Guest Post: Corey Klassen on LayOut

Corey is a fellow kitchen designer who I have come to know over Twitter.  Since being Twitter buddies, I've had the pleasure of meeting Corey in person at KBIS and Brizo's NYC Fashion week.  Corey has a sharp sense of style, and an incredible grasp of Sketchup and LayOut.  He teaches Sketchup classes Vancouver Canada.  I have written for Corey's blog, Design Kula before, and he has wanted to write for me.  In tossing around ideas, he shared with me some of his LayOut documents.  As soon as I saw them I was blown away.  Check out what he does below:


Presentation Plans with LayOut

As a residential interior designer, and a kitchen & bath designer, I demand a lot from my design programs. I started using SketchUp about 5 years ago (when I returned to design school, again) as a vehicle to create better ways of communicating my design program. When I made the leap and purchased Google SketchUp Pro my complete work-flow and method of communicating my design program changed.

Creating a dynamic and informative presentation package use to involve several applications like PhotoShop, MS Word, MS Excel, and AutoCAD. Not only can the licenses be costly and time consuming to learn multiple applications, but it is a very inefficient way of working. With Google SketchUp Pro, LayOut can help you achieve the same effects as all those other applications - but in one single, lower costing option. With LayOut, you can do it all.

I recently designed a kitchen for a client that presented some unique and interesting challenges. It’s a late 70’s Architectural style home with an amazing view of the public spaces from the second floor bedrooms. The challenge was to eliminate the six traffic patterns that flow right through the working triangle and actually create something interesting that represents the style of the residence. I turned to SketchUp and LayOut (as I usually do) and literally designed this kitchen right in front of the clients. I knew that communicating my ideas to the non-visual thinker clients was going to be tough.

The presentation package
I created a unique set of construction drawings that blended the standard interpretive drawings with a presentation package. You can see that the cover page is pretty standard, as far as cover pages go, but I also included the top view as the first drawing. Not only does this save an extra page, but it help give the clients and immediate and clear idea of what is being designed for them.
My second and third pages are always perspectives, but with a twist. You can see that not only have I included an interpretive drawing, but I’ve included more detailed specifications. The drag and drop functions in LayOut allowed me to insert manufacturer product images taking the interpretive drawing from design inference to design intention. Add some leader lines, fly-outs, boxes, text and you have a complete spec package right on there on the page! Who needs cut sheets?

I always try to mix up my perspectives with different views. I’m selfish, I like to save on work and provide as much overview as possible in the least amount of pages. Whenever I have an obstacle in the way, in this case an second floor and a bulkhead, I always make it a wire-frame so objects below are clear and visible. Again, saving on time and energy is my goal because no one likes to pour endless cups of coffee until the wee hours of the morning to complete a drawing package.

Using LayOut as your complete design presentation tool includes creating inspiration boards, digital material boards, case studies, site analysis, and more. There is nothing that Google SketchUp Pro can’t do. To view the complete Construction Drawing Package, you can Corey's Construction Drawing Package to open the Picsa Album.

Corey S. Klassen, ABKD BFA is an interior designer and kitchen & bath designer located in Vancouver, B.C.

about.me/coreyklassen

Hurricane Irene Relief

I bumped today's story to ask all of my readers for a favor:

Hurricane Irene as we all know has come and gone, and in it's wake it's left quite the swath of damage.  In my home town there was tons of flooding damage.  We lost many bridges, houses were swept away, and many more homeowners find themselves with condemned homes.  Brattleboro, a town just about 15 minutes from me made national headlines for the destruction that took place there.

This is some of the footage I caught myself in my home town:

Hurricane Irene Flooding Damage from Eric Schimel on Vimeo.

The damage was immense around my area.  This videos are only a taste of what went on.  I thought things were pretty bad until I read this post from my friend Paul Anater.

