Did you know that free online classes for interior design can help you join the average interior designer earning at least $51,000 per year? Join me as I walk you through the list of online classes for interior designers that you can take for free to kickstart a career in the industry.
Research from Payscale shows that an interior designer with less than a year of experience can earn an average salary of $41,868. Then when you have stayed 1-4 years in the interior design career you should be hitting $49,108 annually.
As you progress to stay 5-9 years, which means you have gained some level of strong experience, you’ll be able to earn an average salary of $57,227. Further, when you have stayed 10-19 years in the industry, you should be nailing $61,036 average compensation.
Shockingly, from 20 years and above you will come down to earn an average salary of $60,963.
Interior design is a good career to pursue especially if you love aesthetic designs. And not just that, you’ll enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll also receive cool money from doing it.
Moreover, some other qualifications can enable you to earn more in interior design. For instance, attending one of the best schools for interior design and earning either a bachelor’s or master’s degree in interior design or getting business certification to learn business acumen and start an enterprise if you want to.
Further, these free online classes for interior design are created with you studying from anywhere in mind. The instructors are leaders and excellent lecturers in the field of interior design.
Also, most of them are practicing professionals in this field. That is, they don’t just talk about it, they also “do the talk.”
These courses give you the privilege to start anytime, there are no deadlines on when to start. This allows you to schedule your learning according to your own pace and time.
Recently, there has been an amazing demand for interior designers. According to recent research, it is expected that interior design jobs to increase by 13% globally in the next decade.
This is to tell you the increasing demand for this career in so many fields. Architecture needs their services, construction sites need their services, and urban and regional planning needs their services too.
Furthermore, interior design generates over $10 billion in annual revenue in the United States alone. Then in the whole world, Globe Newswire reported that the interior design market was worth over $150.7 billion in 2020.
And it is looking to hit an amazing $255.4 billion in 2027. This means that, even though the career is already occupied like other careers, it has lots of potential
Free online classes for interior design are a good place to start.
What is Interior Design?
Interior design could be as simple as saying “the way an inside of a building is designed.” But there is more to that because there are higher levels of interior design where the designer doesn’t just have to consider the beauty.
But, also the spacing, dimensions, fittings, and some architectural details are needed when making an interior design. You don’t just have to be an expert in decoration to be a qualified interior designer (which is mostly needed).
However, your creative and technical skills must come into play. You have to learn to change an empty box into a mouth-watering design and still maintain the spacing.
You have to learn to take the ideas of your clients, merge them with your professional competence, and bring this concept to life. You see, free online classes for interior design can push you to be more creative than you expected.
How to Become an Interior Designer
An important step to becoming an interior designer is to have a passion for design. Well, that’s just the basics, passion is not enough to achieve a career in interior design.
Because, as you advance you’ll start seeing other technical and architectural parts, which are not fun to study. However, that doesn’t mean it is not possible, it is 101% possible to become an interior designer.
And you’ll shortly start learning from these free online classes for interior design. But here are some steps to become a professional interior designer;
College Degree
A degree in interior design or any related course gives you the best foot in the field of interior design. You can either get a short associate degree or a bachelor’s degree, which free online classes for interior design offers.
An associate degree helps you to decide if interior design is the career path you would love to pursue. If after an associate degree, you notice that you love and would want to learn more in the career, you can go ahead and get a bachelor’s degree in it.
Even with an associate degree, you can work in lots of places, and earn a cool salary. If you aren’t sure of what you want yet, you shouldn’t worry, because the beginning of the course introduces interior design.
And, this will enable you to decide if it is the right path to choose.
Interior Design License
An interior design license is not compulsory, but it makes you more professional and trustworthy. It even increases your chances of getting job offers.
Moreover, some states will require you to be a licensed interior designer before you can accept job offers.
You need to complete free online classes for interior design and have had some interior design experience before you can be licensed. And with this pursuit, you will increase your expertise in interior design.
In the United States, the most common license for interior design professionals is the National Council for Interior Design Qualification (NCIDQ) license. Which you can earn from CIDQ ( the Council of Interior Design Qualification).
When you are done with your free online classes for interior design and have had some experiences, you can go ahead and take the NCIDQ exam. So that you can acquire your license.
Do Some Free Work or Volunteer Work
One of the challenges a beginner interior designer gets is a work experience question. And how can you get work experience in interior design without doing the work at all?
That’s where offering free services comes in, yes it might not be easy, but see it as giving back to society. You might even land a big job or contract for your generous work.
Free online classes for interior design will teach you to start with your family and friends or volunteer for a local event or service. Moreover, you can make some interior designs in your home and it becomes a knack sample for work experience.
Don’t forget to take quality pictures before and after your work. The best Photography Schools in the World can guide you through.
Get a Job or Work on Your Own
Free online classes for interior design and a license help you to easily get employed and earn a good salary in interior design. There are short courses that lead to good jobs you won’t want to miss.
And you also get more customers if you choose to be your boss.
Your potential client knows that you’re a licensed interior designer, they are at ease and ready to give you a project without any supervision. Also, you are liable to get offers internationally.
