Google Apps with Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson FAIA from Masco Cabinetry did some great presentations on many different topics at this year's KBIS show and AIA show.  He has a very unique way of presenting.  Rather then getting up there and spewing facts out, or shouting and waving his arms about (like me) its more like a fireside chat with Mark.  Mark can take even dry subjects and make you feel all warm and fuzzy about them!

One presentation he did that I really enjoyed was called "Google Apps for Designers".  Mark went on to talk about all of the free Google applications that are available, and how to use them as designers to promote your business. I am sure we've all heard about GMail, Google Search (who hasn't these days, its a VERB now!), but there are several others that can be used for research and marketing your services.

I'd like to consider myself rather geeky, and I am definitely a heavy user of Google (who isn't?)  But I have never really paid Google Trends any attention until I saw Mark's presentation.

Google Trends is an application that allows you to see how popular a particular search topic is.  All you have to do is enter that topic into Google Trends and you can see how many times its been searched over a certain period of time.

Here we can see the comparison of Sketchup, AutoCAD and 20-20 Design.  You can see a nice spike in Sketchup when it was acquired by Google.  Its interesting to see that they all dip at about the same time...

This search for the word "Cabinetry" yields some interesting results.  Note how in the beginning of each year, it spikes, and then as the year progresses, it falls off...  Also note that year after year its trending down...  I'll bet this graph overlaid onto a graph of home sales would be rather interesting to see.  Google Trends can be a very interesting tool to see, well, trends.  Perhaps you want to see how many people are searching for a wood species, or a door style.  Think of Google Trends like that gossipy person in high school that seemed to always know what was going on.  The difference here though, is that Google Trends doesn't exaggerate, and its not biased!

Another topic that Mark talked about was social media.  This is a really hot thing going on in our world today, and I think he was right on with this point.  You can't go anywhere today without seeing "Find us on Facebook" or "Follow us on Twitter"  Just about every major company and brand has a presence in social media.  The great thing about this new wave of social media is that it's very accessible to anyone.  Whether you are a fortune 100 company, or just yourself, you can tweet, blog, and Facebook just like the big guys.

You may or may not know that KraftMaid and Merillat have recently launched a lot of their cabinetry in Google's 3D warehouse.  With inexpensive and free versions of Google Sketchup and these free models, you can draw KraftMaid and Merillat kitchens.  Mark shared how you can use Google Earth, Google Maps and 3D Warehouse in combination with kitchen models to promote your showroom location, how to get there, what it looks like in 3D...no special glasses required!   

There is a new social media aspect of the 3D Warehouse that Mark showed us.  You can now share your models on the warehouse, and then link them to just about any social network that is out there.  This is great if you have a LinkedIn account, Facebook, Twitter, or any other network.  Masco even has a section of the 3D warehouse dedicated to designs by fans.  

The above is an example of how you can share a model even in a blog!

Mark also showed how KraftMaid is leveraging technology to make it easy for designers to promote themselves and their designs with portable devices like the iPod, iPhone, or Apple iPad.  Imagine being able to pull your phone out of your pocket and show off that latest design to your customer!

Lastly, Mark rounded out these presentations by showing how easy it is to use all of these services.  You don't need to be a geek to figure all of this stuff out.  If you can use email, you have the skill set to get out there and market yourself on the Internet!

Designing with Corian in Sketchup

Have you ever had that friend that broke up with their significant other, and started another relationship weeks, or even days after it ended?  That can be a tough transision, one that rarely ever works.  Usually the reasons for starting the new relationship aren't thought through, and it almost always end up not working out in the end...

When I teach people Sketchup, I tell them that they don't have to give up their current solution, no matter how bad it is!  Throwing away your current solution and jumping into another without learning it first can be a disaster, no matter how great the new system is.  A smooth transition is the way to go.

A great way to get started in Sketchup, without switching overnight is to draw small parts of your project in it.  I started in Sketchup using it for countertop quotes.  Countertop quotes are really easy to draw, and easy to understand.  Even if you start a Sketchup countertop and give up, one can draw a countertop quote in pencil in a matter of minutes.  The risk is very low to try it out, and the reward is some great Sketchup training.

A typical countertop quote for me looks like this:

With the introduction of the Corian Private collection, I had a customer that didn't understand the grain direction in Corian, and what that would look like.  If you aren't familiar with the Corian Private collection, take a look at this picture:

The "grain" on the Corian Private collection series typically runs in one direction.  This poses a problem when you get to joints, as that grain will have to change direction.  In this case, it's mitered.

In a typical "U" shaped kitchen, you could have two joints.  What do you do, do you mitre?  Do you do butt joints?  More to the point, even if you understand what this will look like, will your customer?

Enter my solution.  The picture below is a Sketchup model.  It was drawn to accurate dimensions, and the texture is an actual picture of a Corian Saffron slab.  I was able to draw the countertop, draw in the seams, place and rotate the textures, all in minutes.

