new drafting standard.

[Anonymous]

I kind of like to question conventions. Disclaimer. my office has 5 partners with 5 different philosophies on drafting standards so i am jaded.

I am curious if there is anyone out there that prints to color for their final documents. For example you could use color to distinguish demolition, existing and new.

I'm trying to think of disadvantages. But the biggest one is printing to color. And some people are colorblind. maybe because some people don't have the $$ or printers to produce that i floor plan sheet.
n house. But the advantages drawings with huge amounts of information would be increased legibility and the ability to portray more information in one

what do you think? would the more options color provides help or do we have enough with lineweights and fills?

[Steve Jepson]

I have been using color prints for many years. But for just two sets/project. One set for me and one for the client. I print these origials here in my office on my HP Designjet 800 in color and on realy good quality paper. The other 8 sets are cheap gray scale copies I have made for 1.50/sheet. (24X36)

[KeesW]

Colour printing is very topical for us at the moment. I recommend against it for contractual reasons. Once drawings leave our office, especially those used for tendering, we don't know how they will be conveyed to sub-contractors. A beautiful coloured set might be quite illegible when copied in black and white or grey scale. And if these are used for quoting, what mistakes might arise?

Colour is great for presentation, and for contactual drawings only if you can control how printed copies are distributed. We cannot be sure that builders have colour copiers or printers, especially for larger than A3 sized drawings.

[Anonymous]

While it may be more difficult for contractors to print coloured drawings, what is in the contract set, including colours, is the contractor's responsibility. Many choose to only look at them on computers but if they print the drawings they should be giving coloured drawings to subcontractors and others responsible for construction.

Prior to about 1978 in Australia all drawings had to be coloured (usually watercolour on ammonia prints) to comply with Council regulations so materials could be easily distinguished. Prior to ammonia prints copies were made by draughting "tracers" and then individually coloured!

In a way colouring drawings for Contract and construction sets is simply a revision of past good practise and makes the drawings more clear for less mistakes and less misinterpretation.

[Anonymous]

Releasing digital models to the Contractor and even the Owner is usually on a "User assumes all liability for use and holds the Architect harmless" type of language.

The level of detail is not the major issue. The conventions and shortcuts of Architectural representation are the issue. For example, "our" concrete columns are one story tall, but a contractor does not pour one story tall, his pour stops at the bottom of the beams. So it gets really hairy depending on the user and what they see as either buildable or just a visual "pretty".


Color: I love color prints, they are so legible, but until they are bullet proof - black is beautiful. Yellow?, In our Southern Sun a yellow line has a half life of about two weeks, then its' sayonara baby.

Snap