Interior Design Management: A Handbook for Owners and Managers

With Interior Design Management, Christine Piotrowski picks up where her critically acclaimed Professional Practice for Interior Designers - winner of the 1990 Joel Polsky Prize - left off.In her new work, written for seasoned interior designers by a seasoned pro, Piotrowski goes beyond comparable books that cater largely to architects or that fail to fully address crucial personnel issues. In Interior Design Management, she covers the full range of nuts-and-bolts issues and skills that interior designers must master if their firms are going to succeed in today's fiercely competitive market.Drawing on her years of practical business experience, Piotrowski offers interior designers proven advice on: managing and organizing the office - including the basics of good decision making and dealing with crucial legal, financial, zoning, insurance, and tax matters. managing finances - with tips on basic accounting, financial statements, monitoring and reporting performance, and setting proper fees and prices. managing operations - insights into handling contracts, product budgeting, time management, and avoiding legal liability. creating sound marketing - from developing a marketing plan, to identifying prospects, to using promotional tools most effectively. Even more, for the first time in any book on interior design practice, Piotrowski addresses the Uniform Commercial Code and the sale of goods, the fundamentals of planning as it relates to interior design, and human resource management and personnel issues, including hiring and firing, job descriptions, evaluating workers, and motivating employees.Interior Design Management comes complete with 71 forms and documents that designers can adapt and use to better organize their own business, whether they have a small, medium-size, or large practice.Christine Piotrowski knows that it take more than just interior design skills to make a firm successful in today's more challenging environment. Interior designers also have to get down to business.With her new Interior Design Management, they can do just that - confidently and profitability. Read more