How Designers Specify Products in Commercial Interiors

WHAT DO DESIGNERS WANT?

What Commercial Designers Need From Manufacturers

The gap between what designers ask for and what moves a specification.

By Kevin Budelmann | July 28, 2026

TL;DR: Designers will tell you what they want (usually more options), but what they need is help getting to the finish line. The gap between the stated want and the real need is where manufacturers build the wrong strategy.

Designers play an important role in specifying Built Environment products. They typically aren’t final decision-makers or check writers, but their opinions heavily influence purchasing decisions in commercial environments. Manufacturers often ask, “What do designers want?”

The question is slightly off. Designers will tell you what they want: usually, more options. What they need is help. They are working with limited billable time and a client presentation on Friday. They need to look smart, creative, and prepared, and they need products that solve their clients’ problems. 

Understanding how to do that requires understanding who these designers actually are, how specification really works, and what motivates the people making the calls. What designers say they want and what actually moves a specification are rarely the same thing. That gap is where manufacturers lose.

A and D

“A&D” is the industry shorthand for Architects and Designers. It’s because independent A&D firms are the business partners that influence commercial jobs across a wide range of product categories. Hired by the end user rather than tied to any manufacturer, they can be seen as unbiased representatives.

The term “A&D” covers both architects and interior designers, but overlooks key differences. Interior designers typically make most product choices for interiors. A common way to distinguish their work: if a building is flipped upside down, what stays is architecture; what falls out or changes the surface is interior design.

Architects (and engineers in Architecture and Engineering firms) do play a role in products that attach to the building: exterior components, structure, building materials, and systems. Modular wall products, which have seen an industry resurgence as BE companies look for ways to grow, are an example of this specification variant. Architects play a different, earlier role in the overall buildout.

Manufacturers entering the architectural products market have learned that specifying these products is different from specifying traditional interiors. Walls are more like buildings than furniture.

When furniture manufacturers say A&D, they mostly mean interior designers.

Interior designers are a different breed from architects. They often collaborate early in a project, but they more often bring it to a close than architects. Interior designers focus on spatial relationships, business goals, materiality, and human behavior. Interior designers work on layouts and blueprints for furniture, lighting, electrical, and flow.

This is why they’re so important to FF&E (Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment) providers: they see these products as ingredients in their recipes – solutions to problems. They are specifying projects that an end user will purchase to create an overall effect, hit a specific price point, and complete the project on time. They want products that both inspire and deliver.

It’s common for people to equate interior design with interior decorating, but they are not the same. Yet, as with architecture, there is overlap.

Leaders and Laggards

Designer influence divides manufacturers in how they approach product development and marketing. 

Some manufacturers lead with design in their brand, message, and products. Pairing with name-brand designers has been a long-time industry trend. Charles Eames and George Nelson were not company employees, but Herman Miller promoted them as celebrities for mutual benefit. These firms feature black-and-white photos of designers touching their faces, along with key ideas that drive product breakthroughs.

While easy to satirize, this approach works. Implied third-party endorsements and hero designer personalities appeal to specifiers and make manufacturers feel like design firms, even if they don’t actually affect their internal culture. Some firms refrain from working with name-brand designers and build their own design image. Both paths are efforts to engage designers.

Other manufacturers take the opposite approach, leaning toward a dealer-led business model, which can feel more pragmatic and sales-driven. To them, designers are unpredictable and hard to please. These design laggards are less likely to embrace a design identity and aim to meet only the perceived minimum requirements of picky designer specifiers. They often ask, "What do designers want?"

Each approach presents challenges. Design-focused manufacturers are often considered early by designers but may fall behind operationally. Sales-focused manufacturers can deliver but are less likely to be top of mind. The most successful brands combine strong design appeal and operational excellence.

Form and Function

“Form follows function,” a sentiment attributed to modernist architect Louis Sullivan, is commonly referenced in professional design. This philosophy means design should solve problems, not just decorate surfaces. However, in practice, design often involves both surface decoration and problem-solving.

Products that appeal to designers balance formal and functional concerns, but not always equally. And neither form nor function is an absolute.

Functional success can depend on the product category, like a light that turns on or a table that holds weight, but also on context. A coffee table is less mission-critical, in a functional sense, than a computer table. Function can also mean durability, cleanability, sustainability, and adjustability. At a minimum, it means competitive parity. Designers look for stories, so functional surprises lend novelty and draw attention.

