Constructive Conversations

Episode 7: What is a Designer?

• Victorian Finance • Season 1 • Episode 7

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We break down what designers, draftsmen, architects, and interior designers actually do, why the differences matter, and how to pick the right pro at the right time. We show how 3D design, clear selections, and code requirements affect cost, speed, and stress from concept to keys.

• What a residential designer delivers in 3D and blueprints
• Where a draftsman’s 2D plans shine for builders
• When an architect’s stamp, liability and MEP coordination are needed
• Counties, HOAs and code layers that trigger architectural review
• How interior designers create clear selections and pricing
• Best timing to bring interiors into the process
• Budget vs vision clients and how that changes the team
• Reducing change orders with live iteration and look books
• Practical cues for choosing the right role for your project
• The core job of a designer: translate dreams into buildable instructions


SPEAKER_01:

Conversations, the podcast where we break down the ins and outs of new construction. I'm Zach Daniel with Victorian Finance.

SPEAKER_00:

And I'm Luke Barksdale with Viz3D Space. Today we're tackling a question that comes up pretty often. What is a designer? How does he compare to a draftsman, an architect? You know, how do they compare to interior designers? And if you're building a new home and planning, you know, you've probably heard a lot of these titles, but who do you call first? You know, what are they going to do for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Luke is a designer himself, and today I'm going to put him on the hot seat. We're going to dive into what each of these roles do and where they fit into the building process. And while I understand the difference can save you time, money, and stress on your project. So let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Alright, so you know, our company, Viz3D Space, you know, we design a bunch of custom homes. We do anything from small remodel projects, it could be just like a deck edition or something like that, all the way up to, you know, 10,000, 15,000 square foot uh single family residence. We do them all over the place. Um, we've designed them in Indiana, Louisiana, done a couple in Haiti, Africa. We do them all over the place. Oh wow. Yeah. Um a lot of fun. Um, but that each one's a little bit different. So we do probably 100, 120 houses a year. We got a team of uh four designers currently looking to grow that to about five or six, but we do four designers right now. Um but yeah, so that's kind of the gist of like who we are, what we do. Uh when you when you come in, you sit down with us, we design it all in 3D, kind of like a video game, so you can see it, walk through it, make decisions live, um, and then we cut blueprints. So it's all the way from drafting the models to construction documents for builders.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, so let's just dive into a couple of questions I got for you. Yeah. Put up right here. Um, when someone asks, what is a designer, how do you explain what that is?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so somebody comes in and said, Hey, I heard you're a designer. Sometimes there's a misconception of what that might be. They may have come to us for interior design, they may have come to us thinking we're like an architect. So we try to clear that up a little bit on the front end because that that word is used so broadly. Yeah. Designer is just this huge umbrella that everybody kind of falls underneath. Um, and so for us, we're what some people would consider draftsmen, others would consider designer. They kind of mean the same thing for us where we're gonna do a little bit of interior design work with you, mostly structural stuff. Ours is a little bit of a hybrid, but typically what you end up having is you got like a draftsman would be somebody that does a lot of 2D stuff, you know, sketching walls, doors, windows, and then like interior designer, they're just a whole variation of what that is. We can get into here in a little bit. But um yeah, so we we tell them for residential stuff, a designer like us is kind of somebody you want to sit with, or depending on how big of a project you have, you may want to go the architect route.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

So there's a little bit of divide there.

SPEAKER_01:

So, you know, kind of diving into you and your business, what's a day-to-day look like for you when you're working on a project?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so process starts with a requirements meeting. Um we do a consultation meeting where they come, they sit down, hopes and dreams, right? The Pinterest boards, the newspaper clippings, like all the stuff they've collected of that's what I want in my house. We sit, we talk through it, um, we talk about what that's gonna mean, like square footage-wise, and then we've got a pretty good idea of what construction costs are, like per square foot numbers and stuff, uh, through our builder partnerships. And so we'll try to make sure it's gonna fit whatever their budget's gonna be. So we take all that, we put it into uh a 3D model, and then once the 3D model's done, we send them videos for review, and that's just uh if y'all have ever seen um Joanna Gaines and the Magnolia stuff, yeah, right? They do cutaways where they're floating through this 3D house. That's what we do live with the client. So they're sitting there and they say, hey, move that door, move that window, paint it this color, change this cabinet. They do that five, six times with us to get full iterations done. And once they're happy with a 3D model, we'll cut them a set of blueprints for their builder.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, and I know what you're talking about. Like, if you're watching their show, they'll just have the camera pointed like the corner of a room, and they're just drawing on the screen and like, oh, we can do this, this, this. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you kind of mentioned a bit of what a designer and a draftsman is, so let's kind of dive into that a little bit more. People are confused as to what the two are. So, really, what is the difference between a designer and a draftsman?