He tells a story of a place called Cat Island that he visits.  These people aren't as well off as we are.  After reading this story, it makes me look around and realize how lucky we are.  Sure, my town and surrounding towns are beat up.  We've got shelters, aid, insurance, state support, and lots of friends and family to help us out.  These people on Cat Island aren't as lucky as us.  Paul is turning his vacation into a mission of aid.  He's already put $500 dollars of his own money into relief efforts, and I suggest you do to.  Any amount will help.  Perhaps skip that coffee tomorrow morning (ok, maybe the donuts and snacks) and donate.  Any amount will help.

Click here to read the full story and find the link to easily donate a few bucks.

3D Connexion Design Challenge

3D Connexion is a division of Logitech, the company that makes all kinds of peripherals for the PC.  Chances are you are using one of those right now.

If you are unfamiliar with a 3D Connexion controller, think of it as a 3D mouse.  Ok, that probably doesn't help, so check out this video.

Most CAD applications, Sketchup and otherwise have used a combination of mouse and keyboard commands to get you around in 3D space for years.  This is a bit like driving a car with a manual transmission using one arm.  You can do it, but it's not a particularly smooth ride.

With a 3D Connexion controller, you can use the famous "cap" to grab onto your model just as if it was in your hands.  It looks complicated, but it's actually very natural to use.  I find that it makes me a way more efficient modeler.  I did a review on one of their controllers a while back, you can see it here (complete with video!)

I've had the basic 3D Connexion controller for years, and I have loved it:

There are several different models of the controller, this one just has the basic 3D cap.  The bigger models are adorned with buttons that can be mapped to all kinds of shortcuts.

3D Connexion has announced a challenge:  They want anyone to design a new controller.  It can be any size and shape that you want, as long as it has the 3D cap on it.  This is your chance to come up with the latest and greatest 3D controller.  What do you get in return for your troubles?  You can win one of three of the 3D Connexion controllers, and the grand prize is a mind bendingly fast CAD workstation from BOXX.

Click this link to see all the details.

As part of the contest materials, they have provided you with a 3D model of the cap to get you started.  I was surprised to see that they didn't include a Sketchup file as one of the formats.  Naturally I am Sketchup Pro user so I was able to import one of the file formats into Sketchup.  Those that are on Sketchup Free aren't so fortunate, so I did the work for you:

So check it out, I think this is a really cool contest.  If you have any submissions, please send them my way, I'd love to feature them here on the blog!

Kitchen Tech on Design Kula

My friend Corey Klassen graciously invited me to write for his blog, Design Kula.  We brainstormed a topic together, and we decided that with my penchant for tech that I would cover some interesting kitchen technology.

I dug through the internet and found several pieces of technology.  Some good, some great, some odd, and some quite green (literally).

So I recommend that you head over to Design Kula and check it out!  (unless you are still shouting at your voice activated coffee maker)

NeoCon!

Last week I was absolutely buried in projects, and this week I will be at NeoCon in Chicago talking about Sketchup, and the iPad. I will be tweeting LIVE with the great folks at Interior Design chat. If you are on Twitter, and you haven't checked out this chat, you need to. It's a great resource if you are in the design industry.

Among my presentations, I will be showing how as a designer you can leverage an iPad to be an amazingly useful design tool. Apple has declared that we are in the "Post PC" era, meaning that tablets are the future. For now, I will leave you with a little taste of the new era with one of the first apps I discovered on my iPad:

As a recent new owner of an iPad, I have been discovering so many new apps that are useful in my daily life at work.  I am a former iPhone owner, so I am no stranger to iOS, or the App store.

I had no idea that the larger form factor of the iPhone would make such a huge difference in the "app experience"

I have been looking for a way to put Sketchup models on the iPad in 3D, so I can present them to clients without having to drag out the laptop.

There is a company called 3Dvia.  They have a 3D iPad browser that can do just that.  They also have an online 3D repository that their 200,000 members can upload 3D models from a variety of 3D design softwares.

All of these models can be browsed with just a few touches right on your iPhone or iPad, check out the video below:

So now I can take all of my 3D models with me on my iPad!  I use this to show clients current projects, and as a portfolio for my previous work.  Head on over to 3Dvia and check out their mobile apps, pretty cool stuff!

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, how much is a 3D model worth?