It’s been quite a few decades now since architects came into the office with their T-square, specialised pencils, vellum, and all the other supplies at the drafting board. Indeed, it’s quite rare nowadays to see drafting boards and when they are used, it’s usually because the architectural firm does a lot of sketches or conceptual drawings before putting it into AutoCAD or other drafting software.
Nevertheless, plotting those drawings remains essential for the finished product to turn over to the client, e.g. a developer or prospective homebuyer. How can architecture professionals get high-quality plans printed or plotted at affordable prices?
Architects today, just as in the past, rely on high-quality plans to turn over to clients. These plans are often a lot more detailed and are taken a lot more seriously than a cartoon sketch, for example, often involving numerous project stakeholders such as builders and engineers to erect a building in a legally compliant and safe manner to the client’s specifications.
Since painstakingly hand-drawn plans are no longer the norm and almost everything is done on AutoCAD and other illustration software, architects need access to professional plotting equipment and the know-how to maintain and operate it.
Architects, architectural technicians, and many other professionals such as engineers and planners need large format prints due to the nature of their work, which is typically depicting to-scale drawings of existing and/or planned developments down to fine details.
Some of the most common drawings they need printed include floor and site plans and elevation plans, often in multiple sets, e.g. showing four sides of a planned building, a different plan for each floor, and so on. These are often plotted on A0 paper, large enough so that construction foremen and engineers can collaborate on a project on-site.
Other popular drawings that require printing (but may not need to be A0) include renderings and conceptual sketches, often used in promotional materials or to show what a proposed building will look like upon completion and how it fits into the built environment.
Whereas most architects use professional drafting software nowadays, plotting on-site is not always the best idea. Plotters are quite sensitive and can be an expensive asset to acquire and to maintain, plus your employees will need to know how to use it properly.
Instead, it’s often much more convenient to leave this task to a print shop that specialises in high-quality, large format prints such as Print on Demand.
Large format printing can use up a lot of toner and the paper costs can add up, so messing around with a plotter can be fairly expensive. A print shop, on the other hand, can produce these drawings at an affordable price point without the need to worry about servicing the plotter, making sure the drawing comes out as intended, and so on.
Architecture firms and engineering consultants can entrust their printing and plotting to a reputable print shop such as Print on Demand, in full confidence that your plans and drawings will look fantastic for your internal use and/or for end clients.
Print large format plans and more with Print on Demand.
