1. Plain background colours work best! I use mostly white, grey and on a VERY special occasion black.

The content is the focus not the pretty background that you have spent hours perfecting. If you are going to use a background take one of your perspectives and change the opacity so that it doesnt detract from the design. A grey background with a washed white perspective is still an effective background if done well. In photoshop I would never use more than 50% opacity for a background image. 2. Use ONE FONT! and if you canmax 3 sizes of font. The largest of the fonts should be for the title, the second largest (maximum size 12 font) should be for the text in your paragraphs, and the third should be for referencing key elements of your design images. 3. Structure the content of your boards from most important to least! This is my list of what I believe is most important to least (note: this will occasionally change but this is a pretty standard way of organising my boards):

Floor Plan + Site Plan Elevations Sections Perspectives Axonometric Views (and occasionally isometric views) 4. Include concept and development sketches. Even if they arent perfect scaled drawings but just a side panel of quick vignettes (a vignette is a small sketch) that show how your idea developed from a blob to the wonderous creation it is now. 5. Learn how to draw depth, shadow and render by hand. Use line weights to give life to your drawings. If you know how to use a modelling program that does that for you then use it! If not then learn how to colour your drawings and use rendering techniques to add perpsective and depth. Your drawings should allow the viewer to imagine what it would be like built so keep that in mind when producing your final plans. . Good drawing skills dont come naturally to most people, so dont worry if you think your drawings are terrible (they probably arent) practice makes perfect. There are a lot of good books on hand rendering techniques I have a really good one called Hand-Drafting for Interior Design by Diana Bennet Wirtz. 6. Text should be in short key sentences. Your board is your way of showing your design VISUALLY. If you need to explain your design do it in your oral presentation (crit). Nobody wants to read an essay on your design, and nobody will read it if you put it there. An overload of text is just a waste of space!

7. Make the title stand out! And think about the title of your project carefully, as that one to three word title will help the viewer understand your design! The title is IMPORTANT really do think about what you want your viewer to remember as a catchy imaginative title that relates to your concept is a good way of capturing interest. 8. Dont forget to put your name and student number on every one of your boards. If they get lost well without a name there is no owner. Also sometimes there are representatives from firms that come to the school to look at students work to find prospective employees. Simpleif you want to possibly be snagged by a prospective employer then put your NAME on your board! 9. Satisfy all the requirements set by your lecturers. Look at the Assignment Sheet AND make sure you meet the key criteria that it will be assessed against. 10. Use a programme like Adobe photoshop to layout your boards! Scan your hand-drawings in, or import your jpegs from REVIT, Autocad or ArchiCAD into the programme and use it to colour, shadow and add depth to your images. It is a lot faster than rendering in 3D Modelling programs or than colouring by hand. If you dont yet know how to use photoshop, I would suggest that you learn, as it is the one program that you really CANT LIVE WITHOUT during the years ahead. 11. Do your boards on 1 sheet, not on seperate pieces of paper that you stick on foam core at the end. It needs to be a simple clean presentation, and if you go crazy with cutting and gluing all of your different elements you will end up with a collage, and not a professional presentation board. 12. Do not clutter your boards with rubbish (non-related stuff). Provide some empty space to free your boards. You will not get better marks by showing more information it is the quality not quantity that counts here! 13. Keep your boards tidy! Never use liquid glue to mount your printed sheets to foam core. This will only end in disaster and soggy sheets that bleed ink everywhere. Instead buy yourself some Spray Adhesive. It will save you time, and you wont have to reprint your sheets because the ink has bled, your paper is torn and crinkled or is falling off because the glue isnt strong enough. It costs less than $10, and one spray is more than enough to stick your sheets down for good! 14. DO NOT leave your boards to the last minute! Plan them out at least a couple of days before hand so that you at least know where you are going to place things! If you rush it, then it will look rushed!

15. Go a bit wild and get your creativity hat on! You have put your heart and soul into your design, so you need to show the same respect to your presentation of it. Show the creativity of your design on your boards use colours reflective of your design, use a washed out (opaque) perspective as the background, if there is a key element of the design that is integral maybe try and reflect that on your boards more than once. BE CREATIVE!