The interior design students at Lethbridge College have been keeping busy this year with many projects and assignments and even showing off their skills to the community.

Amber Ortlieb, interior design instructor, says students primarily construct board work.

“They start with a brainstorming process, which is doing some freehand sketching, looking at magazines for inspiration and starting with the big picture concept,” says Ortlieb.
“The design process takes them through a six- to seven-step process of moving from the conceptual phase of brainstorming into design development. They accept the project, understand their problems and do the research on it. They then move it to the design phase of floor plans and whatever projects it requires for them to get to it.”
The program currently has 20 students in both first- and second-year classes.
Ortlieb says it is a well-rounded group because they are with each other for the full two years which allows them to develop a bond and friendship.
Along with classes, the students are required to take an 80-hour practicum within the community.
“In the practicum they work in the industry with a partnership with a company or design project and usually in that process they go through an interview where they take their portfolio and have it proposed in that job,” said Ortlieb.
Second-year students Rachelle Van Dyk and Victoria Sputek explain their reasons  why they chose this industry.
“My cousin actually took it before me so I kind of knew what I was getting in to.
“I always kind of loved design and looked through magazines and saw pictures of really cool houses and I really wanted to do something creative,” says Van Dyk.
Sputek says she originally intended to go into architecture but then decided on a change.
“It wasn’t really what I wanted to do so I decided to go through the design route and eventually get to architecture.” says Sputek.“I have grown up watching the home and garden channel and all those shows for years and my dad owns a construction company so I grew up around the environment. It has always been something that I was interested in and I came more into it for fun.”
Van Dyk and Sputek both say the first year is all residential design and basically a lot of drawing, hand drafting and that sort of thing and then the second year moves into all the computerized drafting with AutoCAD. Second year is all commercial design.
“There is a lot of learning on how to use creativity in different ways,” says Sputek.
“You start out with a lot of general learning techniques, just how to render properly and how to draw effectively and how to present your ideas and take them from your head and out of magazines on to paper.”
The interior design students have a chance to work with people outside of their program and show off their creative work.
“We had community members come in and judge our projects and watch us present them. So we had a chance to meet with the director of the college and different people in the programs at the college,” says Sputek.
With many late nights at the school, the young women know which parts of the program they enjoy most and therefore what to focus on in their careers.
“I love residential,” says Van Dyk. “Most people love commercial, like designing restaurants and hotels, but for whatever reason I am drawn to house design. I love picking the materials and just seeing my ideas come together and drawn into a picture.”
Sputek says she finds managing and preparing for a project the most intriguing part of the process.
“I love the project management of it. Going through the different steps and just following the process of the design and material selection is definitely  a lot of fun. You get to be really creative with it and that’s a really good kind of source.”
“Just in general being with the class and just working in this environment has been a lot of fun. A long two years but a really good two years.”