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so sometimes there aren't differences, sometimes you're talking about the same thing, they can mean the same thing. So, like for us, you could call our company either one. We could be a designer, draftsman, it would mean the same thing for us. Yeah, but industry-wide, um a lot of times draftsman means 2D. They're just gonna do 2D drawings, they're blueprint focused, so they're going to focus on getting your layout, the elevations, which is like the front sides and back views just straight on of the house. They'll focus on drawing um the sticks and bricks of like a build, right? Like what a builder wants. A builder wants a draftsman, a homeowner wants a designer. Builders like, give me my drawing so I can get it up out of the ground. So that's what they're gonna focus on. A designer, that could mean an interior designer, that could mean um us where we kind of blend everything together. Um it's really looking more at the aesthetics of the interior, how that plays with the outside. Because what people don't understand is once you get in there and you go, hey, I want my grandmother's chest to sit in this corner of the home, and I have a 12-foot Christmas tree that I want to be on the right side of the fireplace. Well, all of a sudden, that drives uh some of the design that causes you to move things, right?

SPEAKER_01:

That plays with those dimensions and everything where it's not gonna fit.

SPEAKER_00:

That that plays with the outside. Um, it may cause you to uh shorten a door up, may cause you to move a window. Um we're gonna I like to think of it like designers will sit with you and talk with you about how you're gonna live in the house and then design around that. A lot of times draftsmen, um, because I used to be one. I mean, that's what I did for the majority of it was I was primarily a draftsman. Yeah, you're not really thinking about it, it's not part of the job really to think about it. Um, and again, this is not an umbrella statement. Some do, but for the most part, I would say draftsmen are more technical, designers a little more artistic with it. I mean, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01:

So, how would a designer, I mean, you really kind of put the nail on that head, but really when would you use one versus the other?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so um draftsmen are typically more cost effective to use to get your plans done. Um, I had a guy call me the other day, he said, Hey, I want to design this set of house plans, but I really don't need to see it in 3D, don't want to see it in 3D, I just want blueprints and I want to get going with my plan. He was a builder, and uh I said, well, you know, we can do that, but we we charge X amount. And he's like, Oh, I'm getting uh prices for 50 and 60 cents a square foot from some other draftsmen. I said, Yeah, no, that that's what they do. That's they do 2D only. It's a rough and ready drawing, but it's very buildable, they're pretty tech savvy on like how buildings are done, and and so it's more cost-effective route to go. Um, but again, it's geared more for the builder. Yeah. You know, like homeowners, it's about 50-50 was what we see, where you can pull up a blueprint, look at it, and go, oh, I I can visually see what that's gonna look like. About half the population can do that. Uh, the other half can't. So a draftman serves that half pretty much.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I you know, I feel like either people who are in the industry or maybe engineer minds, you know, they they can look at a blueprint, know the dimensions, know how big something is, and visualize it. You got the other people who don't work in any kind of industry-related field like that. They're just not used to looking at it and can't just see it and know what they're talking about. Sure. So I I see the benefit to both. I understand that you know, a draftsman they may just be cut and dry. It is gonna be a cheaper alternative for you. No different than buying plans online somewhere. Some difference, yeah. Um, well, let's kind of dive maybe a little bit deeper into the difference between a designer and an architect. I mean, you hear those, and they're yep, sometimes referenced to be the same, also. So what's the difference between those two?

SPEAKER_00:

So we get asked all the time, are you are you an architect? We're not. It's actually in our contracts that we're not. Architects uh assume a lot of liability for the designs. We we don't. So we're gonna sit down with you, we're gonna design it. And with residential, single-family residential, you don't need an architect. A lot of times that's overkill. Um, architects are primarily commercial. So we work with architect partners where maybe they've got uh some homes, people come to them, hey, they do want that stamp on their drawings. It it is significantly more expensive to go that route, but uh some places may require it. Like you may live in a neighborhood that says, hey, we're not gonna allow homes to be built that are not architecturally stamped.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's fine. Uh we have architect partners to do that. Um, but primarily architectural services are gonna be like commercial, industrial, multifamily, things like that.

