Designing

How to become a Furniture Designer

Updated On: 12-Feb-2023

A furniture designer is an expert in designing furniture items and related products by keeping in mind the functionality and fashion. They design couches, chairs, tables, shelves, and decorative accents for furniture pieces. While designing they need to keep in mind a few things like customer preferences, sustainability, ergonomics, and practicality with beauty.

As a furniture designer, you may just be involved in the design aspects only or the production of the designed items also. It depends on your work nature and the skills you have.

The day to day tasks includes:

Studying, researching and planning various styles of furniture design
Changing or improving the existing design as per the client requirements
Selecting suitable materials, which might include wood, metal, plastic and textiles
Preparing sample designs using computer-aided design (CAD), card models, sketches or hard prototypes
Budgeting
Prepare the final detailed design after all changes and client approvals
Staying updated about the latest market trends
Incorporate with other team members to get work done
Attending workshops, seminars and training on various types of manufacturing and furniture design

If anyone working as a self-employed designer, then he/she needs to spend time on marketing and business administration, as well as promoting yourself through advertising your services or attending furnishing fairs and exhibitions, etc.

The self-employed designer needs to play more roles than the designer only:

Accountant
Buyer
Designer
Production manager
Sales person

A bachelor's degree in industrial designing, interior designing, fine arts, architecture, or related fields can help you in pursuing this career. A diploma or certification course in computer design software can help you gain the knowledge of computer software that is mandatory nowadays.Step 1: Earn a bachelor's degree in relative fields like industrial designing, interior designing, etc., or go for a certification course in the relative field.

Step 2: Build a Portfolio - Either you want to work with an employer or as a freelancer; a portfolio is the first thing that you need. So, create many designs, and choose the best among them for your portfolio.

Step3: Find Employment - now you have the degree and portfolio both so start seeking a job, approach the firms in the relative field with your portfolioYou must have the following skills to pursue this career path
1. Creative designing skills
2. Excellent Drawing skills
3. Knowledge of computer design software
4. Good communication and listening skills
5. Self-motivation, self-discipline, and persistence
6. Detail oriented
7. Sales and Marketing skillsIf you see any furniture item like a chair, table, sofa, etc. and think you can make a better design of it then you can try your luck in this field.The working hours will depend on the employer and the market that you focus on. However, your work schedule will be largely self-regulated.
The designers who work for retail, manufacturing, and wholesale furniture dealers work according to the prescribed office or factory hours.Salaries for Furniture designers vary by company. You might work for a large manufacturing firm, a small family business, or a design company doing work for several manufacturing firms. However, a beginner can get an average salary of 20k to 25k easily.Can you imagine any house or office without furniture? Now, with the increasing income of people and people are getting more aware of good looking and designing furniture, the demand for experts in this industry getting increasing.

The aspirant can look for a career in small or large industries in the furniture designing field. The top construction firms are focusing on interior design with appropriate furniture also, so they also hire furniture designing specialists. Some of the names are L&T Construction, Brigade Group, DLF, and Aditya Birla Group. There are many designing companies that also focus on furniture designing and production only like IKEA, Godrej Interio, Nilkamal Ltd, Usha Lexus Furniture, etc.

Freelancing could be an option also for the aspirants. So, if you have the skills, then lots of job opportunities are waiting for you in this field.