Exhibition Designer Career Information
Ever been to an exhibition and wondered who makes all these stalls and props? Well the people who make all this happen are a specialised lot who call themselves Exhibition Designers. Read on to find out more about this profession.
What an Exhibition Designer does
If you wish to become an exhibition designer, you need to know that this is a communication medium for designers trained specifically to deal with communication in spatial, three dimensional terms, be it for business specific international trade fairs, thematic exhibitions to showcase cultural heritage, or for museums.
Exhibition Design brings together a variety of design disciplines - primarily that of communication design, industrial design and interior architecture - into a multi-disciplinary whole.
Exhibition designers deal with a range of three dimensional designs like designs of stalls, pavilion, and overall interiors of trade fairs and exhibitions; sets for theme events like beauty pageants, musical concerts, award ceremonies; interiors and ambience for art exhibitions; product merchandising; and even design of movie sets and theatre sets.
Job Opportunities:
You will have to begin with assisting established exhibition designers or set designers. Large event management companies and interior design companies also hire a few designers. After a few years of experience, it will be better if you start your own company.
Career Prospects:
Communication industry as a whole is coming of age very fast in India. Visual communication and three-dimensional communication are an integral part of product merchandising and brand communication. There are a large number of events being held all over India every year.
As a Exhibition Designer you have various award ceremonies, beauty pageants, events for launching products, music concerts, dance shows, and so on. Film is also one area, which needs extensive set designs. India is the leading film producing country. So, opportunities for exhibition designers are many.
Abilities & Traits Required
• You have to be creative and imaginative
• You have to be innovative
• You have to have very good spatial reasoning skill, meaning that you have the ability to visualize objects in space and the ability to comprehend relations between two objects or systems or among multiple objects and systems
• You should have an excellent ability to visualize concepts
• You should have the ability and a strong urge to express your ideas in an art form
• You should have an aptitude for sketching and drawing. You may not be expert at these (because computer can do your designs), but you should have the basic ideas of lines, curves, patterns, and colours
• You should have an artistic personality - thoughtful, individualistic, sometimes aggressive, sometimes inward looking, independent with a keen sense of aesthetics
• You should also have the ability to communicate as you will often be required to make presentation on your ideas and design
• You should have a good idea on different materials, along with good sense for colours and patterns
• You should have a sense of balance and harmony of space
• You should have a good commercial sense - you understand costs and are good at convincing people
Qualifications
A degree in Exhibition design from National Institute of Design or equivalent would be the best starting point. Alternatively, you can make a beginning if you have a Master's degree in Interior Design coupled with a BArch or a Diploma in Interior Design.
Salary
Initially the pay is not that great. As an assistant to an established set designer you will make between Rs 15000-18000 a month. With experience and successful projects under your belt, you could make up to Rs 20000-30000 per assignment. Top-notch designers could make anything from Rs 200000 to as high as Rs 500000 for a film.