So why are we pursuing licensing for interior designers? The interior design profession is a very diverse field including work in healthcare, retail, hospitality, educational, residential, government/institutional, entertainment, and medical spaces just to name a few. Licensing will be focused on the public spaces that the general public walk through every day and may not realize could affect their health, safety or welfare if not designed properly by interior design professionals with the education, experience and examination to show they are qualified. According to the U.S. Green Building Council, we spend over 90 percent of our time indoors. Buildings are human habitat - so shouldn’t the spaces where we live, work, play and learn enhance our quality of life and ensure the health of our loved ones? The air in our homes, schools and offices often times is significantly more polluted than the air outside, and has been linked to illnesses ranging from asthma to heart disease partly due to the materials and off-gassing in those spaces.

The general public has a perception that interior design is purely the aesthetic enhancement of space which is not the case. Today’s interior design professionals apply the latest science and technology to make spaces as safe, efficient and enjoyable as possible. Interior designers are at the forefront of the sustainable and green buildings movement, helping to improve energy efficiency, air quality and water conservation. Interior designers make decisions every day that affect accessibility, chemical sensitivity, flammability and toxicity, and safe egress—to name just a few of the health and safety issues they address. To suggest that anyone with a flair for design or a set of computer-generated floor plans is qualified to offer interior design services, in the fullest sense, is to misunderstand the role that today’s interior designer plays in the built environment. The interior design profession is suffering from an identity crisis, educating the public about all the levels of service in our industry will be key to advancing the profession in Washington State.

IDCW has every intention to get legislation in place so that they can come back and change it so that they have full control of the design industry in Washington. If you take a look at other states the slippery slope process is in full swing. They pass legislation..and keep stiffining it each year and put thousands of people out of work across the country. Last year the IDCW tried thier best to put a spin on things while misleading to everyone what was in the bill. These are people that can not be trusted. Its time to call a spade a spade. Last year it was for health and safety but there was no data to prove it. There is still no data as it doesnt exist. They deny that ASID is a major part of this but the ASID is where most of the money is coming from. Every Designer or industry member needs to be concerned. They start out with an exclusionary bill, add inclusions to get it passed, and then go back and delete the inclusions. Its putting lipstick on a pig thats all. They are a disgrace to the industry.

Read on and you'll find four back-to-back postings from the President-elect of the local ASID chapter, Kristi Hanna. She, of course, is quite active in promoting legislative restraints on the ID profession. She writes, arrogating to herself the position of speaking on behalf of all of us active in ID, "The interior design profession is suffering from an identity crisis, educating the public about all the levels of service in our industry will be key to advancing the profession in Washington State." (I personally do not suffer from such an identity crisis after 30 years of award-winning ID practice, non-degreed as it may be.) Clearly, if "educating the public" is what's necessary--and she says it is--then we do not have a legislative issue! That, of course, does not matter to those who are single-minded in their pursuit of any possibly way to restrict the practice of interior design to a handful--a very small handful--of interior designers within the segment of the industry in which they are active. Educate the public, if you believe you are that important. Show clear evidence of widespread interior design abuses in the state of Washington that are putting the public at risk. Reference for us the lawsuits that would inevitably follow, if such abuse had risen to the level that restrictive licensing legislation was needed. To posture that we need restrictive legislation to prevent something bad from happening, to chase any issue that gives a semblance of substance to the gossamer of your arguments--these seem more like the disingenuous activities of an organization or individuals with other agendas than the ones they declaim.

I completely agree with Space Planner.....this is not the time for frivolous, needless legislation. Our planet has far more pressing issues facing it!

It makes me wonder, reading the comments of Kristi Hanna from ASID, how would she ahndle the same circumstances. Let's turn the tables here Kristi, let's say for a second that another organization, let's call it IDFULFGAP (Interior Designers For Unnecessary Legislation For Greed And Power). Let's say they were the ones trying to pass this same legislation, except you are finding out that they are going to make it so only the schools they pick will qualify, they will write the "code", they will determine whose experience counts, and they will write the test. Now what do you know, you aren't going to qualify. Not only will you not be able to practice your profession anymore, but you will be sued for doing so. Now we all know you are very proficient at what you do, and you are no threat to public health for the designs you develope, but someone is going to take that away....does that seem fair. Does it seem right that a professional organization should be in charge of any of this? Would you're organization be willing to step back and be completely removed from the legislation, having no part in the schooling, testing, rulings, and codes? I doubt it, because no matter what you may believe personally, health and safety is not why they are involved. Every designer has a right to their opportunities. The rest of the construction industry will keep it safe.

Are you curious about the NCIDQ board? You should be since the NCIDQ has figured prominently in the qualifications sections of past attempts to restrict ID practice. // Kristi Hanna, President-elect for the local ASID chapter, says in her posting about this year's bill: "- The CIDA education requirement will no longer be a part of the bill language. All nine interior design programs in our state will qualify under the education requirement as well as hundreds of interior design programs across the country." // That does not preclude the need to have some standard by which they can deem an interior designer "qualified" to register. That standard is certain to include passing the NCIDQ exam. // That raises the question: Is the NCIDQ really an independent organization? NO. From their web site: "NCIDQ's founders were the American Institute of Interior Designers (AID) and the National Society of Interior Designers (NSID), two national organizations that were then preparing to merge into what became the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID)." // Does it have a mission? YES. Again, from their site: "NCIDQ seeks the acceptance of its examination as a universal standard by which to measure the competency of interior designers to practice as professionals." // 100% of the NCIDQ's board's current officers have strong ASID ties; two of the three are ASID Fellows; the other was a member of ASID's national Education and Training Advisory Committee. // Of the board's five directors, four have ASID connections or, in the case of the Canadian member, spearheaded restrictive legislation. Only the "Public Member" has no such history. One of the directors, Ernest Rhoads, is an professional member of ASID and IIDA and a founder of the IDCW! Note that at least half the ASID loyalists on the NCIDQ board are also active in IIDA. // Therefore, claims that this interior design legislation is the pet project of the ASID are, in fact, substantive.

The effort to advance the profession of interior design will be painful. Those that care be granted professional status will take the steps to qualify themselves and prove their expertise. Those that choose to remain unqualified do so of their own freewill. Animosity is expected but sympathy is not.