New firm, in need of advice

[garyg1]

Hello all,

I am a residential designer who branched out on my own less than a year ago. The business is busy, so much so we had to shut our doors to new work only a month in, and have been slammed ever since, and are measuring a new project on Thursday. The problem is our business model is unsustainable, while my family's need for food will sustain itself quite well.

I need to get advice about our rendering process, because right now we are in a place we will never be again, but will always wish we could go back to. After we make these decisions, enormous amounts of training will begin, along with expensive software and hardware purchases. After that point, the equation changes and whatever system we are using is overvalued simply because of the equity it contains.

We do a variety of things, but our visualization services are our cornerstone, and simply must be vastly improved. Our issue comes in the tedious and far too slow process for creating and changing 3D furniture and casework objects, and the fact that a respectable library of 3d plants is not available. Garish cartoon simulacrums are the best I've seen. Add this to the fact that our renders should be higher resolution, and we have a problem.

 

We will post a specific question in the proper forum.

 

Thank you

[John Dollus]

I'll bite. So, what it seems to me you are saying is that you have a successful construction services company focused primarily on the US single family detached residential market and you feel renderings are both your cornerstone and weakest area?

[thaodang1]

We do a variety of things, but our visualization services are our cornerstone

[dontorino]

Hello all,

I am a residential designer who branched out on my own less than a year ago. The business is busy, so much so we had to shut our doors to new work only a month in, and have been slammed ever since, and are measuring a new project on Thursday. The problem is our business model is unsustainable, while my family's need for food will sustain itself quite well.

I need to get advice about our rendering process, because right now we are in a place we will never be again, but will always wish we could go back to. After we make these decisions, enormous amounts of training will begin, along with expensive software and hardware purchases. After that point, the equation changes and whatever system we are using is overvalued simply because of the equity it contains.

We do a variety of things, but our visualization services are our cornerstone, and simply must be vastly improved. Our issue comes in the tedious and far too slow process for creating and changing 3D furniture and casework objects, and the fact that a respectable library of 3d plants is not available. Garish cartoon simulacrums are the best I've seen. Add this to the fact that our renders should be higher resolution, and we have a problem.

 

We will post a specific question in the proper forum.

 

Thank you

 

what!?

[Nic H]

Visualisation services are the cornerstone of what I do as well.

[Francisco Penaloza]

To me it sounds like too much coffee

[Nic H]

Prefer Club Mate in the afternoons

[Corey Beaulieu]

If you have found that your business is so booming that you need to turn away work and yet feel like you need more time to accomplish the work you take on, then let that factor be your balancing factor...

 

Don't turn away work, rather extend timelines to what your desired quality needs and some clients will pass while others will bite. Over time you will build a body of work that clients can't resist waiting for (as well as relationships) and you will gain the experience needed to create the work faster.

 

Once you build up a library you are happy with and gain a better speed to quality ratio you can adjust the timelines you quote and take on more work to grow your business. I think your solution is that simple.

 

Also, if you can't find better libraries for plantings, you might not be looking hard enough. There are many libraries out there that have a fine quality. Many/all studios use these and create custom objects on rare occasions. Much of the best work you see was not custom built objects rather purchased.

 

Renders/Illustrations are about the story or marketing pitch within the image and perfect realism, while highly effective, falls by the wayside to an image that sells the story behind the architecture.

 

It sounds to me like you just need to build more experience.

Edited January 5, 2017 by CoreyMBeaulieu
Grammar and missing words