[papercutter]

Since we're talking about elevating the level of presentation graphics: I had a client meeting Saturday, and like a bonehead forgot to bring photos of the self-contained fountain I was proposing for the backyard. So, I whipped out this sketch on the back of a sheet of paper. You may gaze in awestruck wonder at this mastery of the graphic arts.

Bottom line? SOLD. Get the customer to believe in you, and you can get away with forgetting your pretty presentation stuff. I just thought it was kind of timely.

[agla]

"Get the customer to believe in you, and you can get away with ..."

That sums it all up.

Graphics certainly are tools to help get the customer to believe in you. There are other tools as well. They all work together. Great graphics are strongly supportive, but they do not stand alone, nor does anything else.

It is one of many ways to communicate. The whole thing comes down to being able to remove the most uncertainty from the client as you can. If all else is the same and one has better graphics, that one will get the job. If the competitor has lesser graphics, but the client has confidence in him, graphics won't make the difference.

I think that Nick is trying to say that if you are competing with equals, you need to gain every advantage that you can.

If you can stay on the same playing field using higher end graphics, it will gain you advantage. If it takes you off of the playing field either through cost or time invested, it does not make sense.

[tfld]

Originally Posted by papercutter

Since we're talking about elevating the level of presentation graphics: I had a client meeting Saturday, and like a bonehead forgot to bring photos of the self-contained fountain I was proposing for the backyard. So, I whipped out this sketch on the back of a sheet of paper. You may gaze in awestruck wonder at this mastery of the graphic arts.

Bottom line? SOLD. Get the customer to believe in you, and you can get away with forgetting your pretty presentation stuff. I just thought it was kind of timely.

Yes, I'm awestruck. I've never seen or drawn a schematic sketch. Everything I do goes straight from my head to 3d studio max.

[papercutter]

really? That's pretty badass! Everything I do goes right from my head to Etch a Sketch. It's why my designs take so long and look so boxy. But shaking it to erase mistakes is WAY more fun than ctrl+z.

[dan deutekom]

Dave

This is the type of drawing that I am impressed by. When a architect does a quick sketch on a napkin during a meeting and I start building it that afternoon i am impressed. I have a lot more faith in someone that can knock out a quick sketch that conveys what has to be done than all the fancy computer graphics that seem to take days to get a copy of. I always feel that the architect also has more respect for my abilities to interpret his vision as well because the details are left to me. I never had the abilities to sketch like this and I really wish I could.

[tfld]

But really..I like the sketch.

And I agree with Dan. You've got a good hand.

Maybe just to show I don't just use the computer..These were part of an in-office charette over a couple hours for a university rec center expansion project..

I guess this is relevant because it shows how some some people like to use color even just for diagramming, even if it only makes sense to that person..etc. The perspective sketch was originally 1"x2" while I was sitting at my computer in a few seconds. I blew it up and threw some photoshop color on it and it was used in an sd presentation, kind of funny.

I'd agree with most, probably that I actually like the look and feel of hand graphics over digital 9 times out of 10..I'd really like to see anyone elses "doodles"..

[tfld]

Monday staff meetings..



Okay, I'm going home now..

[jshilan]

Nick, I'm interested in how you import your drawings onto your posts (really). All I can import are those little jpg's. I thought it was all computer generated until I saw your notebook sketches in the last post.

[tfld]

Open a Flickr account...Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing

Upload your photos there, make sure they are jpegs and fit within the size requirements on this site. Go to your flickr image and copy the URL. Hit the "insert image" button above and paste the url, post.

If you need some light p-shop duty to get your stuff up I'd be glad to oblige.

[tfld]

Originally Posted by dan deutekom

Dave

This is the type of drawing that I am impressed by. When a architect does a quick sketch on a napkin during a meeting and I start building it that afternoon i am impressed. I have a lot more faith in someone that can knock out a quick sketch that conveys what has to be done than all the fancy computer graphics that seem to take days to get a copy of. I always feel that the architect also has more respect for my abilities to interpret his vision as well because the details are left to me. I never had the abilities to sketch like this and I really wish I could.

