I am a professional interior designer with 30+ years of experience. I am also an interior design educator. I have dedicated the past 30 years of my life to my chosen professions. I am concerned that the interior design profession is mired in a severe identity crisis that keeps it from becoming the preeminent profession for the design of interior environments. Yes I believe that we have the opportunity to achieve that status. Call me a dreamer.

My comments on this blog are made independently of my professional affiliations. I must state this as I will be posting controversial comments that may, or may not, be shared by my coworkers, the institution that employs me or any professional organization that I may be a member of. Fortunately this is in fact my day job.  The profession of interior design and it’s struggle to define it’s position amongst building design professions is a scholarly interest of mine. Here is a link to my academic vita and professional/academic portfolio (give it a minute to load…there are lots of big words and fancy pictures)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/i25miq49qzzmazz/Michael%20Dudek%20Portfolio.pdf?dl=0

With that I have probably given you more info than you need. However, I hope I have proven that I may actually know what I am talking about. Whether you agree with it or not is up to you.  I welcome any and all comments that relate to this topic. Again, this blog is not associated with any particular organization or professional entity -it is wide open 1st amendment territory.

I am not always right (wait I am wrong about that ;-). I may be off color and off base. Call me a visionary or call me an A-hole. It’s a free country.  I just want to get this discussion going.

Thanks for visiting

P.S. I posted this on another blog. I think it succinctly states my position on the licensing of interior design;

……………………..I will just disagree that “registration and licensure to make it clear to the public that there is a difference between Interior Design and Interior Decoration”. Again I think you are putting the cart before the horse. We cannot expect/demand government regulation without garnering the understanding and respect of the public (and vis-a-vis our policy makers) first. It is not the government’s job to tell us who is qualified and who is not- who can call themselves an interior designer and who cannot. No amount of government regulation and  bureaucracy is going to force the public to change their opinion of our profession. I AM NOT AGAINST GOVERNMENT REGULATION. But at best it should be considered as just one component of a focused, collectively supported and strategic public relations campaign not a means to an ill-defined end

P.P.S. I don’t tweet so if you need that level of connectivity I can’t help you there.