Interior decoration of office buildings

What Is Commercial Interior Design?

Ever been to an airport, a restaurant, or a hotel? Then you’ve seen the results of commercial interior design.

Commercial interior designers develop attractive and practical spaces for commercial properties. It’s their responsibility to make sure these spaces work well for both the business owners and their customers.

Are you a design professional looking to branch out into interior design for commercial spaces?

In this 5-minute read, you’ll learn everything you need to know about the commercial interior design profession like:

What is commercial interior design?
Key stages of the commercial design process
Ways to leverage technology and commercial design best practices to grow your business

Let’s get started with the differences between residential and commercial interior design.

Residential vs. Commercial Interior Design: What’s The Difference?

Residential interior designers focus on creating living spaces for homeowners. This involves designing interior spaces in houses, townhomes, and apartments. For residential interior designers, the needs and comforts of the homeowners are their top priorities.

Commercial interior design is a bit more complex, as it involves creating spaces for two distinct groups of people — business owners and their customers or employees.

For example, let’s say you’re designing the interior space of a luxury hotel — a project much larger than a residential home. You need to take into consideration the hotel owners and their business objectives to maximize the building’s functionality and future profits. But at the same time, you also have to design a hotel that’s comfortable and welcoming for the guests.

The same goes for just about any commercial building interior design project — retail stores, restaurants, malls, theaters, hospitals, and many more.

What Does A Commercial Interior Designer Do?

So what exactly does a commercial interior designer do? Just decide which furniture, decorations, and paint colors to use?

Actually, commercial interior designing involves a lot more than that.

When most people hear 'interior designers,' they often think of 'interior decorators.' While similar, there are differences in their respective roles.

Interior decorators primarily focus on the visual aesthetics of a space, while interior designers consider functionality, safety, and efficiency alongside aesthetics.

Designers are prioritize the functionality and usability of the space as a whole. They have to figure out ways to create a space that is engaging, comfortable, and efficient, all while being visually appealing.

So as you can imagine, that’s not an easy task.

Let’s go back to the example of the luxury hotel. To maximize profits, a designer will figure out ways to accommodate a specific number of guests. But the hotel should also impress the guests. If the hotel's available space is filled with tiny rooms and limited amenities, the guests' experience will suffer.

It’s up to the commercial interior designer to figure out the best way to balance all of these factors. That’s why collaborate closely with the client and the entire architectural team. right from the start of the project.

Then as the project progresses, the designer continues to work with the architects, engineers, builders, and decorators. They collaborate when making important decisions about things like building safety codes, lighting, windows, ceiling design, commercial interior decor, and other architectural details.

By balancing all of these factors, talented commercial interior designers create spaces that directly contribute to a business’s long-term success.

Who Uses a Commercial Interior Designer?

You’ll often find commercial interior designers working as part of a larger architectural design firm. However, they may also work as independent consultants for building contractors or private clients.

Regardless of who they work for, commercial interior design professionals will collaborate with other industry professionals on a wide variety of projects. These could range from large projects like an airport to smaller ones like a small coffee shop.

On more extensive projects, commercial interior designers will usually work with a larger team of designers and architects — each focusing on their area of expertise. However, on smaller commercial projects involving only interior changes, the designer is likely to take the lead and act as the mediator between the client and the project team.

Key Stages of the Commercial Interior Design Process

Let’s look at the six main stages of any commercial interior design project. It's important to understand and follow these stages for your project to succeed.

Phase #1: Pre-design

The beginning of any project involves gathering a significant amount of information. This process starts with the pre-design phase.

They start by gathering information from their client and in some cases, even their client’s target customers. During initial discussions, designers should cover several key topics,

What does the client want to achieve with their space?
What are the requirements of their customers or employees for the space?
How should the design of the space reflect the company’s overall branding image?

During this stage, many interior designers begin presenting initial design concepts to ensure alignment.

Note: Keep in mind that large projects in urban areas will involve a lot more research at this stage regarding things like budget analysis, zoning and code requirements, etc.

Phase #2: Programming

Once you understand your client’s needs, it’s time to move on to some of the hard planning. In the programming phase of commercial interior design, the designer works to nail down the client’s needs even further.

Designers need to define:

The existing conditions of the commercial space
The client’s current and future needs
The space’s projected maintenance needs
The total budget
The desired completion date

A big part of the programming is establishing The budget and a timeframe for the project. Once designers know how much money and time they have to work with, they can move on to phase 3, the schematics.

Phase #3: Schematics

Based on the information the interior designer has gathered in the first two steps, they can now start to develop the 2D & 3D plans and layouts.

In the past, commercial interior designers relied heavily on mood boards and hand-drawn sketches. Modern design professionals use interior design and rendering software to plan and visualize layouts for their clients.

A great example of this software, which is widely used by modern design professionals, is Cedreo. With it, commercial designers can quickly create 2D floor plans, 3D floor plans, and photorealistic 3D renderings — complete with furnishings, textures, and lighting.

Look at an example of the commercial interior decor that can be created in just a few hours using Cedreo.

Phase #4: Presentation

Now it’s time for the designer to present the plan to their client. At this stage, relying solely on 2D plans is not enough. 3D layouts and renderings are essential for clearly conveying your vision to clients.

An increasing number of commercial designers are turning to cloud-based interior design software like Cedreo. This software allows designers to showcase their design ideas to clients without needing to leave their office. During the presentation, designers can incorporate client feedback and instantly show the updated designs to clients on their computers.

Phase #5: Construction

Although commercial interior designers typically don't perform construction or remodelling work themselves, they collaborate closely with contractors throughout the construction phase. This collaboration ensures that the project is executed according to the design specifications.

Phase #6: Post-construction

After the construction phase is completed, designers conduct a final walkthrough of the space with their clients. During this walkthrough, they ensure that everything has been executed according to the planned design and that the client is satisfied with their new space.

If necessary, designers create a punch list containing any small items that require attention from the contractors. They then ensure that these changes are incorporated into a set of as-built drawings, which the client can keep on file.