Jamie Drake of the New York design firm Drake/Anderson concurs. “For designers working for the very lucky people, the few who are the one-tenth of one percenters, the business will continue to be pretty much the same,” he says. “We get to do things that are truly bespoke and couture—two terribly overused words, for the most part—but what we and our peers do is about creating beautiful solutions that are totally fabricated for the specific clients and their needs.”
However, that doesn’t mean the business won’t evolve. As manufacturers that once sold exclusively to the trade become increasingly open to dealing with individual homeowners, many design firms may shift their focus to charging fees for up-front design services and away from markups on purchased goods. “The markup on purchases may become old school because people can click and purchase things on their own,” says Kleinberg.
Social Media Will Mean Business
Over the past decade, social media has changed from online curiosity to big business. For designers, it is now an effective way to showcase completed projects, highlight new product launches, and ultimately meet clients. In many cases, “it’s become their portfolio,” says Elizabeth Blitzer, founder of the design-focused public relations agency Blitzer & Company, which works with clients such as Thomas O’Brien, Alexa Hampton, and Bunny Williams Home.
As such, Blitzer expects social media will become increasingly polished and business-centered. “It’s going to get more and more refined, and less and less haphazard,” she says, noting that the current rage for paying influencers to pose with a company’s products is already making social media less authentically personal than it used to be. “People are going to be investing money in photo shoots that are meant for social media, versus more casual posts.”
Laura Bindloss, founder of the design-centric public relations agency Nylon Consulting, predicts that social media will grow to include full virtual walkthroughs of designer projects. “You will be able to walk a real home or a conceptual home using visualization and virtual reality on a social media platform,” she says. “That will impact the way that designers pitch clients.”
At the same time, by allowing them to tell their stories in such a rich way, “designers are going to go the way of the celebrity chef,” Bindloss says. “Ten years ago, chefs weren’t celebrities, but TV made them famous. I think interior designers will follow.”
Brick-and-Mortar Will Get Smarter
As e-commerce sites have nibbled at the profits of traditional shopping giants such as Sears, the retail landscape has undergone its most radical change in a century. But that doesn’t mean brick-and-mortar retail is dead—there’s a reason digitally driven companies like Casper, Warby Parker, and Everlane continue to open newer, bigger stores in select locations.
Where 20th-century retailers focused on economies of scale and saturating the marketplace, “we are now moving into an era of economies of presence,” says Jay Goltz, founder of Jayson Home, the furniture and accessories retailer with a store in Chicago and national e-commerce presence. “The smart companies are using economies of presence and leveraging their physical locations to build relationships.”
In the decade ahead, says Goltz, we are likely to see retailers with fewer stores that are more experiential, with top-level customer service and quick turnaround times to make the buying process as painless as possible. “You have to have the right number of stores, which doesn’t mean you need one in every market,” he says. “I can be more successful with one well-stocked store, and good people who can ship things quickly, than by spreading myself thin with numerous locations, which used to be the only way to do it.” For architects and designers, that could potentially mean fewer, but more engaging and inventive, retail commissions.
Online Retail Will Get Slicker
Ten years ago, many designers scoffed at the notion of buying furniture online without giving clients the opportunity to try pieces out in the person; today, it’s commonplace. Now the next major shifts in online retail are beginning to take shape. “Visualization is going to be a really big part of it,” says Anna Brockway, the cofounder and president of Chairish, which also runs Decaso and Dering Hall. “Allowing people to see and fully customize pieces will be a regular part of our reality.”