Legislating designs
CMU design students have joined dozens of other professionals and students from Michigan to lobby for certification of interior designers.
With the plethora of televised design shows, just about anyone with cable and a roller brush can claim to be a designer. The reason these design students and pros say they want the certification, which would license designers, is not for job security but because designers need to keep the structure safe.
That's commendable, but interior designers really don't pose a risk that's worth all that paperwork and all that effort.
Architects need to take nine divisions of an examination before they can apply for an Architect's License from Michigan.
Building codes and architecture certifications protect homes and their residents. If designers mess up a building, they should be punished under existing legislation and have their poor work plastered up on Angie's List where would-be customers could be warned.
Designers shouldn't be taking out support beams, and designers who would do so without consulting a qualified architect should be quickly drummed out of their business.
The danger comes from grossly incompetent designers, and while certification would likely cull some of those from the ranks, it would create an undue burden on experienced and responsible designers.
With any regulation, as with the Michigan Teacher's Certification, there needs to be alternate ways to get certified for existing professionals. And it is probably true that certified interior designers would command a bigger price and they may well deliver a better product. But just because there would be options for existing professionals and they could command a bigger salary is no reason to put new laws on the books and jack up the cost for consumers.
Bad interior design offends the senses, hardly the burden needed to justify new regulation. It's not like a tattoo where real potential harm deserves real consumer protection.
Garish paint is no reason to waste legislative time. Designers should put their efforts into a well-designed Web page to show off their work and quit their 23-year quest to legislate art.
