SMARTDRAW IN INTERIOR DESIGN:

Interior Designer Wows Clients with Polished, Professional Drawings with SmartDraw

Five years ago, Canadian interior designer Liz Rand started her own business. She needed a way to create client drawings from concept sketches to detailed working drawings. "Up until that point, I'd been doing all my drawings by hand, but it was getting harder by the week," said Liz. "I needed something more efficient."

Liz had experience using a product called VersaCad, but was turned off by its high price and steep learning curve. "I can't afford the time and cost of buying and continually upgrading a program like that. Besides, it would be overkill."

Liz found SmartDraw on the Internet, and decided to give it a try. "I was hooked in about one minute flat," she said.

Now, Liz works as a partner with Lambert + Rand Design Group. She has brought SmartDraw along with her, so she's now responsible for all client sketches and drawings.

"I use SmartDraw to create all nature of architectural drawings from floor plans to elevations to sections and details," she said. "It helps me create accurate and professional drawings fast, and it reflects well on my company and my expertise."

SmartDraw helps interior designers like Liz automate the process of creating floor plans, layouts, elevation views, and more. It contains hundreds of templates for design work, and includes symbols for everything from furniture and fixtures to tile, flooring, and various textures such as marble, granite, and wood. In addition, the program allows users to create and save their own custom symbols.

"I love that there are so many symbols," said Liz. "And if the standard symbol isn't exactly what I need, I can easily create my own. I've done so for appliances, audio/visual equipment, and so on."

Liz is very impressed with how well SmartDraw handles big jobs.

"I have a major commercial client and my drawing package for them is huge," said Liz. "It has everything from interior partition plans to electrical, switching, audio and visual, kitchen design, furniture, as well as interior and exterior lighting. There are also detailed elevations and section drawings showing how I want things built. As there's a lot of custom design work on this job, it's critical to create detailed drawings with precise dimensions."

In addition, SmartDraw is so flexible, it allows Liz to make changes on the fly without re-creating her drawings. For example, she was recently told that a building she was designing is six feet longer than it actually was. That meant she had to very quickly correct all of her drawings so that the electrical, walls and lighting would be correctly installed.

"If I had to do this by hand, it would have taken me literally days," explained Liz. "But with SmartDraw, I was able to update everything in a matter of hours!"

Liz claims she couldn't run her business without SmartDraw.

"I can't imagine what I'd do if I didn't have SmartDraw," said Liz. "It fits the bill exactly for what I do. It's easy to use, easy to learn, and there are routine upgrades that make it even better. For a small business person like me, it's a big time and money-saver!"

To download a free trial of SmartDraw, visit www.smartdraw.com.