an overthinker I would to be fair yeah maybe that helps with the creative process I'm not sure because you're just yeah no definitely always been an overthinker someone said to me once on this podcast and I think it's absolute gold dust if you're creative and you're not overthinking or I've got imposter syndrome you're not pushing the boundaries enough.

6:19So every time you've got overthinking, just hold on to that. I think it's good, you keep going back and seeing what you could tweak and I think you can harness it. Who are you going to nominate to come in the cab with me next? So I'm going to nominate Katie Scott Brown. She was an intern with me at my previous company.