Can I learn Interior Design Online?
There are so many online schools that offer interior design. You’ll find both free online classes for interior design and paid classes all clustered on the internet.
Schools like;
- Oxford Home Study
- Alison
- Udemy
- Skillshare
- MIT OCW
- New York School of Interior Design
What Will I Learn in Interior Design Classes?
You’ll be learning a lot of things in Interior design programs. Free online classes for interior design will help you to learn;
- Interior and spatial design
- Color psychology
- Space management
- Understanding of Fabrics
- Virtual designing
- Design trends
- Portfolio
Free Online Classes for Interior Design
Here is the list of the top 9 free online classes for interior design
- Oxford Home Study Centre Interior Design Short Course
- Interior Design Basics: Simple Steps to Your Perfect Space
- Alison: Diploma in Interior Design
- HSC: Diploma in Interior Design
- Learn SketchUp Pro 2021 the Right Way! | Interior Design Course
- Autodesk Certified Professional: AutoCAD for Design and Drafting Exam Prep
- Autodesk AutoCAD Masterclass: The Ultimate Guide to AutoCAD
- MIT: Principles of Design
- Upskillist: Interior Design Course Online
- Colors in Interior Design
- Interior Design Styles, Colors, and Materials by Planner 5D
- Interior Decoration Works in Building Construction
1. Oxford Home Study Centre Interior Design Short Course
This course is free for any student from any background. It is one of the free online classes for interior design that doesn’t require any entry requirements.
This course is good if you want to verify if interior design is a good choice for you. And, you can choose to study from anywhere in the world, whether it’s in your room with pajamas or an airplane.
Also, you’re privileged to study at your own pace, because the course materials are available for 24/7 usage.
This course is made in such a way that even if you’re already a practicing interior decorator and want to learn more or improve your skills. Or, if you’re about to kick-start your career in interior design, you can depend on it.
This course starts with a simple explanation of who an interior designer is. Then, progress to showing you the big picture of interior design as a profession.
After that, you will learn the development of interior design as a profession. In the middle of the course, you will dive deeper into client relationships, which is very important in interior design.
This is one of the aspects that will determine if the client will become a repeat customer and advance to become a loyal customer and even refer you to others. Or, if the client will angrily walk away.
You’ll also learn mood, principles guiding interior design decoration, interior design scale, and proportion. Then you’ll summarize it with “interior design rhythm.”
This is one of the free online classes for interior design that gives you assessments. However, you need to pay a small fee to get their certificate.
Which I think is worth it, because it will help you to improve your resume, and you stand a higher chance of getting employed.
2. Interior Design Basics: Simple Steps to Your Perfect Space
Your instructor is someone who loves and does interior design even at home. She sees it as good food.
She believes that interior designers have this inborn ability to see when a space, an interior is pleasing. And, some people can’t express their interior design imagination to someone else.
That is why she created this course that over 67,000 students have taken. This is one of the free online classes for interior design and your instructor will empower you with interior design terms.
This class opens you up to 4 basic principles of interior design;
- Color
- Balance
- Rhythm & repetition
- Scale & proportion
After that, you will learn more about building your design style. Then after all these, your skills will be tested, and you will be given a project to style a bookshop, interesting right?
This course doesn’t require you to be a designer to enroll in it, well if you already know design, it is an additional advantage. But if you need a more advanced interior design class, we have you covered in our next number.
Well, this course focuses on using what you already have to create the best interior for your home. Your instructor, Lauren Cox, is an expert designer based in Denver, who has worked on thousands of interior design projects.
She has seen a lot of work in her lifetime, and she understands what can make a design captivating. That’s why she is the Design Program Manager at Havenly, a personal and affordable online interior design service.
This is one of the free online classes for interior design where your instructor is super happy to share what she knows with you.
3. Alison: Diploma in Interior Design
This is one of the top-rated free online classes for interior design that is provided by CourseFlix through Alison. You’ll start by learning design principles, its overview, career, and things to consider when working in a particular space.
You’ll start learning deeper parts of project planning, and how to communicate with clients. You’ll also learn how to plan rooms and the best use of space, you will see how to make out the best design even in a tight corner.
And the luxurious space won’t overwhelm you while designing. In the color interior module, you’ll see different kinds of colors and our to produce simple and sophisticated colors for a building.
Further, this is one of the free online classes for interior design that will calm down to teach you surface materials and textures. As you progress in your classes, you’ll have a series of assessments that require at least an 80% pass mark.
It will also go further to teach you lighting, the effect of lighting on a building, and how to make lighting simple but elegant. You’ll also learn how to select furniture, textiles, and accessories, sustainability and ethics, the business of interior design, and many more.
This is a course when you’re done with it, you have grabbed a lot of knowledge in Interior design. That’s why more than 94,000 students have enrolled in it, and it takes 10 to 15 hours to complete.
4. HSC: Diploma in Interior Design
This is one of the free online classes for interior design offered by the Oxford Home Study Centre. This course starts from basics to teach you, they assume that you are coming to learn with no prior knowledge.