To do this, first start by drawing your countertop in Sketchup.  You can draw in a backsplash, and you should also draw lines separating the deck where you would like the seam.  This separates the faces of your countertop so that you can put a texture on each face, and rotate it to you liking.  My drawing started out looking like this:

Notice I plan on doing two butt joints.  So I drew lines across the deck where those seams are going to be.  The next step is to apply your textures.  You can create Corian Private Collection texture like I did, or you can download this model at the end of the post and experiment with the texture that is already in the model.  Place the texture on the first leg of your countertop, like this:

Now, I want this "grain" to be running the long way.  Its really easy to do, just right click on the face with the texture, and select "Texture" and then select "Position"

Now, this will put the texture into a mode that will allow you to scale it, twist it, and distort it.  You can do this by grabbing and pulling the pins that are around the texture.  YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!  Using those pins is a great method for distorting textures, and getting them to fit on faces, but in this case, we want to maintain the scale of the texture.  I went to a lot of trouble photographing that texture so that it would be the right scale in the drawing, there is no need to ruin all that hard work!

So, if you right click again, and select "Rotate" and then "90" the texture will be rotated 90 degrees.  The scale won't be affected at all, and you didn't have to drag any of those pins around.  If you see the edge of a texture, you can just click and drag the texture around to place it where you want it on the face.  These textures are drawn the exact size of Corian slabs, so this can help you determine if you need another seam if you have a really long counter. (Always check with your favorite fabricator too!)

Right click again, and select "Done".  Now your "grain" should be running in this direction:

 Now, repeat this process for the other two faces.  Rotate as needed.

 Now, lastly you have those black lines across your seams, which I don't like personally.  Its really easy to get rid of them.  You can either right click on each line and select "Hide" or, you can use the Erase tool while holding shift.  When using the Erase tool WHILE holding shift, any lines that you go over this way will be hidden.  If you use the erase tool without holding shift, you will actually remove the line and the two adjacent faces will be connected, and your textures won't be rotated the right way.

So, while this may seem time consuming, its really not.  I can now create a drawing just like this in about 15 minutes or less.  Its a great way to show how Corian, and granite seams are going to look, and makes a really professional document for both your customer, and your fabricators. The dimensioned schematic that you see here was created in LayOut, which I will cover in a future post.

Search for "Corian Saffron" countertop in Sketchup's 3D warehouse, or download the model with the link below.

These instructions are a brief overview of how this process is done.  If you have any specific questions, please feel free to post in the comments below, or contact us directly.

AIA Show

SketchThis attended this years AIA show as a guest presenter with Kraftmaid and Igloo Studios in their tech booth.  Things went quite well overall, the folks at Krafmaid, myself, and the Google team all had a great time.

There were a few snafus though, I didn't get the tan I was hoping for, and I experienced a lot of this.

Thanks to Apple's business model of making things obsolete so quickly, what was otherwise a great little MacBook is now waiting to be replaced by its all aluminum counterpart.  According to Apple, this thing is going to be fast, like 1.21 gigawatts fast!

I digress though, this post is supposed to be about the show, not about the "uber" nerdy computer that is in the mail for me.

So, from what I understand, you don't see too much in the way of kitchen and bath related products at these AIA show's, its usually doors, windows, and structural stuff.  For the most part, this stuff is rather uninteresting to us kitchen designers.

They tend to keep these show's categorized by product type, and we were in the technology area.  Let me translate that for you laymens:  We were in the nerd area, the geek zone, or techie lounge.  Remember when geeks weren't cool?  Well, we weren't until Google made it cool to be a nerd.  And guess what, they were right next to us! Next to being a Googler, we were the coolest people there.

Kraftmaid is making a big push in to the tech area, and I think its wonderfully useful, and geeky cool.  Where other cabinet companies are content with one piece of design software, and paper catalogs, Kraftmaid and Merrillat are going far beyond that.

At the show, Mark Johnson did presentations on how you can experience Kraftmaid with more then just a paper catalog, and showroom display.  He demonstrated how you can have an interactive portfolio, and brochure available right on your iPod, iPhone, and iPad.  He even had an iPad at the show to show how it all worked!


Mike Tadros did several presentations on Sketchup.  He talked a lot about the 3D warehouse, and the Sketchup models that are available on it for kitchen designers, and architects.  Mike strayed away from his rehearsed presentations a few times, and it was quite brilliant actually.  He did several mini "Q&A" sessions.  These we're nothing short of brilliant.  Architects gathered around and threw questions out as fast as I apparently go through MacBooks.  And as cool as the Fonz, Mike answered them all wonderfully.  One the last day, a lady came up asking if she could see her kitchen in Sketchup.  Without even skipping a beat, Mike asked her for her address, and zoomed in on her house in Google Earth.  He took a snapshot of the roof of her house, and imported it into Sketchup.  Within minutes, he used Sketchup to draw the outside walls of her house.  Once that was done, she was able to describe where her kitchen was in the house, and Mike put up the interior walls.  Minutes later, he was downloading Kraftmaid and Merillat cabinets and placing them into her house.  After about twenty minutes, with her making requests, and Mike operating the computer, she had a new kitchen, all designed in Sketchup.  This, I think was the most compelling presentation of the week.