SPEAKER_01:

So what liability are they taking on? I mean, I feel like you design a house, a builder builds it. I mean, what liability really falls back on the architect?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so most of the time um they're gonna put together a team. So an architect is an organizer of the project, right? So they're going to facilitate design, they're gonna bring in uh an engineer that'll put your MEP package together, so you're mechanical, you know, uh mechanical, electrical, employment, that's what MEP is.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And so they're going to organize all those people. Um, they're gonna get the bids in, they're gonna put all that stuff together, and it's kind of a lock and key job for commercial stuff, uh, which is why it's a little bit overkill for residential. Because the builder's kind of taking care of that on residential. That that's right. Um they overlapping and doing the same thing. Depends project to project. So it's set up different uh different ways. So some architectural firms actually have design build services where they have everything in-house, and some of them are just architects. Um, and then they'll partner with builders, but a lot of times they bring a lot of the trades to the table. Um, and when they do all that, they're watching this project all the way through. Whereas, like with single family residential, like I do, you come in, you design your plans with us, we'll bring your builder in, we'll work with them to coordinate a final set of construction plans that everybody's happy with, but then the builder takes it and goes and builds it. Like I'm not doing site visits during the build. Like we've already done that in 3D. You don't need that for me. That's what your builder's for, and they assume that under their uh their policies and their contracts.

SPEAKER_01:

So you mentioned some neighborhoods may require it. Are there other states? You know, I know we're in Alabama, so you know Alabama doesn't require it, but are there states that do require it? They they do.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh I I actually have only we've been doing it almost 10 years now. I've only run into it once, uh, and I cannot remember the name of the county. There's a specific county in Georgia that uh we were designing a barnuminium in, and it turned out that like the county required the plans to be stamped. And so it was like, well, now you gotta find an architect to re-review it and make sure it's up to the county codes, and then they'll stamp it. Yeah. Because you know, different places have different codes that have different requirements, so you got like national and state codes, but then you might have municipality codes that in whichever one's the most stringent is what you have to adhere to. And so architects, like they're making sure that's doing that, and they're stamping it to say that design does it, and we're gonna build to that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, we've talked about designers as and how they compare to draftsmen and architects. So, really, the next thing that when you hear design that people talk think about is interior designing. So, what is the difference between interior designers versus a designer?

SPEAKER_00:

Sure. Um, again, this is one of those that the line gets blurred a little bit on. It can it can be both. Um, we we do light interior design at our firm. We work with interior designers that do light design work. And so what I mean by that is there are plenty of interior designers around that if you go to them for a kitchen bathroom model, they may draw your plans with you using most of the time it's like um sketch up or uh AutoCAD, stuff like that. Yeah. To kind of get you a 2D visual, uh, some light plan work. Most of them don't do full custom home designs. Uh actually, I don't know of any that do, but they'll do like some light renovation plans. Whereas like we will do light interior packages where we might help you decorate, pick out colors and stuff, because we're already doing it in 3D anyway. Right. And I can get you like the Sherman Williams paint codes and things like that from it. Um but what an interior designer does, and the benefit of having one that's dedicated to a project, and so when you leave me, your deliverable is a full set of construction documents. That's how to get the foundation, the walls, doors, windows, roof, all done. Now you can change your paint, your flooring, your cabinet colors, your cabinet tops, like all the countertops, all that stuff. So that's one deliverable. What the builder needs is a bunch of selections made to get a clear price. And when they're building, like if you do cost plus and you're just kind of going and you got allowances, they need you to make selections to get it put in there. Okay. An interior designer creates like a clear path to do that. They're gonna create a package for you. Um a lot of the times it's a the design design kit, a design package, yeah, look book, whatever you want to call it. Um, but they'll help you pick out, you know, anywhere from finishes, which are your paints and stuff like that, all the way to like furniture, right? Uh interior, exteriors, they're gonna help you craft how that thing's getting dressed up. Um, and they'll do it with vendors too. They'll help you kind of nail it down. Um most of the time, I'm gonna caveat that with most of the time they're keeping your budget in mind, but that's also like something you want to be watching.

SPEAKER_01:

You gotta you gotta be responsible for your budget. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you you can pick selections, like you pick yourself into a hole for sure.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So at what stage would an interior designer come into the process of building a home?

