General presentation and professionalism

Hello all,

In order for this post to make sense let me give you some background. I am an intern at an IT Firm and am extremely new to AutoCad. I have never had any sort of training on it, other than a high school course 5 years ago. I have been tasked to design a building because hiring someone else to do so would be significantly more expensive. Before anyone starts wondering, no my product will by no means be the final, it is simply a means to get their ideas onto a screen, later to be translated into professional work. I have the building drawn almost to completion and my boss is looking to present it to the company funding the project. Are there any baseline needs I must meet for a final presentation? If you were putting the final touches on something what would you add? I want this to look as professional as possible given my limited experience. I will be presenting a 2D layout of all the floors with the room names and dimensions. If there were a top 3 must haves to make something look well done what would they be?

I know this is extremely broad and I have given limited information, but any tips for a beginner to makes his project look better would be helpful.

Thanks in advance!

Want to share an image with us of one of the floors?

Here is a 2D and 3D image.

2f.pdf

plot.pdf

I don't know exactly what to say. Since it is only a planning tool, to get the conversation rolling, and nothing more I guess it would suffice. Not too sure I'd locate a conference room on the other side of a wall from a bathroom.

Why are the room dimensions centered on the walls?

You went through all the trouble of using a double line for the exterior walls but then switched to a single line for the interior walls? Why?

Why are there no hoods in the main lab?

Why are there no storage areas for chemicals and supplies?

Where are the closets for coats/jackets?

Are there going to be any windows? Yellow is not a good color to use when one's background is white.

Some rooms appear to have no doors.

I would orient the room names so they would be running left to right (like this text) instead of top to bottom and facing the wrong direction.

i dunno if it's what you want, but my observations on the 2D pdf:

get the orientation right. having every viewer have to rotate the drawing isn't very professional

text don't look good in cyan - try black

add some actual stairs for clarity

place room text better - perhaps in the middle of the rooms

main thing is the rotation. really annoys me at work ppl who a) cba to orientate a pdf correctly b) cba to name a file sensibly.

Thank you for the advice.

Is there a more recommended way of printing other than to a pdf? And can you change background color of the pdf?

i prefer PDF. by far.

easy for eveyone to use/send/print/whatever they fancy

Is this part of a PowerPoint presentation?

I'd print out 11x17's of each floor and make enough copies for everyone attending the presentation. The participants can make notes on their copies during the course of the meeting.

...consistancy in terminology (lift/elevator)

The room names are difficult to read. Can you center them in the room? For the sake of keeping the drawing uncluttered, you could add in the room dimensions underneath the text. For example it would read:

Conference Room

13'-0"x13'-0"

Maybe it's just me, but I don't see any door swings.

And if you plot the floorplan in gray scale it will solve the problem of the yellow dimensions.

Just my observations.

Have you done a Google Image search to get a visual on what you should be aiming for?

I would not use the drawings. I'd sit everyone around a table who's input is vital to the project and sketch out ideas on some rice paper with a black "Sharpie". Hash out what the requirements are (ex. - how many labs and what size?) and condense everything to a Word document. Then invite a design company in for a talk and hand them the list of requirements. Let them come back to you with some preliminary ideas.

If you really do want something a little more professional looking but don't want to spend the money to hire an architect at least get someone who knows AutoCAD and something about architectural drawings. It could be someone who does CAD work on the side or a student studying architectural drafting and design at a local community college or state university. For a couple of hundred dollars you'd get a much better product.

I have another 2D that is much cleaner and has the windows, door swings, hood locations, sink locations, and more accessory items along with the double lines. This is unfinished and will be the final product. I like the bit about the dimensions under the text and the gray scaling.

My boss stressed the 3D portion very heavily for some time, and is now more focused back on the 2D. I had left a lot out of the 2D because the 3D was priority at the time, so I'm going back and adding the consistency to my soon-to-be-finalized 2D outline. I had to send an older 2D image because the one I'm working on is not even close to being done.

Thanks

The outdoor dining area is nice but at the prices they charge per square foot to build a R&D building these days that space is a waste of money and will be under utilized. Think of it this way: that space does not make your company any money.

Would you like to see what we gave our architect for a preliminary floor plan for our 3-story R&D facility?

Ditto to all of the above.. in particular the dimensions and room names need to be sorted before any kind of presentation.. standard practice is to have dimensions oustise the building..

Also:

Spin the plan image so it sits nicely on a Landscape orientation..

Add a title block which contains your company information and a north point..

You may want to consider a Perspective view for the 3D, it will look much better.