Theatrical design demands the creative freedom of traditional media as well as the logistical strengths of computer drafting and rendering. The question is no longer, “Do you design by hand or on the computer?” The question is, how best to combine these tools to serve the needs of the production and your productivity as a designer.
At the national convention of USITT in 2023, I presented on a panel of three design professionals on this topic. We revealed powerful techniques and workflows, discovered though research and practice, to empower designers to enlist both traditional and digital media in their practice.
My contributions included techniques for converting hand drawings into vector graphics for use in drafting and modeling. I also discussed and demonstrated methods for bringing hand drawings or PDFs of venues into AutoCAD, in some cases, with nothing more than a few mouse clicks.
