More than 8,000 people who design interiors professionally in Illinois are rushing to apply for a new license that goes into effect at mid-year.
Those who haven`t qualified for the license or begun the process of qualifying by July 1 won`t be able to call themselves interior designers, but will have to use another title, such as interior decorator.
What, a consumer may ask, is the difference?
A matter of meeting minimum educational and work-experience standards, says MJ Kamin, owner of Riverside`s MJ Dvorak Design Interiors, and the spokesman for the Illinois Interior Design Coalition, a group of six professional design organizations that spearheaded the licensing drive.
”Anyone can call herself an interior designer currently,” Kamin says. While some interiors jobs require little more than excellent taste, good color sense and someone willing to do the shopping, other projects are more complicated and require knowledge of local building codes as well as space planning.
The new licenses, says Kamin, will be one ”way to help a consumer sort out the kind of expertise you need.”