We have a professor at CSU named Joe Mcgrane. He worked for EDAW in Fort Collins under Herb Schaal, principal of that office for years before coming to CSU part time and doing public art and private projects. The local EDAW office does alot of charettes. Nearly every project they do (or at least those overseen by Herb) is done in a charette or series of charette with some development and other stuff later on. This is relatvely uncommon to work so much in this format. If anyone isn't familiar with the term "charette," it's basically when a small team of designers and a client group meet for anywhere from a few hours to a few days or more, usually at a public venue close to the site in question and literally go through the entire sd and sometimes dd phase right there, with the client at their side. I've participated in a few of these as an intern and they are a blast. You usually all stay in the same hotel, meet in one of the hotel conference rooms in the morning around 8am and dont leave that room until your arms start cramping and you cant see straight anymore. Trace paper is flying left and right and the conversations get deep and often heated. The last charette I helped with was in Steamboat Springs. They had three large conference rooms reserved, all adjacent to one another. Food and beverages were kept flowing morning tthrough night. Myself and two other interns basically stayed in one of the rooms and cranked out graphics on tracepaper. Nothing could really be very refined, maybe 30mins or so. We master planned 700 acres down to the grading and streetscape in three days. Take that for whatever its worth.

The EDAW folks though are very good at these charettes. Joe, our professor, can draw an accurately scaled, highly detailed perspective without any aid in about 30 mins while the clients and project managers brainstorm. Joe and some of the other designers will iterally sit at a separate table and listen to the conversation and draw, full color, to scale, in perspective, section, and plan.

Herb Schaal, Joes mentor for over 20 years, pioneered the "proportional method" in landscape perspective drawing. Mike Lin has a section on the proprtioanl method in his book I believe. Drawing perspective proportionally seems complex at first, but is quite simple. To simplify, it basically entails drawing a person first, with a landscape around them to measure scale by proportion. You dont need a scale or anything else, just paper and pen.

If some of you are interested I could probably explain it a little more in depth.

Anyway...thats that I guess..

[tfld]

Ah-ha!

Here's a perfect shot of Herb at a charette, with the type of drawings I'm talking about exactly. I believe those are Craig Russells drawings, who worked at EDAW Ftc under Herb and Joe, but split about a year ago to start this office and do more neat drawings.

[papercutter]

The proportional method sounds like what Richard Scott teaches in his workshops. I had hoped to go this fall but he moved it from DC to Philly, which makes it that little bit harder to justify.

I can see where the charettes can be a blast. We (citizens) did a few hours of trace paper work with the urban planning firm the town hired a few years ago, so I got to see it from the end user side. I can also see where if it's not run properly, it can go horribly awry. We were lucky to have a great firm involved. That's probably a skillset all in itself that requires some mad people skills.

[tfld]

As far as perspective-there is "measured" and "proportional." A measured persepctive requires a scale, straight edge, and a plan to measure from directly. The proportional method is basically the same, except you're making measurements by the relative ssize of people according to their position along the eye line.

Try this-

Find a long straigh sidewalk with lots of people...notice everyones eyes are basically on the same line? Thats the eye line.

For every person along that line you can basically assume that 5' is the distance from their eyes to their feet. Take a snapshot in your mind and you can see that you can use this vertically and horiontally to measure the height of trees, buildings, cars, whatever (as long as the object is on the same horizontal line as that person). The there's depth..

This method can really come in handy for field dimesioning objects, whether they exist or will in the near future.

-n

[DMLD]

Originally Posted by papercutter

The proportional method sounds like what Richard Scott teaches in his workshops. I had hoped to go this fall but he moved it from DC to Philly, which makes it that little bit harder to justify.

I can see where the charettes can be a blast. We (citizens) did a few hours of trace paper work with the urban planning firm the town hired a few years ago, so I got to see it from the end user side. I can also see where if it's not run properly, it can go horribly awry. We were lucky to have a great firm involved. That's probably a skillset all in itself that requires some mad people skills.

I attended one of Richard's seminars about a year and a half ago. Definitely helps in drawing fast concepts and layouts.

[emodfd]

I love to render my drawings. I am finding that even in a large city like Dallas even our big repro houses are starting to phase out even presentation bond soon. They stated it was not going to be available much longer. They said some of their graphic artists and proffessional renderers were having to find new ways. It is why I am looking into some computer stuff to help with the construction details etc. but I am not putting the pencil down and I love the smell of markers in the morning.. Obviously rendering is an art and is the final touch on a good design. I do render as much as I can and am a big fan of elevations to help the client see the design.
By the way, I have BSLA 1992, what are you old school folks calling old school? I want some ages and years of education etc. Just curious.