Sketching is the best way to work through design problems. Since no designer is an island, sometimes sketching collaboratively is the best way of working through design problems together. Other times, you sketch a bit, create a proper drawing, and then present to colleagues, clients or stakeholders.
"Whether you're resolving a challenging condition by yourself, or helping a client to visualize, we all sketch it out first," explained Sophie Amini, Creative Director at Pooky. "With Archisketch, more often than not, even I prefer to put aside my paper and pencil and whip off a sketch on my iPad. At Pooky, we work very closely, both with each other and with the manufacturers. We talk through sketches and ideas at length before deciding which samples to get made up. Sketches are translated into technical drawings, from which the manufacturers can work."
Some apps, like Archisketch, let you sketch, plus provide tools and symbols to turn sketches into a bona fide scale-aware drawing. Layers hide and show a variety of options. You can move around symbols to refine your vision. When it is ready for discussion, you call a meeting with the client or a colleague.
Specific features of Archisketch facilitate collaborating in a face-to-face meeting over a coffee and an iPad. One of the best lets you turn off a standard feature, called "Draw with Finger." Sounds backward, right? Why would you want to turn off such a core capability? Because it lets a presenter draw, edit and make changes using all of the creative expressiveness from working with an Apple Pencil®, while still allowing the client touch all over the screen and not impact the actual drawing. For an interactive experience, the ability to touch the drawing without messing it up makes everyone happier.
Couple this interactive presentation style with the ability to show options using layers, which allows you to get your client "caught up" with your design options as fast as possible, so you can spend more time developing the design with them further.
The result is a faster path to decisions and solutions. But what if you want someone offsite to make changes, or you need feedback, or want to share the drawing and have a quick Messages chat while you're still in your meeting?
Now you can. The most recent version of Archisketch updated the software's own architecture to facilitate "Plus Packs," which are optional add-on modules. One of the first two available Plus Packs lets you use your iCloud Drive for file sharing and collaboration.
The iCloud Plus pack allows you save Archisketch projects, drawings and PDF files to and from your iCloud Drive, and to designate collaborators who can make changes to an Archisketch sketch, drawing, and project. In a meeting, iCloud Plus pack allows you to bring in other team members who aren't at the meeting so that a client really feels like they are really getting the full attention of the design team, and also reduces the amount of "follow up" so you can get more done in one meeting.
People you designate for collaboration do not need to be in your office. You can include an outside engineer, for example. Technically, your collaborators could be anyone, anywhere, on-site or across the globe.
"There is often a lot of to-ing and fro-ing to get the product exactly right. Collaboration with the manufacturers is essential as every millimeter makes a difference, as does the tone of a color or the right finish," said Sophie Amini of Pooky.
Speaking of the right tone of a color or the right finish, whether you are presenting drawings online or in person, every drawing can use a little pizzazz. The other Plus Pack, Colour Plus, has you covered. Colour Plus pack provides a more accurate color impression so the client doesn't get the wrong impression about your design ideas.
Colour Plus pack adds support for Gradient fills, which lets you show light streaming in from a window, or shining down like the halo of a street lamp. Gradients add a little depth to your perspectives or provide a texture effect.
In addition to Gradient fills, Colour Plus extends the choices available on the existent color palette. Plus you can save and use multiple color palettes for drawings, for example, if you have different interior, exterior, and landscape colors. It even allows you to identify a color value you want and pull it in right from your screen.
You can create a global color palette, available for use in all drawings and projects. Consistently excellent color choices make for a cohesive company look that is always amazing.
Using great color choices and applying gradients are a couple easy tricks that make your drawings really pop for the client. Collaborating on drawings with the team keeps everyone a little more on the same page. In the end, whether early design or problem-solving, sometimes a quick Archisketch iPad drawing is also worth a thousand words.
