Interior Design Contract Documents

An interior designer may spend only 10 – 25% of their time “designing”. They spend the rest of the time working behind the scenes to make their designs a reality. The designer executes their vision through the contract documents that put the designer’s plan into action.

Skill in developing construction drawings and specifications will determine how successful the design is, and can be worth up to 40% of the NCIDQ Exam, for example on Practicum.

These contract documents include the:

Cover sheet (e.g., General Conditions and Notes, drawing index)
Code required plans (e.g., egress, accessibility, specialty codes)
Elevations, sections and details (e.g., partition types, millwork)
Consultant drawings (e.g., MEP, structural, security, specialty consultants)
Specification types (e.g., prescriptive, performance, and proprietary)
Specification formats (e.g., divisions)

Designers work with many other professionals including architects, builders, trades and contractors. A consistent and uniform communication system with these and your clients is critical to your success.

A competent interior designer follows industry standards and technical drawing conventions. Clear drawings ensure clear communication between the designer and contractor, subcontractors, consultants, and suppliers

To pass the NCIDQ exam, you must be able to create, read and interpret construction drawings. These drawings should follow clear standards in terms of

Measuring conventions (e.g., scale, unit of measure, dimensioning)
Construction drawing standards (e.g., line weights, hatching, symbols)