Alex Oliver did several great presentations on how the 3D warehouse can be leveraged to really make the design process in Sketchup much easier, and quicker.  He also did something that I had only heard about, he created 3D pdf's!  That's right, 3D PDF's!  You can use Sketchup, and Adobe Acrobat to make a PDF of your Sketchup model, and show it in 3D.  Just about every computer everywhere as PDF viewing capabilities.  Think about that for a minute!

David Pillsbury did presentations on how you can use Sketchup to draw houses.  Many architects stopped by to see what they could do with Sketchup.  Its simply amazing to see how easily you can draw a house, and how compelling it is to take someone through a 3D tour through it.  A very interesting part of David's presentations involved the use of AutoCAD as well.  I for one have left AutoCAD in the dust with Sketchup, although I still think its a wonderful program.  David really showed off how well Sketchup and AutoCAD can play well together.  From talking with a lot of architects and designers, it seems that a lot of them use Sketchup for many tasks, and then AutoCAD for others.  Its really nice to see that they work so well with each other.

After I was able to pull myself away from all the other geeky and nerdy stuff that I was surrounded with, presented the Arcitect to designer workflow.  In the past few years, I have seen many jobs that were designed by arcitects, and then passed along to us kitchen designers.  Usually there is a big disconnect between the arcitects vision, and the kitchen designers.  Its not a difference of opinion, its just that there is no standard form of communication.  I have found that when customers come in and want a kitchen design, we are often redrawing things that an architect has already done, and it makes for a realy cumbersome design process.

Enter Sketchup, most Architects are already using it to create 3D models of the houses they design to show their clients.  What I did to show how this workflow can be much better, is take one of these houses, and fill the kitchen space with Kraftmaid cabinetry.

Why is this so awesome?  Well, first of all, the same great 3D model that was presented to the customer by the architect gets to be used to draw the kitchen.  This is great for the customer because they can see how the kitchen relates to their whole house.

Next, if the architect wants to be involved in the design, I can take their Sketchup model, re work it, and send it right back to them, often very early on in their design process.  This way more decisions can be made.  This means cabinets come in faster, and making the whole project move along much smoother.

I did several live examples of this at the show, and I think it opened a lot of eyes.  Architects are no stranger to Sketchup, they just didn't realize that us kitchen designers use it too!

Over the next week or so, I am going to put up some posts with details of each person's presentations.  I will include the models, pictures, and a nice narrative so if you missed them, you can relive all the magic right here.

AIA Show

So this year SketchThis.NET is heading to Miami Florida to present Sketchup at the American Institute of Architects convention.  We are teaming up with Igloo Studio's, Kraftmaid, and the Google Sketchup team to put on a great show!

KBIS is going to have nothing on this show!

So what are we going to do when we are down there?  My first thought was to find some place that looks like this:

But then I thought, how good would a pale Massachusetts native look after a few hours of basking in that sun?  Bright red, that's how i'd look!  So rather then work on my tan here,  I have decided that for one of my presentations I will be taking an existing model that I found on the 3D warehouse, and filling it with cabinets, countertops, and whatever else I can get my hands on in the 3D warehouse.  Why would I do this you ask?  Because I am doing a presentation on how arcitects and kitchen deisgners can use Google Sketchup Pro to collaborate on models.  This will save us both time, money, and most of all, will make the client even happier!

The house I have chosen is below.  Any thoughts on what I should do?

If you want to see inside this house, click on the 3D view and you can download it and see it right in Sketchup!

Brizo Faucets vs Miami Vice

Out with the old, and in with the new!

I am sure most kitchen designers out there have seen this in their designs, using their "favorite" design program:

There's an old TV show that comes to mind whenever I see this...

Well, with the help of Brizo Faucets, Igloo Studios, and Sketchup, you can now have cool faucets like this:

How much better does that look?  Even if you don't like that faucet, the beauty is in the utility, as that faucet ACTUALLY EXISTS!  Yes, its a Brizo Faucet that can be found right inside Sketchup from their 3D warehouse collection.  So whether or not you think its good looking or not, your client might love it!

Now, about that utility part....  This faucet does more then just put on a good show, it actually helps you out with your work...  Do remember what I have been saying in the past that Sketchup is becoming your one stop place for design information?  Well check out what you can get if you "right click" on this faucet and select "Dynamic Components" and then "Options":

Now this has got some important technical information in it, kinda boring, but necessary at times.  The really useful and cool part is the "Product page" link in there, that brings you to this page:

Thats right, without ever leaving Sketchup you can search for, and insert Delta and Brizo faucets right into your model!  Imagine doing a design with a client, and you are deciding on faucets, would you rather flip through a spec book, or show them their faucet, in their kitchen, live in 3D?!  The best part too is that with the website links, all the options, and prices are right there!

Sketchup can help sell kitchens, and now it can help sell faucets!  Miami Vice was good, but who really watches that show anymore?

Try these models out, open Sketchup's component browser, and search for "Brizo"