Ep. 13: How To Outsource Design Drawings with Jessica Marchant of BlueSky Creative

Will you be ready when your contractor and trades ask you for buildable plans and detailed construction docs? 😬 

In this episode of Stuff Interior Designers Need To Know, Rebecca sits down with Jessica Marchant of Blue-Sky Creative to talk about one of the most important parts of a successful interior design project: technical drawings.

Rebecca asks:

1. What are technical construction drawings? 🤔 
2. What is "fractional technical drawing support?" 😅 
3. Why would a designer outsource this work? 
4. What does fractional technical drawing support cost? 💰 
5. When is outsourcing a smart way to grow your interior design business?
6. Does outsourcing your drawings mean giving up creative control?
7. Does working with Bluesky mean using a certain kind of drawing software (AutoCAD? Revit? Chief Architect?)

If you’ve been thinking about hiring someone to help with your design drawings, or wondering what it might cost to outsource this part of your job, this conversation is for you. From construction documents and AutoCAD support to managing builder communication and preventing expensive mistakes, Jessica shares exactly how technical support can help designers grow without burning out.

Enjoy!

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About Jessica:

Jessica Marchant is the founder of Blue-Sky Creative, a technical design firm supporting interior designers, design-builders, and creative business owners with expert drafting, rendering, and operational support.

With a deep understanding of both design intent and real-world construction, Jessica specializes in translating creative vision into clear, buildable documentation that trades trust and projects rely on. Her work includes AutoCAD drafting, construction documents, 3D renderings, and technical problem-solving—acting as a true extension of her clients’ teams.

Through fractional technical design support, Jessica helps growing design firms scale sustainably without the overhead of in-house hires, allowing them to stay focused on creativity while feeling fully supported behind the scenes.

To connect with Jessica and Blue-Sky Creative:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blue_skycreative/
Website: www.blue-skycreative.com

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Transcript

Jessica 0:00

interior designers will start out not having construction documentation and then they land that really big project and the GC walks in and looks at them and says, when am I gonna have drawings? And rather than say "what?" They say "in two weeks, of course!" And then they start looking for a technical designer or someone to execute those drawings.

Rebecca 0:23

Welcome to stuff interior designers need to know. This is the place to find out all the things you need to know to create a successful residential interior design firm that makes you, your clients and your bank accounts seriously happy. I am Rebecca West, author of Happy Starts At Home and a Business Coach with seriously Happy Coaching and Consulting. In this episode, I interviewed Jessica Marshant, a technical designer, and the founder of Blue Sky creative. Interior designers hire her when they wanna outsource their design drawings, construction documents, and 3D renderings. She's not just here to give you drawings, but also to help make sure that what you hand off to the general contractor is actually buildable. If you are tired of AutoCAD or never learned how to do technical drawings, or you're just ready to outsource so that you can scale your business, you're going to love the practical advice you're about to hear in this episode. Let's dive in. I am so excited to have this conversation because I have so many questions! Jessica, Welcome to the show.

Jessica 1:33

Hi, Rebecca. Thank you for having me.

Rebecca 1:35

You're very welcome. Now, people might be laughing at me for being so excited to talk about technical drafting, that I feel like this is such a, uh, like a quagmire of unknowingness that we designers have.

Jessica 1:51

Yeah. Technical design is definitely its own bag.

Rebecca 1:55

I think that is the perfect place for us to start. What does fractional technical design support mean.

Jessica 2:04

Yeah, absolutely. The term fractional is a term that we recently adopted I used to say that we were B2B technical design support, but as we all know, everything is based on SEO. So when fractional became really popular, I started incorporating it. Basically, fractional just means that you are bringing on an outside partner. So rather than hiring a a W2 employee, you're gonna work with an expert that is outside of your organization. So that's the fractional piece. Technical design is creating the buildable documentation starting with the design drawings and then evolving them into construction documentation. The homeowner, the business owner, whoever your client is, has the design drawings to review and to approve, and then your build team has the construction drawings.

Rebecca 3:02

How do people realize that they need to start outsourcing this stuff in the first place?

Jessica 3:07

I think that happens in a lot of different ways. what I hear most from interior designers is that they got a project that needs it. And this isn't in all cases, but what I hear a lot is interior designers will start out not using technical design, not having construction documentation. They're working with installers that don't ask for it. Then they land that really big project and a complete gut. And they're gonna move walls. And the GC walks in and looks at them and says, when am I gonna have drawings? And rather than say "what?" They say "in two weeks, of course!" And then they start looking for, um, a technical designer or someone to execute those drawings. And that's a, a lot of times how they end up getting in touch with us.

