I am not especially fond of detail work. I am definitely a big picture sort of person. I love working with concepts and site planning, space association. I love layering seasons, space, circulation and plant palettes. I find planting plans and construction documents tedious. It requires the same level of commitment in order to stay true to the overall concept, but my brain tends to get overwhelmed. I think it is my lack of experience with it that is my problem. Because, the more I have worked at it this summer, the easier it has become. I am getting better at it.
I have in front of me 4 residential designs of various scale and level of detail required. I find myself over working and over producing the details. Site analysis is important but how much does the resident need to know? What does the customer want to see? What do they need? I found my self talking to a customer during a site visit and realized about halfway through the sentence that they probably didn't have a clue what I was talking about and really didn't care. They wanted a beautiful working solution. I want a beautiful working solution that is meaningful. I insist on raising the bar.
I just finished one clients work today, only to find the sketchup and photoshop rendered materials print horribly. I knew that, I had just not adjusted for it. I had forgot. I will reprint tomorrow. I have added a PowerPoint presentation of my sketchup models for one client and I'm considering adding it to the others. They present so much better when back lit by the monitor. Hard copies are so flat and lacking of life--dead.
It is a jumble tonight, as you can see by my misfiring dendrites in the previous writing. Hopefully I will be able to bring the beast of over-achieving under control tomorrow and make some serious inroads into the pile of work before me.
jlw
