Interior Designer Sees No Limit To Success
Oageng Batenegi | Monday September 19, 2016 15:15
But it is for a good course; she has to interrogate her clients and their spaces. That is to make appropriate recommendations before she can design their interiors. Zodwa Mosalakatane runs an interior design company, Zoetic Solutions (Pty) Ltd along the Old Lobatse Road Industrial.
The 28-year-old young woman from Kanye says she lives for interior design.
“Whenever I sleep or wake up, I am always thinking design,” she says.
Mosalakatane says when she finished her Form Five; she was undecided on a career path. At her senior school, Mosalakatane was doing Design and Technology. She adds that it kind of influenced her to choose interior design.
As a critical person, she had to follow a trade that will challenge her to come up with solutions to a problem. She immediately did quick research about interior design in relation to the market.
She found out that interior design would allow her an opportunity to improve her environment. She would be able to create something different.
After that, Mosalakatane boarded a plane to Malaysia where she studied for a degree in Bachelor of Arts, Interior and Architecture at the Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. That was between 2007 and 2012 and afterwards she returned home to implement her vision.
Back home, she found there was a stumbling block: unemployment. She could not find a job like any other young professional.
There was only one path she had to take, entrepreneurship. Otherwise her vision was going to fade with time.
She registered her business in 2013, but struggled with funding. She continued pushing while investing the little profit made back into the business along the way.
In 2014, things started to take shape. Mosalakatane continued to look for opportunities to fund and boost her business. But an opportunity came through the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture. Towards the end of 2015, she applied for the Youth Development Fund (YDF).
She was able to secure the funding in February of P100,000.
She used the money to advertise her business, bought more office equipment and assets crucial for her business such as software and books. Mosalakatane emphasises that interior design is an expensive art.
Some of her clients are households, businesses, corporate entities and the hospitality industry. “Interior design is everywhere,” Mosalakatane says. But design is very subjective and takes into consideration aspects such as stage of life of the client, style, colour, lighting, comfort, care and maintenance. There is also a need for the right equipment and the interior designer needs to work with their surroundings.”
Mosalakatane decries the unfortunate situation of some people still unable to understand the value of interior design.
However, when some see the trade through magazines or television programmes, they start to interrogate about the art.
“It is not a waste of money as some people believe,” Mosalakatane says. Interior design brings comfort and relaxation to one’s home, she says. It is also a good form of communication and branding for clients in business.
“It shows clients that the company takes itself seriously,” she adds.
At the moment Zoetic Solutions (Pty) Ltd still offers only design services. “We want to move more into manufacturing and supply of materials,” Mosakatane says about the vision of her business.
She wants to grow her staff complement, which currently comprise of only an administrator and another interior designer.
They have been allocated business land in her home village and will start building next year. She also wants to expand to other areas in the country, starting with the second city of Francistown.