Rebecca 3:55

I think this is a great moment to talk about our education as designers. First of all, we have two different possible paths to becoming an interior designer, which may depend on what state you're in because of the rules around when you can call yourself a designer. In Washington state where I was born and bred as a designer, you could call yourself an interior designer with zero formal education. You might have a clue about design drawings or you might not, and you probably don't have a clue about technical drawings. That might shift if you have a formal education, but that depends on the formal education that you got. What did they teach you? Let's talk about a designer who actually went to a formal, full year degree, got a bunch of technical knowledge. Why would they hire out something that they're actually very equipped to do?

Jessica 4:44

The first two interior designers that ever hired us were formally trained and had BFAs in interior design. The first one said to me, if I never see AutoCAD again, it'll be too soon. She said, the minute I graduate, I walked out that door and I deleted that part of my brain and I don't ever want to open it again. The other one on the other hand, did enjoy AutoCAD, but she was slammed. So I get a lot of interior designers that are formally trained and have been trained in AutoCAD, and it's usually one of those two things. They either just don't enjoy it or they're just absolutely slammed. Maybe they do kind of like it. But they're slammed and they don't have 40 hours to sit there and create a construction document set.

Rebecca 5:32

What about the person who has tons of creative talent, amazing with color, has a natural instinct for laying out things in a way that's just, works, but they don't understand the difference between design drawings and technical drawings. How would you explain that simplest terms possible?

Jessica 5:49

I typically explain that in an intro call and I will show them construction documents I'll take 30 minutes and we will just walk through them and I'll kind of preface it with, Hey, I might say some things that you already know, but let's just go through them and I'll say, this is our elevation symbol, and on our elevation symbol, it's gonna show you the page number and the elevation number. So if you zoom in on this, you'll be able to see that if you go to page 2.2 on that sheet, you'll see Elevation one. And I'll literally walk through it like that. Sometimes they're like, girl, I've seen this a million times. But a lot of times they're really glad either for the refresh, um, or just for the information and the education on it. I'm happy to do that educational piece with them because one of the things that I really want is for our clients to be able to review the drawings. I don't want to send them the drawings and they not review it because they don't know what they're looking at. I would rather take an hour to walk through it together.

Rebecca 6:53

I'm just laughing 'cause I'm picturing myself with my taxes, I'm like, sure, that looks like, yeah. Something I should sign.

Jessica 7:00

Right. That's me to my CPA. I'm like, yep, where do I sign? Yeah, absolutely. We wanna make sure that the design intent is met, and if that means spending an extra hour walking through the drawings, I'm always happy to do that.

Rebecca 7:14

So I'm kind of skipping ahead here, but that does make me wonder, are you charging a flat fee or are these hours that the designer has to be okay incurring as well.

Jessica 7:24

Yeah, so we are typically hourly for drafting. I've tried different methods. We do have a few clients that we do flat fee with, but I've worked with them for a very long time and we really have that process nailed down. I've found that sometimes it's easier to do flat fee with design build firms, because they have a contractual process that they're gonna stick to. But with my very creative interior designers, things are gonna ebb and flow. So for those projects, I found that hourly typically works better.

Rebecca 8:00

For me, If I were thinking I do need to outsource this, my very first big worry would be how do I budget for that when charging my client, especially designers there who are charging a flat fee to their clients. What solutions have you seen around that?

Jessica 8:15

Yeah, I get that question a lot. I've been doing technical design for 13, 14 years now. So I can look at a project and give you a range of hours. I'll say something along the lines of, based on the information that I have here, I think that this CD set's gonna take 25 to 35 hours. That range is typically because the selections have not been made. I have drawings maybe from the architect or maybe they send pictures of the space and kind of give like an overview of the project. And that's typically enough for me to give a range. But what I don't know is the level of finish, right? If your bathroom is gonna have six, seven different tiles in it, that's gonna take longer to draft than a bathroom that has one tile in it.

Rebecca 9:08

Right?

Jessica 9:08

Um, and I've never gotten pushback on that. The interior designers are always like, yeah, I get it. This range is perfect. And I'll tell them, Hey, you know, if I were in your position, I would go with the larger number, put a contingency on it to cover your time. Um, and then obviously we're B2B pricing, so we don't work directly with homeowners, so they have the ability to then mark it up as well.

Rebecca 9:35

Since this is a price that you would give to designers, are you comfortable saying what your hourly rate is in a public

Jessica 9:41

forum? Yeah. We do pricing transparency. I'm really big on that. I don't wanna waste anyone's time. I don't wanna waste my own time. So our rates are always on our website. Um, right now it's March, 2026. AutoCAD drafting is $88 an hour, and 3D renderings are a flat fee and those flat fees are all listed on our website.

