Top 8 Best Free Online Interior Design Courses in 2020

Learning about interior design can be fun, plus lead to a rewarding career. An understanding of layout, color blending, and visually appealing design strategy is essential. Even though you may not want to learn interior design as a career, you will find the knowledge useful for your own home. No matter how much you aspire to learn, the best interior decorating free online interior design courses are the perfect starting point.

Here are eight excellent free interior design courses. The criteria used to select these eight great interior design courses online are reputation, the variety of information offered, and of course that they are free.

1: Principles of Design – MIT OpenCourseWare Program

This an excellent example of free online interior design courses, where you can absorb knowledge through a course offered by one of the leading universities in the world. Through the MIT OpenCourseWare program, as a prospective interior designer, you can study Principles of Design from the comfort of your home, and for free.

• You will be exposed to the history of design, including readings dedicated to some of the world’s most alluring architects and designers.
• The course teaches how to develop renderings for presentation to prospective clients.
• Principles of Design exposes students to design concepts from a designer’s perspective.

2: Design 101 – Home and Garden Television

HGTV provides an excellent free online course of study for aspiring interior designers. Design 101, is the perfect quick course to establish a good base of interior design knowledge. Completing this simple course will provide you with a sufficient understanding of the basic concepts necessary for future studies, which are more difficult.

• You will learn how to incorporate and blend colors, a vital skill to be successful in the field.
• HGTV uses seven informative videos that include seasonal themes, plus design theory for specific rooms.
• Design 101 is a first-rate resource for informative ideas and suggestions for fixer-uppers.

3: Design Thinking: Creativity for the 21st Century

Through their Learning Space program, Open University offers one of the more inclusive free online interior design courses. This is a great course, especially if you have periods where a live internet connection is not available. You can download, or print the course material at your convenience.

• Design Thinking is a 10-hour course providing introductory material on an array of interior design subjects.
• You are able to view the course material logged onto the internet via a content feed, by downloading or printing out the content.
• The assignments include various readings, guides on how to employ interior design techniques and activities focused on improving hands-on skills.

4: Home Décor, Decorating & Interior Design Course – Decorating Studio

If you want to expose yourself to the knowledge of successful interior designer by taking free online interior design courses, this is a tremendous opportunity. The Home Décor, Decorating & Interior Design Course will teach you the tips and tricks used by some highly respected professionals in the industry.

• There are six individual lessons that conveniently divide various rooms of your home into distinct sections.
• Individual instruction is presented for areas such as flooring, furniture, artwork, and accessories.
• There is also information provided, which deals with home financing to pay for remodeling projects, plus home health and safety when completing restorations or upgrades.

5: AutoDesk Homestyler

The Homestyler from AutoDesk, while not specifically designed as one of the free online interior design courses, is a study venue providing lessons, tools and informative support. While it doesn’t have a structured course study format, Homestyler is a 3-D concept that can prove valuable to any interior design project.

• The 3-D option allows you to see all your designs as if you’re standing in the room. This is great for giving different visual perspectives when changes are made.
• Homestyler is 100 percent free and does not require any type of download. All you need is an adequate internet connection to secure this free source of information.
• You can adjust colors instantly, plus print out interior design plans in 2-D drawings with one click.

6: Daylight – MIT OpenCourseWare Program

Another in the list of informative courses to take for interior design is the second option from MIT’s OpenCourseWare program. Daylighting is an advanced course of study, especially focused on using lighting in interior design.

• This class specializes in the use of natural and electric lighting to enhance interior design. It studies how the lighting makes the occupants more comfortable and how to be energy efficient in your lighting designs.
• You will learn to evaluate degrees of lighting in real situations and apply them to unique situations.
• Lecture notes are provided on each individual topic, plus there are guided assignments, ultimately with the complete lighting for a model building.

7: Rhodec International – Free Online Interior Decorating Course

A world-renowned interior design school offers this class online, and free. Rhodec International also provides outstanding tuition based courses. However, if you want to get a feel for the interior design industry, the Free Online Interior Decorating Course is a great starting point.

• The course offers you a series of questionnaires to test your interior design aptitude.
• It uses rich slideshow presentations with interactive quizzes.
• Free Online Interior Decorating touches on numerous aspects of interior design essentials, which gives you a solid foundation to decide if this a potential profession, or just something you enjoy.

8: People-Centered Designing – Open University

The final choice in this list of free online interior design courses is another option from Open University’s free selections. People-Centered Designing is a second level structured course focused on designing things people find appealing. It should be one any aspiring interior designer’s list of free online interior design courses.

• You will learn how to address unique personal desires when it comes to working with other people. This will be vital if you want to start a career designing interiors for clients.
• The course provides a foundation to pursue different levels of design engineering and design architecture.
• You will learn evaluation skills to assess both structural designs of buildings and homes, plus employ your skills to rate certain product design features.

Summing It Up

There are a number of courses to take for interior design, but each of these choices is free while providing a lot of useful information. Each one is an excellent starting point for aspiring interior designers, plus is a good way for current designers to sharpen their skills.

All of these options are interior design courses in USA venues. However, most do not convey credits towards degree programs. If you are looking to pursue a degree in interior design, these are superb free online interior design courses to get you started.

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