If form follows function, beauty lies in elegant performance. The lever doesn’t just work; it resembles a sculpture. It feels right, like a golf club grip, and clicks to confirm it worked. You can’t make it look bad. The product enhances and coordinates with other items in the room.

Formal success is subjective, so form doesn’t always follow function. Sometimes, form is independent of performance, as seen in colorways, carpet patterns, or sconce details. Other times, form outweighs traditional function. A sculptural lighting element may emphasize shape over luminosity. When products become more like art, their form is function.

This may seem confusing. However, manufacturers aiming to attract designers should ensure their products have an inspirational story that illustrates how form conveys function. While form may follow function, emotions inspire us first, and facts offer reassurance.

Download the A&D Product Imagery Guide

Dealers and Designers

One confusing aspect of the contract interiors business is that products are often specified twice. Independent A&D designers are the choosers. They are viewed as unbiased end-user advocates, and staying on their short list is the first gate toward specification. But independent designers are not product specialists, and they frequently don’t create technical specifications at all.

That work falls to dealership-employed designers. Dealer designers sometimes originate, often re-create, but always complete the specification with enough detail to place an order. While independent designers work in AutoCAD, SketchUp, and Revit, dealer designers use industry-specific software such as Configura’s CET, which embeds product data. A further wrinkle: independent rep groups, contracted by manufacturers to drive attention at the dealer level, have begun hiring their own designers.

This matters for manufacturers because the help designers need comes in two forms. Independent designers need inspiration, a story, and confidence that your product completes their vision. Dealer designers need accuracy, clean data, and tools that make the technical spec painless. A product that inspires the chooser but frustrates the specifier stalls in the gap between them. Technology will narrow this gap, but winning specification means serving both.

Inspiration and Identity

While designers serve as purchasing agents to manufacturers, it’s useful to consider how they view their own roles and what motivates them.

Many designers think of themselves as creative people. They are inspired by novelty, art, film, and fashion. They are interested in trends and, in a sense, see their role as reflecting aspects of contemporary life and pop culture. Relevance resonates.

Designers are tastemakers. This may sound egotistical, but some ego is essential for creative work, and it is their professional role. Designers are hired for their opinions. They bring credentials, information, philosophies, understanding, and biases, but their purpose is to make judgment calls. They judge manufacturers, brands, and products. That is their job.

Even more, the choices they make reflect their personal identity. Their reputation is built on making choices that their customers appreciate, what they want, and what they need. If end users don’t like the net result, they won’t hire them again. This is also why they ask for more options even when options aren't what they need. Designers are supposed to be the originators of ideas, so admitting they need help is not something they'll say out loud, even to themselves.

Manufacturers hear the request and respond the way manufacturers do, by adding SKUs. The catalog grows, the line gets harder to make and sell, and the designer still cannot find the thing that solves the problem.

ThinkLab's 2024 Design Industry Benchmark Survey asked commercial A&D specifiers which product attributes matter most. Durability and quality topped the list at 65 percent, with price and aesthetics tied at 47 percent. That is a real finding and worth taking seriously. What it does not tell you is what to lead with. Durability tops the survey because a product that falls apart takes the designer’s reputation with it. But designers are hardly inspired by durability. It is the price of admission, the thing that must be true before the interesting conversation starts. Manufacturers who lead their story with durability alone are answering the survey, not the person.

Designers don’t simply need endless options. They need compelling product stories that make them heroes for their clients. They want clear solutions that solve problems in novel ways from a brand that makes them look good by association. The real question for manufacturers is how easily you're helping them get to the finish line.

Good Design

IBM’s Thomas Watson, Jr., is remembered for a simple observation: “Good design is good business.” Ralph Caplan, author of “The Design of Herman Miller,” a hero and friend of ours, liked to add: “...so is bad design.”

Designers want good design. The modernist sense of “good design” is not about subjectivity. It’s about effective solutions, and the best ones advance culture. Dieter Rams’ 10 Principles are instructive: Good design is innovative, useful, aesthetic, understandable, unobtrusive, honest, long-lasting, thorough down to the last detail, environmentally friendly, and as little as possible. We like how Rudy VanderLans, the Dutch graphic designer, viewed it: “Design is a good idea.”

The designer’s role as purchasing agent in the interiors business cannot be ignored, but keep in mind that your products are elements in the designer’s recipe. What they want from you as a manufacturer is the freshest, best ingredients.