Better detail

Hand drawing allows more creative and instinctive design.

I recently saw an example of CAD designing at its worst.

A neighbour wanted to put two adjacent apartments together and the first salesman happened to sell kitchens. As could be expected he produced a design of a wonderful kitchen, using CAD, and it looked like a ball room in a 70 m2 apartment. That’s tiny. The customer told me how wonderful it was that she would have room for a food mixer although she never uses one. The proposed kitchen, as it turned out, would have taken all her money, so she decided to sell the apartments instead.

Blame the CAD, blame the salesman, blame whoever you want. An hour with the customer over a sketchbook at the initial stage might have saved the project.

Hand drawn is more personal and gives more customer interaction.

Personally when I have worked on projects with designers & clients I have always had both. I specialize in visuals for architects & interior designers. From my architectural background I find sketches/hand drawings an ideal way to communicate early concepts & ideas between designers and clients. This is especially helpful during one to one discussions.

Once a design is into later stages then a CGI visual would be recommended. From meticulous surveying to rendering in 3DS MAX with VRay. My aim is always to get CGI's to be realistic and give an accurate representation of a finished project. Due to the elements involved in creating a CGI, a concept hand drawing will not capture the elements such as natural & artificial lighting.

If I could I would vote both. In my view a professional CGI is just as personal as a hand drawing. Not just because they can take the same amount of time but because every single one should be bespoke to the user.

Sketch View 1 · More Info

Eagle Brow Master Bedroom CGI Visual · More Info

Sketch View 2 · More Info

Master Bedroom CGI Visual · More Info

Thank you,

Greig Young

I think hand-drawings are great for getting ideas across quickly and can show 3-d elements initially before working out absolute sizes. It's helpful to the client to have a personal touch and the designer to get a good hand-to-brain feel for the work required.

This is still very interesting, as an old time visualiser everything had to be in place to commission artwork for a design... These days with CGI the design doesn't need to be, so the process is somewhat diminished and the responsibility of the designer to not keep adjusting things accepted. Designers will always keep adjusting things until 2 days before the 3 day process of rendering is due! Chuckles irreverently...

we'd use both hand drawings & cad & 3D renders for our clients - cads great to get the idea of the floor plan across, but the 3D renders beat everything hands down for showing clients the potential of the project.

We've some great examples on our profile if you'd like to take a look.

It is really interesting to see so many opinions on often such overlooked, but how important aspect. Everyone here seems to have their own preference and experiences and looking at the poll it is head to head. I think that Joe did us all a favour by starting this, so big thanks to him!

Thank you! To be honest I didn't think I would get this reaction! obviously a very important subject for a huge number of people. Such a close vote too!

Nearly 450 votes and 65 comments so far! I would be very keen to see a breakdown for home owners. What's their preference.

we use both as much as we can, both are excellent design tools but quick sketches really help clients get an understanding of spaces.

Both have there own place. We produce sketches initially and then more accurate CAD drawings.

We use both. Both has their advantages. Hand drawing will always be more special, but Cad drawings are more accurate and easier to amend and distribute.

AutoCAD for planning rooms , as it is the most accurate for dimensions and along with 3D HD render this I believe is what people now expect . Being able to show the actual tiles and possible units in a 3D image stops client confusion and therefore less problems at the end - basically "Oh I didn't think it was going to look like this comments" these for any good designer will be few and far between but will still arise if only hand drawing.

I couldn't agree more. AutoCAD plans & 3D HD renders are now what people expect but do they understand the cost and time they take?

That is an excellent point and probably the answer would be no. So as with everything it is a question of education ... the way I work is I use hourly rate but in the end I have never billed for actual time it would be a ridiculous cost so I charge what I feel the work is worth. The people who annoy me most is the companies who say we give you the bathroom you want with no design fees [these are usually TV/online companies] so what sort of bathroom do the clients get ? . Also showrooms still say free design service "FREE!!!!" do me a favour I worked for design outlets who offered that but they had to pay me and where did that money come from?..... now let me guess here - CLIENTS.

Hi Joseph -interesting poll - what software do you use? We use Archicad with Lumion which allows us to convert CAD models to hand drawn drawings.

Hand drawn I feel gives the client a better visual and gives the impression you have spent more time creating a interior design just for them.

CAD is great for flexibility but we also love freehand sketches to show clients

You know that CAD is easy to change without going back to the start - also more likely to be accurate

Ms Interiors & Designs Ltd commented that hand drawn gives better visual ... I am not so sure better, but I would say maybe more personal .. but HD 3D render gives the actual look of the room which will include 99% of the time the actual tile which I feel is one of the most important items in bathroom all a hand drawn can do is give an impression so your telling the client it will look something like this instead of saying "IT" will look like this. In the image note the tiles behind the basin area.

I remember when we first moved to CAD and presentations to council were not welcomed until we bought a small piece of software called "Squiggle" that gave the illusion of hand drawn - how things have moved on since then !

I don't know about all but the 3D render packages I know, all have the facility to do a hand drawn type image. Funnily enough doing that at the moment as I am doing work for a designer who does not want present client with too much information at this time.

We find that clients like to see hand drawings, especially if they are drawn in front of them in meetings or on site. CAD has it's advantages of course with accuracy and for production information, but hand drawn information shows character from the designer themselves.

Hand drawings give the clients a much more personal touch - CAD is of course excellent software but as I was trained to draw by hand I personally prefer this method

Hand drawing is important to the creative process.

Hi all, this is Joe Hurles (I started this whole post..) I now offer freelance design services, please follow my profile. Thanks

I can now offer either, I visit site, offer the customer either a hand drawn design or cad, once this has been done and we agree layouts/product etc I produce a list of recommended products and information on where to purchase them, I can also introduce them to installers that are capable of exciting the designs properly. I also provide an annotated version of the designs for the installer to refer to, of course everything is conceptual and is completely dependent on the installer to agree is feasible, they usually prefer CAD in that they simply prefer seeing dimensions, but the hand drawn has an element of personalisation that I feel cad can struggle or provide.

I believe both are important,however when customers find it hard to visualise their choices cad allows them to get a sense of reality.

Hi Joe wishing you all the best for your new business

I think that if you able to do both, then you should do both. It shows that you are a creative and cut above.

CGI's are the best way forward for truly understanding the designers vision.

Nothing like a real life visualisation

How long until we start to use virtual reality in clients homes?https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us/why-hololens

LOVE DRAWING PERSONALLY

BUT CGI HELPS CLIENTS UNDERSTAND CLEARLY WHAT THEY'RE GETTING

Both are great but hand drawn look more organic to me.

Both are very important. We will recommend to use a balance of both the techniques.

CAD provides a clean and professional look

We use CAD drawings here, we've found that our customers find it easier to visualise the final product this way!

Hand drawn feels more personal and gives the customer a visualisation that is hard to glean from a 2D CAD drawing alone. But as others have said, to have both is best as it gives you the complete vision.

you cant do this on your phone/ tablet in the room with a pencil sketch though ?

http://panorama.2020.net/view/h4jdzlcneekyqa4cwp150a/

I am now convinced that a good hand rendered illustration is definitely best as it shows that you genuinely have a good visual understanding and artisan spirit.

Loved reading this discussion! I am an interior designer and have done my interior sketchign courses with BehindCanvas. The tutor is amazing and you can do the tutorials online in your own time and rewatch them. Highly recommend if you're interested in mastering sketching from zero!