So it takes you by hand and shows you all you need to know about interior design. The interesting thing is, that this course moves from basics to advanced.
Yes, it starts with an overview of interior design, then moves to its special principles, and advances to elements of design, elements of the room. Then concludes it with phases of a project and starting an interior design business.
So if you’re just starting in interior design, or you are advanced in it and want to learn more about it, you’re welcome, this is a course for you.
5. Learn SketchUp Pro 2021 the Right Way! | Interior Design Course
This is one of the free online classes for interior design that goes beyond artistic interior design. You’ll be learning from the founder of SketchUpTrainer.
And you will be learning how to use SketchUp the proper way, you’ll learn to use the software to produce a 3D architectural and interior design. I added this course because an advanced interior designer needs to have a knack for architecture.
You need to understand lines and spacing very well. So, you will learn to create a model for the beginning and start adding materials to it and textures. Then, you’ll add furniture, and export images, and animation to make it look more real.
This 3D creation will make you more advanced, you won’t need to use pen and paper to make an interior diagram.
This is one of the free online classes for interior design that is more than 7 hours long and has 74 lessons.
6. Autodesk Certified Professional: AutoCAD for Design and Drafting Exam Prep
This is an advanced interior design course, and it’s provided by Autodesk, through Coursera. It is one of the free online classes for interior design that will make your employees quickly look at your CV.
And, over 109,000 students are with you in this high-quality course. It takes a shocking 17 hours to complete it and it has subtitles in different languages: English, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Russian, and Italian.
7. Autodesk AutoCAD Masterclass: The Ultimate Guide to AutoCAD
This is one of the exceptional free online classes for interior design in which you’ll learn the basics of AutoCAD and advance to the pro level. Your instructors are experts in CAD designing, and they are ready to help you to the extent you can handle any CAD project.
AutoCAD is undoubtedly the most used and one of the best (if not the best) technical drawing software in the world. So an AutoCAD course will give you an edge over your fellow job applicants, employees, or even business people.
You’ll be learning a lot about drawing shapes and plans, and learning how to use the correct dimension for your interior design.
After the course, you’ll be qualified to take a professional AutoCAD exam, which when you come out successfully, will be awarded a certificate (with a small fee). If you already know your ways in AutoCAD, this course will also help you to become faster than before.
There are 91 lessons with videos to help you become acquainted with AutoCAD and it takes over 10 hours to complete.
8. MIT: Principles of Design
This is one of the free online classes for interior design that is offered by MIT OCW. In this Undergraduate course, you’ll be learning advanced theories in interior design.
It will specialize in script analysis, and principles of design, from an interior design view. This class is designed for you to be able to interact with other fellow students and teachers.
The study materials are made available in pdf format so are the assignments.
9. Upskillist: Interior Design Course Online
This is one of the free online classes for interior design that starts with the basics of interior design and advances to help you start your own interior design business. Even if you want to work for someone, this course is competent enough to make you worthy of any project from your employer.
It’s an amazing 16-week class that will award you a certificate upon completion. The first module starts by educating all you need to know about a diploma in interior design.
Unfortunately, only this module, which lasts for 4 weeks, is free. But with these free weeks of learning, you must have learned enough for you to decide if advancing to the next module is a good fit.
The next module goes on to teach you all an intermediate in interior design should know. Then the 3rd module teaches you advanced skills in interior design, the last module spiced it up to make you proficient in interior design.
So far, this is one of the free online classes for interior design and more than 1.5 million students have graduated.
10. Colors in Interior Design
This is a free online interior design course on Udemy that introduces aspiring interior designers to the various colors used in interior design. The class develops students’ understanding of color consideration in interior design, how to work successfully with colors, and understand color mixing in any given scenario.
11. Interior Design Styles, Colors, and Materials by Planner 5D
This is a 2-hour tutorial video on Udemy that teaches learners how to create a harmonious interior design and choose the right materials. At the end of the course, you will learn how to combine different styles, how colors can affect people’s minds, and features to consider when choosing finish materials.
12. Interior Decoration Works in Building Construction
Taking this free online interior course will improve your knowledge about types of brickwork, painting and its types, interiors for bedrooms and kitchens, concrete bands and their uses, and the methodology for painting works.
Conclusion
Whether you are just starting as an interior designer or already an interior designer, the courses here will develop and prepare you for a career as an interior designer or enhance your knowledge of interior designer so that you can give more to your clients and give them the best. The skills you will gain from these free online interior designer courses will set you apart from other interior designers.
FAQs
Can I learn interior design by myself?
Yes, you can learn interior design all by yourself. Don’t believe my word for it?
Some of the prolific interior designers who made great names in this industry, like Nate Berkus, had to learn interior design on their own.
Can I become an interior designer without a degree?
Yes, you can become an interior designer without a degree. But it makes it a little difficult to be employed.
An applicant with a degree will be considered more than someone without. Even if you want to go into the business world, a degree can give you an edge when clients meet you.
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