Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
That's really useful, thank you for ranting! So basically you think I should buy the software but not bother with the course? In my experience most programs like this come with very good tutorials and Help options of their own, is this the case with Vectorworks? I suppose I could just buy a book and slog through it.
I think you might be right, CAD will make my plans a lot more accurate, and save time. What's really getting on my nerves about drawing is that I love using Rotring pens, but they always get so blocked up! It takes me about 1/2 hour just to get the pens going.
The only trouble is that it's quite expensive to buy. Do you, or anyone else have any suggestions as to where to get a good deal?
I've just remembered going to a talk by Tom Stuart Smith where he said that he often has someone do a CAD elevation drawing for him, and then he traces over the top of it to make it look like he's drawn it himself! Cunning....
Clive Warwick said:
I think the consensus seems to be that CAD is a pretty useful tool.
Philip Voice said:
I also have a fine art background and would love to be able to spend time hand-rendering everything but my clients seem to like the 3D presentation on my laptop.
I also went to art school. I want to learn how to use cad. however I have, found that by scanning hand drawn designs into photoshop can help with the speed of changes ect. Also by dropping a few images of compleated gardens around the outside of the plan, can give the client a good picture of what you are thinking of. Its a bit A level but it is quick and effective.
Ta
Jon
For presentation plans and perspective drawings it's all hand drawn for me. Yes it's a pain when you make a mistake which if you were using a computer could be corrected in seconds, but I always prefer (and so do my clients, however limited they have been so far) the personal touch that comes from pens, pencils and pastels.
The fact that I can't really draw to save my life doesn't enter into it. :)
I agree with Bird. If you want to try the CAD route to either replace or compliment your hand drawings, you could do no better than download Sketchup. As it's free, you can determine whether to go the CAD route or not without laying out a lot of money. Furthermore, it's extremely easy to learn compared with other CAD packages. You'll amaze yourself with how much you can achieve in an evening as a newbie. There are loads of tutorials available, a brilliant forum and a warehouse full of downloadable components. I should add that if you only want to produce plans as opposed to 3D drawings then an upgrade to the pro version might be worth considering as it includes an integrated module called Layout but it's quite easy to produce plans in the free version. You can even import scans of your sketches, trace over them and adjust them to size. Everything is drawn at full scale but printing can be scaled down. I'm not suggesting it's the best ever CAD program and those who are already comfortable with another product are unlikely to migrate (especially if they've paid a lot for it).
For what it's worth.
Roger
We feel however that the finished result is a bit sterile so when the brief is frozen we take off a black and white print on quailty paper and colour wash the plan to give the client a 'picture ' of the final design. Many of these have been framed and hung in our clients houses, they seem to go down well.
For those wanting to get into AutoCAD, sadly it is now very expensive. AutoCAD 2009 is a very sophisticated piece of software which really isn't needed for garden design, you will only use 20% of its functions. Try to buy an older copy, back as far as release 98, they are more simple to use for novices and still compatible as far as printing is concerned with the new versions. I mention this because we e-mail the .dwg drawing to a local printer who prints off the required copies and sends them back to us in the post. This saves on another unnecessary expense of an A1 plotter.
I can't think of anything nicer than sitting in the warmth of the office designing a new scheme on CAD with, as it is today the snow flurries passing by the window !
Clive Warwick said:
They do however deal with engineering as well as landscape architecture.