Overheard a client call a floor plan 'a Picasso' and it threw me

Was at the print shop yesterday picking up a set for a residential job. Guy next to me on his phone, talking to his architect. Said, and I quote, 'This layout is a Picasso. I love it, but which way is up?' The architect must have sent something wild. Made me think about how we present our work. A clear, clean drawing should explain itself. No one should need an art degree to read a floor plan. How do you guys balance creative design with making sure the client actually gets it?

4 comments

4 Comments

lucash532mo ago

What if we took @brianm66's furniture idea a step further? For tricky layouts, I'll sometimes sketch in a tiny, obvious thing like a TV on the wall or a coffee mug on a counter. It gives people one solid anchor point to understand the whole room's flow.

brianm662mo ago

My old boss used to say a floor plan should be readable from across the room. We'd do a simple north arrow and a faint furniture layout in every presentation. It gives people something familiar to latch onto before they even look at the walls.

paulw5317d ago

Yeah and the furniture trick really does work, I've seen it save presentations more than once. A buddy of mine used to do these bare-bones plans and clients would stare at them like they were reading a foreign language. Soon as he added a simple sofa and a coffee table, they'd go "oh I see where the couch goes now." I've started tossing in a tiny rug outline too, just a rectangle under a table. Gives people a sense of where the traffic lanes are without having to think about it.

roberts.leo2mo ago

Yeah that makes total sense, @brianm66. Reminds me of a buddy who's an architect, he showed me a plan for a really weird shaped sunroom addition once. It just looked like a blob on paper until he drew in a single lounge chair and a little potted plant in the corner. Suddenly my brain just clicked and I could see how you'd actually use the space. That tiny detail did all the heavy lifting.