hi everyone welcome back to our channel the number one place for designers artists and creators
i'm jacqueline and i'm an interior architect and designer here at D & B in today's video i'm going
to be diving into design software and specifically the best software for architects and interior
designers in 2020 okay so that being said let's jump in maybe you're an architect or designer who
wants to expand their skills or maybe you're even a student and you're not quite sure what design
software you need to be learning but don't worry because i'm going to be covering all the software
that you need to know in 2020 although in industry we still use traditional methods like drawing and
creating physical models which let's face it still have the same great effect on clients
design software has become the new normal within the industry which is why you need
to know and honestly keep up with the new software that's constantly coming out it's
important to know that there's not one magical software that's going to let you do your whole
project from start to finish they're more likely divided into different types of groups
so we start off with the schematics or concept stage which moves on to develop design
and visualization or rendering packages and then your fine tuning and editing programs
normally you'll find that the first stage and second stage have the same software types so what
types of software are there then when coming up with a concept i typically use adobe photoshop to
compile my initial ideas thoughts and concepts for example i would scan in a hand-drawn site analysis
or you could completely draw one from scratch but i would suggest if you're drawing shapes
and patterns from scratch adobe illustrates is the program you want to be using but photoshop's
great for editing and adjusting certain hand drawings and writing annotations stuff like that
photoshop is a program that's used to edit any kind of graphics especially in the digital art
world and this is actually the first software i learned when i was becoming an interior designer
if you're in the design world already then you'll know the importance of photoshop i don't have to
explain that to you but if you're not familiar and you're just coming into the design world
this is a program that's universal and everyone knows how to use and i'm going to go into
photoshop in a bit more detail later on so stay tuned for that however if you wanted to enhance
your site analysis diagrams from this to this you wouldn't be able to do that within photoshop
fully i created this site analysis diagram using the bim software vectorworks if you're unfamiliar
with what bim is um i've actually made a video on this so feel free to check it out and then come
back to this video vectorworks is a software that i swear by it's essentially a program that allows
you to flip from 2d to 3d really really easily and it allows you to complete lots of things on your
design project from cad drawings to 3d modeling and even visualizations which is a really good
aspect vectorworks is a good package if you want an all-rounded software to use on every aspect of
a project revit i'm sure you've all heard of it it's really well known and a lot of people in the
design world use revit and it's essentially the same as vectorworks it's a bim software but as far
as i'm concerned more people use revit especially if you're based in america it's reliable it's well
liked and it's universal lots of people know how to use it sketchup this is a program that i
actually learned when i was at school when i was about 14 i think doing gcses in my design class
and it really taught me the fundamentals of 3d design it's not the most perfect program but it's
free and it's like its counterparts in the sense that it is a bim software it can do 2d and 3d
but you can't really compare it to things like revit and vector works it's not as sophisticated
but the reason why it's on my list is because it's free so it's a great way to learn 3d modeling
but it has changed a lot since i first used it um it used to be completely free and it still is but
if you want to download it to your desktop and use it all the time i think it's about 300 um if you
don't download it it's free but you have to use on a cloud so you can't download it to your desktop
but for the most part it's free and it does allow you to build up those 3d modeling skills before
you actually purchase a more expensive software it also allows you access to the warehouse which is
a catalog of 3d models and objects that you can download and place into your own model
i even use the warehouse to download models into my vectorworks document
because i use it for stranger things such as food or really intricate detailed items
because let's face it we don't want to be spending a whole week designing a chair
so there's really good options there that i use because sketchup is universally known it's
accumulated a huge selection of 3d models on the warehouse so check that out i know many
designers that use sketchup because obviously it's free but you can also transfer your models into
visualization programs and achieve really good hyper realistic renders
what do you guys think of this one okay so now i'm going to talk about visualization programs
or rendering programs this is such a huge category and when i started rendering and started to learn
about what rendering is and what programs there are it was a minefield and the reason
why there's so many is because they're used in so many industries for example the game industry