SPEAKER_00:

So short answer is they can come in anywhere, but the most ideal place for them to pop up is like in the middle of your custom home design project. So if I'm designing a house and you want an interior designer involved, we have like a midpoint that's like study plan phase.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is, hey, I'm pretty happy with where all the walls and structure are, but now I want to refine the house. Like if you want one involved, right there's a really good spot to get them involved. Because they may have some suggestions that as we implement those cause us to shift stuff around a little bit. Right. Most of the time it's seen around like shower designs and stuff, like when they get involved in shower designs um and even bathroom layouts, they may go, hey, I know you want two vanities, but wouldn't it look nice if we split them and put them in two different places? And they may suggest a different look that you go with that cause us to move doors and windows a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I mean, I generally what you're saying is once the once you kind of have the house built up in your design uh system, the the square footage, the rooms, it's all kind of there, and you're like, this is what I want. And then an interior designer can help it more functional.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, because I mean, uh ultimately you have two client types. You have a client, which most everybody is, where the budget bears a lot of weight on what you're gonna pick to do, square footage-wise and selections. You have clients that, again, minority, but they happen, they're probably 20% of what we do, um, where budget's not a concern. They want what they want, and so their wants are what's gonna drive them. And so it's two different ways of looking at a project there. And so you just need to educate your designer and your interior designer on which client you are, and so they can get a good feel of it, would you go from there?

SPEAKER_01:

Would you say that the budget conscious clients, the the majority, probably opt out of an interior designer, and the other minority is probably more 100% interior designer?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I'd say the budget conscious clients, it's hard to convince them of the value that an interior designer brings to the table. Sometimes it's hard to convince them of the value that I bring to the table versus like a draftsman. But if if you have trouble making selections, if you don't know what you want, if you don't have that visual eye for making something look nice, oftentimes an interior designer, they're like you're gonna save what they charge you by using them. Does that make sense? Like they're gonna come in, handhold you, and makes this so smooth of a process that change orders and things like that won't exist where with not using them, they're probably going to. Yeah. You know, we've we've done houses where we've put tile in and they've just looked at it and went, that's not what I thought that was gonna look like, and I've changed my mind. Well, using an interior designer, they kind of hand hold you through a lot of that, and they're really good at drawing out what you want, how you want to fill in the home, and how you use the house, right? Like, if you're a baker, you know, when you're doing your cabinet design, do you want one of those stand mixer things to pop out of the cabinet? Like, they talk you through what's available in the market, how things can get done, and they kind of watch it too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So, what would you say is one of the biggest misconceptions of an interior designer?

SPEAKER_00:

I would I would say it's back to the value thing. A lot of people think it's just picking paint colors and stuff, and it's really not. They're they're very integrated. And again, umbrella statement here, most are very integrated in how the design's gonna go. And a lot of them build in site visits to their pricing. So their price is not just hey, we're picking everything and then we're leaving you. It's hey, we're picking everything, we're gonna stick with you until the keys are in your hand, and we're making sure the builder knows how like install specs go and things like that. So it's just another part of that team we keep talking about. Yeah. That if you've got one on your team, it's gonna make the process more enjoyable for you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, you know, if anybody is listening to our podcast today, what is one thing that you think they should take away from the role of a designer?

SPEAKER_00:

So the role of the designer is to pull everything you've got in here out, put it on paper, make sure that it fits how you're gonna live your life in the home, fits your budget, fits your land, and ultimately is what you're dreaming of. Okay, and then they're gonna put that into a set of instructions that a builder can make a reality at that point.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, you know, that's gonna wrap up today's episode of constructive conversations. Hopefully, we've cleared up some of that confusing uh aspects of what a designer, what an architect, what a draftsman is.

SPEAKER_00:

Um Yeah, so like I think next week, let's see, we're talking about um how to pick a realtor and how to pick a builder. Uh, and and what are some like key things you could do to pretty much like make sure you're getting a quality realtor backing you up in a new construction process and a quality uh a builder. Yeah, and you know what what to look for, what to do, things like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it's really important. I mean, we're gonna really dive deeper into that conversation because really it's one of the first fundamental decisions that you're gonna make in the process.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. And so uh no, we've enjoyed having you guys with us today. I'm Luke Barksdale with Viz3D Space. And I'm Zach Daniel with Victorian Finance. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you. Thanks. Cool.

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Luke Barksdale

Co-host
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Zac Daniel

Co-host