Start Designing

Start designing Presentation Board for our Workbase. It started with a simple idea from other sources (mostly from Pinterest). It may seem simple, but for me, this is one of the hardest parts of becoming an Archi Student. It must be interesting and at the same time, people must understand your intention through your board. For me, presentation board is like a first impression of everything. It plays an important role and influences the readers/audience.

I am not “that good” but I want to share some tips about designing presentation boards. Before you delve into your own presentation board, do some research. Look online for examples and make a note of the elements you like. Combine that inspiration with your creativity to produce a stunning presentation. 

Top 5 Important Tips for Architecture Presentation Boards

1 – Representing Architecture

Your presentation board must use graphics and text to represent your design idea and clearly communicate the details and essential aspects of the scheme. It is important to be efficient with the production of drawings, and only use what is necessary to convey your idea. Quality is better than quantity as quantity can lead to confusion. View your project as if for the first time, and consider how easy or difficult it is to understand the concept, the main elements and essential aspects of the scheme.

2 – Structure

Before you start creating your presentation boards, take a moment to organize your work. What are you trying to convey? What drawings/images do you have to show as part of your criteria? What are the key elements in your design that you would like to portray?

Collect together the information – even list out all the images to be included and what text you would like to put it, then you can start planning the structure of your boards. This will really help you visualize what information will be on your boards and how you are going to communicate your design.

3 – Orientation, Setting and Size

Are you restricted to the orientation of your presentation boards? Make sure you know whether your boards are supposed to be presented in landscape or portrait orientation.

How will the boards be viewed, will they be displayed in a sequence so they follow on from one another, or if you are not sure this is something you need to consider.

What size are your presentation boards going to be? Make sure you know if you are limited by the size of the boards.

4 – Colour

The standard architectural style – particularly for students appears to be black white and grey! Grey grey grey! I understand why people sway that way, but sometimes its good to break out and use a bit of colour. I remember going to a student show not so long ago and overall it was just so bland. Every single board looked the same, a collage of grey! I agree there is a place for simplicity, and grey can give a professional atmospheric board, but try to inject some colour. How is colour reflected in the design? If the architecture presentation board is predominantly in black and white or grey, does this make the design feel cold? Consider how colour will have an impact of the overall feel of the scheme.

7 – Information – Title, Story, Content and Text

Do you need to have a title bar? If so, consider a consistent title bar throughout your boards, giving a sense of professionalism, and orderliness. Don’t forget to include your details – name, the title of project etc and whatever else is applicable.

It’s tempting to get carried away with multiple fonts but please, don’t! Stick to one font, maximum of two. Use font sizes to create a hierarchy on the board – e.g. large font for your titles, a bit smaller for subtitles and standard size for the remainder of your content. Make sure your chosen font and size is readable! Keep your sentences short and punchy. No one is going to want to read an essay on your presentation board. A picture paints a thousand words! Consider how to align your text within its text box. What is easier to read? Think about text spacing, and hyphenation and how it appears on your architecture presentation board.

Reference: E. (2020, July 30). Top 10 Most Important Architecture Presentation Board Tips. First In Architecture. https://www.firstinarchitecture.co.uk/architecture-presentation-board-tips/

That’s it !! Another tip is START DESIGNING. Just try everything and explore your creativity. Until next time, Bye bye !!