animation illustration even motion graphics web design and of course archer section design but
of course i want you to show you the best ones for architects and interior designers
3ds max is a fan favorite and is created by autodesk the creators of revit maya and autocad
and it's loved by gamers and animators too but it's particularly good for interior design which
is similar to cinema 4d which is a program created by maxon this is the software that i
first learned to render on and it's extremely good for realistic renders and even motion work if you
want to do things like that however personally i found it quite complicated and it's definitely
something you couldn't learn within a week the visualization program that i use now
is twin motion which is actually made by the same makers of unreal engine which is one of
the top game design softwares and the reason why it's on here is because it really intrigued me
it was it's specifically designed for interior design and architecture and that is
very clear to see on the program for example it has a huge selection of materials that you can
easily be dragged and dropped onto your model not like other rendering programs where you can spend
about 10 minutes just creating a material from scratch and i really appreciate that because it
lowers the amount of time i spend on the rendering program and the bespoke nature of the program
makes it easy to navigate and use one other thing that's just amazing to me is the rendering times
in my experience if you do one still image render on cinema 4d it can take anywhere from one hour to
a whole day but what i found in twin motion with the same one image is i can take anywhere from 10
seconds to 10 minutes so honestly if you have worked on a rendering software before then you
know how quick that actually is and that's on my thinkpad p51 laptop by the way just to give you an
idea hey anything that makes my life easier it's also worth mentioning that it's really good for
doing animated walkthroughs through a space and even vr stuff so that's something to point out
now i want to talk about software to edit and you know fine-tune your projects to make them
perfection i see things like this nowadays in architecture which is you know these funky
collages and digital illustration looking uh sections and elevations which to be honest i
don't really care for but if you want to know how the software you need here is photoshop
photoshop will allow you to enhance and completely be creative with your designs and change them
in any way you'd like when i was a student i usually used it for adding annotations and say
creating axonometric diagrams so i'd get one layer and then pile them up but these days i
just use it for editing my own hand drawings and creating quick concept diagrams another software
that you need to know is adobe indesign if you're thinking how on earth are you going to format all
your design pieces into one document this is the program for you this is a software for publishing
and formatting indesign is kind of like a more sophisticated version of microsoft publisher if
you remember that and most likely if you work in magazine publishing book editing stuff like
that this is a software that they'll use as well and you'll most probably need this to
set out your designs in some sort of order add any writing layering stuff like that it's perfect for
that and you can even make magazines and books from it and i just want to mention a few apps
so the app that i see constantly these days is procreate which is especially popular on ipads
it's an app that allows you to sketch paint letter and create and i find that it's especially popular
within the illustration and lettering community but recently i found that architects and designers
are leaning more towards creating sketches digitally these are some fantastic designs
created by narendra sagu a senior partner and art director at fostering partners
he believes that his team of artists are creating pioneering presentations which have helped the
team to actually win projects and i mean you can clearly see why i mean i've tried these apps and
personally i like to stick with marker pens and bleed proof paper but try it at least because i
know many people who like to sketch digitally these days i'm sure you've seen many many
apps for architects and designers but here are some to name a few bimx morpholio autodesk format
concepts and many many others it's really endless isn't it on the app store i've tried many of these
and i think it's like a phase you go through you just want to see if any of these apps are
good because you'll see like a wow image and you just think oh my gosh i should do that on that app
but it's different from when you actually try it yourself and i found that it's easier to do
things like that on a desktop especially any 3d modelling but that's what i find anyway
but the great thing about these apps is that the majority of them are free all you need to
do is make an account and that's why i'd urge you to play around with them because you might
really really like them these are the best design software packages for architects and designers in
2020 although there are so many out there and new ones are being released every single day
who knows what design software will be like in the next five years on this channel we talk
about interior design architecture illustration art and graphics so if any of that interests you
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okay that's it for today guys i'll see you in the next video
bye