Two Ways In Which You Can Reduce Your Architectural Design Costs

With the rise of the Internet, many kinds of work involving only information can be done in lower-cost parts of the world. (This awareness has a long way to go before it becomes commonplace.) A relevant example is how you can reduce the cost of architectural design by involving service providers overseas.

When you go to architects for developing the design of a building, the first thing you would naturally do is tell them about the kind of building you had in mind. You would describe its use and its size as well as give them a drawing of your property?s boundaries and a contour map.

The architects would then ask you for your ideas on the rooms you wanted the building to contain. You would identify the rooms; you would talk about roughly how big each should be and approximately where in the building you would want it positioned. You would give this information for each floor of the building.

The architects would come back to you with some preliminary sketches of floor plans. You and the architects would look at them and brainstorm, after which they would come back with revised sketches. After two or three repetitions of this procedure, the floor plans would be finalized.

The architects would then have the floor plans drawn on a computer using a computer-aided-design (CAD) program. These are known as schematic plans.

All this could cost you anywhere up to $1.35 per square foot. However, you could save as much as 50% on this by going to competent architects in other countries for your schematic plans. Think of how much this would come to for a 4,000 square foot house!

A small search on the Internet is all you need to do to locate suitable overseas firms.

Once you have your schematic plans, the architects will put in detailed information for your builder. This includes information on the materials to be used as well as the design of doors, windows, stairs and the roof. The finished set of drawings is called the set of ?construction documents?. The architects must stamp this for a builder to be able to proceed with them.

The architects spend a great deal of money getting these drawings prepared on a computer (which involves much more CAD than schematic design production). These costs are naturally passed on to you with a suitable markup. This leads us to the second cost-saving strategy.

To save up to 50% on these costs, direct the architects to a suitable CAD drafting service provider overseas. Again, you can locate such firms by doing a simple Internet search.

Using both these methods you could save as much as $1 per square foot in your architectural design costs. This adds up to some real money, and it?s all on the table, ready for you to take with very little effort.

My advice you is understandably simple: Go for the methods NOW, my friend!

Lucky Balaraman runs one of India?s prime architecture and CAD drafting service providers, The Magnum Group. Learn more about the Company at http://cad-drafting-services.com

Great Brands Depend on Attention to the Brand Architecture

Great Brands Depend on Attention to the Brand Architecture

 by: Richard Cunningham

Do you have the architecture in place to make sure each and every brand contact sends the right message?

Thinking in terms of architecture, a building that looks great and catches your attention is probably designed so that each component looks perfect and enhances the overall effect of the building.

In the audiobook, Sound Advice on Brand Marketing, author Tom Miller says, Great architecture works because of attention to detail, and great brands depend on the same level of attention. Each component of a brand that touches the customer must support and enhance the overall message.

A brand architecture also builds a connection between corporate brands, master brands, product brands, and branded features, which, according to Miller, makes decisions easier when it comes to messaging and graphic design.

Miller suggests everyone take a fresh look at their own brand architecture, beginning with a review of all current marketing materials. Is the message consistent? Does the look and feel convey the value of the brand? Is there room for improvement? Once a brand is viewed as architecture, it may never look the same. Says Miller, It may be the beginning of building your own best brand.

Tom Miller offers branding advice each week in the free audio newsletter from Whats Working in Biz, http://www.whatsworking.biz/full_story.asp?ArtID=92

Richard Cunningham is a principal of Whats Working in Biz, http://www.whatsworking.biz, a publisher of business audiobooks and online audio programs on marketing, sales, and small business strategies.