An iOS app I use to make mediocre (but useful!) renderings.
If you squint a little bit you’ll see it…
^This is what I constantly say to my partner. From the moment we put an offer on our home, I started making these little mediocre mock ups to help visualize our ideas. I use this app for everything from paint color and tile options to deck layout and landscaping choices. It’s a great way to “try on” your plans before committing.
The app is called Graphic, and you can download versions for Mac, iPad, or iPhone. It’s like a watered down, easy to learn version of Adobe Illustrator, but much cheaper. And there are great tutorials for the entire program here.
An early rendering of our little house! The first thing we tackled was exterior color (see my previous post showing before and after photos). I create shapes over each area I want to color in, make the path/line (outline) weight 0, and fill with about 50-80% transparency so you can see the textures and shadows of the actual material through the new color.
A pretty simple example for flooring color. I think making the fill semitransparent helps make these feel more real/imaginable? A trick I use for finding accurate color is googling the hex# (computer number for color) for whatever paint brand and color name you are using + hex#. For example, google image search “ben moore eucalyptus hex” and you’ll find hex #83855E looks pretty accurate. Use that hex# for your color fill.
Perhaps the most mediocre one of all… the landscaping rendering. I created this to figure out the general shape we wanted for the garden bed, and what type of plants we wanted. I used a downloaded image of gravel to create a fill for the garden bed, and then just cropped in on plant images as close as I could. Using the eraser tool to cut them out a little more accurately would have made for a better showing of my skills here. Whatever, this gets the job done.
Graphic is also handy for creating floorplans. I created this for our contractor to understand the scope of work before even coming out for a quote, but you can also use it simply to plan your furniture placement. The app has pre-made shapes built in you can use for this as well. The toilet, sink, tub and shower head were all pre-made and easy to size accordingly. There’s also cabinet and furniture shapes you can use for free!
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