There's a moment that's hardest of all for a PM leading an office renewal: the stage of selecting the interior design firm to entrust the project to. Searching for the right firm can take a long time, and it's easy to feel lost about what criteria to use. Among the countless interior design firms out there, by what standard should you choose the partner that will take on your office project alongside your company?

A mistake that's easy to make from a PM's perspective is to vaguely look for the 'perfect firm.' But that's as idealistic and ambiguous as searching for the 'perfect person.' When you try to find a firm that ticks every box at once — high-quality design, an affordable quote, a trustworthy organizational structure and systems — it actually becomes harder to set concrete criteria. What you need is 'a standard of your own.' In this article, we'll introduce how to choose an interior design firm that strikes the right balance between skill, trust, and price while fitting your company's needs exactly.

How can you find the office interior partner that's right for your company? We'll lay out a concrete method in six steps. Be sure to check the 'question list' you can refer to when reviewing an interior design firm, too!

Step 1. Confirm the Basic Qualifications

The homepage of SPACEBASE, where the latest portfolio is published

✔ Do they hold an interior architecture license?

✔ Do they have a recent portfolio?

For a project to run smoothly, check in advance whether the firm meets the basic requirements. In particular, an 'interior architecture license' is the most fundamental requirement for confirming whether an interior design firm holds trustworthy professional credentials. You can also gauge a firm's expertise and stability through its portfolio. If an interior design firm's portfolio is stuck at three years ago, it's hard to tell whether it's a stable firm that takes on work continuously. It may also fail to fully reflect recent interior trends. Check in advance whether the latest project portfolio is available on the interior design firm's homepage!

STEP 2. Set Priorities That Are Yours Alone

It's a good idea to set priorities for what matters most — design, the quote, maintenance, and so on.

✔ Are the first- and second-priority factors that matter to your company met?

To choose an interior design firm sensibly, you first need to identify what factors your company values most. Rather than vaguely trying to choose a firm that's good at everything, organize the requirements you need in order of importance. For example, design quality, convenient maintenance, a reasonable quote, a trustworthy organizational structure — priorities can differ from company to company. Once you have a reference point, you can even make a simple table to compare interior design firms. In this way, simply by deciding your priorities and setting concrete criteria in advance, the process of selecting an interior design firm will become far easier.

STEP 3. Explore Portfolios That Match Your Work Context

What is the company's size and capacity, and how is its corporate culture reflected…. Understanding the various aspects of a work context matters most of all.

✔ Do they have a portfolio with a context similar to your company's?

There's something to keep in mind when reviewing an interior portfolio. More important than simply finding a pretty, impressive portfolio is confirming whether the firm can translate your company's way of working into the space. Check whether they hold a portfolio that reflects a similar industry, scale, work style, and context. For instance, an office with a lot of collaboration, an office with a vertical or horizontal corporate culture, an office with frequent visitors — we recommend sorting and exploring portfolios by work context. When you select portfolios with work context at the center, you're more likely to end up with a result you're satisfied with.

STEP 4. Look for Signs of Long-Term Partnership

✔ Do they have clients who keep coming back for projects?

Another way to find a trustworthy interior design firm is to check whether it holds long-term clients — the firm's 'partnerships.' If the same client returns for every expansion or relocation project, you can take it as evidence that their overall satisfaction with the previous work is high. You can expect the construction process to go smoothly, the quality of the work to be satisfying, and maintenance to be handled thoroughly. Whether they have clients who keep coming back for projects, and whether they've won projects through referrals from existing clients — we recommend confirming this through the portfolio.

STEP 5. Check for a 'Project Management Department' That Produces Accurate Quotes

SPACEBASE's project management department, which reviews quotes

✔ Is there a separate 'project management department' in-house?

Are you aware of the importance of the 'project management department' that handles interior quotes professionally? At an interior design firm with a project management department, quotes can be produced more accurately and fluctuations in construction costs can be reduced. For example, SPACEBASE's project management department visits the construction site in person, identifies the construction guidelines that differ from building to building along with details on facilities, HVAC, and fire safety, and produces the quote accordingly. Without a department with this kind of expertise in the site and the quote, the initial quote and its contents can change significantly. Especially for an office space of 100 pyeong (about 330 m²) or larger, get a more accurate quote through an interior design firm that has a separate project management department.

STEP 6. Judge Transparency by a Detailed Quote

A partial sample of SPACEBASE's quote

✔ In what format, and in how much detail, do they deliver the quote?

An interior quote is very hard to read and complex. There are many unfamiliar terms, and the format each interior design firm uses to deliver it differs slightly. So how is a good quote written? The best one is written in as much detail as possible and transparently lays out the construction breakdown. SPACEBASE submits a thorough, detailed quote ranging from at least 30 pages up to around 200. Some firms write the quote briefly on the grounds that it's easier to read. In that case, the two sides may misunderstand the contents, or fluctuations in construction costs may arise. Only by recording the construction line items thoroughly and in detail from the very start can you keep additional costs and misunderstandings to a minimum.

Selecting a partner for an office project is bound to be as careful and complex as it is important. But once you've set concrete criteria of your own, the process of finding an interior design firm will become far quicker and clearer. Even if a perfect interior design firm doesn't exist, 'the partner best suited to your company' certainly does. We hope that, by checking off the questions introduced in this article one by one, you'll be able to find a dependable partner to lead your office project to success.

In the next installment, we'll walk you through how to receive an interior quote and why an on-site briefing session is necessary.

Curious about the first step of office design?

👉 Go read Part 1 of the Office Design Guide

If you're looking for an office partner to work with for the long term, try a consultation with SPACEBASE.

👉 Inquire about a collaboration

*Photos and design provided by SPACEBASE