Rebecca 10:06

You mentioned 3D renderings just so we've got construction documentation, we've got the design documentation. Are 3D renderings a part of design documentation or is that a separate category altogether?

Jessica 10:20

They're very much a part of construction documentation. Probably 30 to 40% of our projects do include 3D rendering. Typically we will put the 3D renderings into the construction document set because homeowners and business owners, 'cause we do residential and commercial, they love the renderings, but contractors love them too. So we always put them into the construction document set. but many of our clients don't do 3D renderings. What we try to avoid is doing 3D renderings without construction documents or without at least design drawings.

Rebecca 11:06

And why?

Jessica 11:07

So our firm, first and foremost, is a technical design firm. And I feel like when you do 3D renderings without drawings, you have to take a lot of liberties. You have to make a lot of assumptions. And that is just not how my brain works. And that's not how most technical designers brain works, right? When I am looking at a project, I'm immediately thinking about how are we gonna build this? How am I going to take their design intent and make it beautiful and buildable? So if we don't have drawings and we're just doing a lot of liberties in, in the 3D renderings, that feels very conceptual and that's not, that's not really our focus.

Rebecca 11:57

can you gimme an example of something where it might be really different when you're just thinking conceptual and then you try to make it buildable?

Jessica 12:05

Yeah, I mean, I think AI is a great example. Recently I saw a rendering that showed a concrete ceiling and my first thought was weight. I was like, this is gonna be so heavy. How are we going to do this? And then I thought, okay, this is probably gonna need to be some type of panel system and there's gonna need to be some type of joint. So I thought, well, if we don't want joints, maybe we do like Venetian plaster or something that gives the effect. These are the type of things that I think about. To just do a 3D rendering and make the ceiling look like concrete is just not in my nature.

Rebecca 12:51

I love that example because when I was thinking about what that might mean, I was thinking how AI can sometimes put a staircase where it isn't in the original concept, right? Really obvious, glaring mistakes. But what the example though of concrete ceiling does feel more innocuous like, oh, that's just a finish. That's just an aesthetic. But you're right. If it's actual concrete, are you embedding your light systems? Will you ever be able to remodel or fix that? How does it integrate with all of the other building systems? It's a can of worms that if you're just thinking aesthetically never gets open.

Jessica 13:29

A can of worms is a great way to put it. Um, I think about, okay, well we are probably gonna need to put blocking in the ceiling. And if they're just adding it as a cladding, then that there's not an opportunity for that. In our experience, we always end up needing to go back and do drawings, even if we are doing something as simple as a foyer and the designer wants to add moldings to the walls. We can go into AutoCAD and lay out those moldings in an hour where if we go into 3D and we pick the wrong molding type or we don't do it in the way that is meeting the intent. It takes so much longer to update it in 3D, then it would if we just did a quick technical drawing.

Rebecca 14:17

That totally makes sense.. Now, you've mentioned AutoCAD quite a few times. I know a lot of designers in my circle are using Chief architect. Has that shown up in your world? What about people using that? Like what's the, what's the software situation?

Jessica 14:31

I've had several people reach out about Chief Architect. We only use AutoCAD for drafting. And that's nothing against Chief Architect or Revit. That's just what our team was trained on. At this point in my life using AutoCAD is like drinking a glass of water and it just feels hard to maybe learn a new software. I have had a few clients come to us that were using Chief Architect and we converted them to AutoCAD because at the end of the day, it's like, if you don't want to be the one doing the drawings, then do you really care what software we use? It comes down to that from time to time.

Rebecca 15:16

One of the things I heard from people leading up to this episode was, what about the creative process? process? They said, part of my creative process is modeling it in 3D and trying things on. So how does that play out? Can you only work with designers who don't need that iterative process or what happens?

Jessica 15:36

No, we get all types. We have some clients that will send us mood boards, some clients that they may be used design files and maybe they've mocked up 3D in design files, and that was step one of their process and then they send that over. So it kind of just depends on what their process is and where they're at. But I will say a lot of our clients come to us at a point in their business when they are very, very and they want senior level support. And they're kind of at the point where they don't wanna be mapping out vanities anymore. They wanna just say, here's the goals, here's the dimensions, here's the inspiration. You map it out. And that's where we come in.

Rebecca 16:28

What are the signs of a company at that maturity level? Are we talking about a certain size, a certain revenue level? What do you feel like tends to be true?

Jessica 16:38

Most of our interior designers are solopreneurs. I think maybe the largest team that we work with is three, maybe four, so these are smaller firms. They don't wanna hire a full-time technical designer. Maybe they don't have enough workload for that, or in other cases, maybe they did hire someone and it just didn't work out. We also have a lot of designers that come to us that have been working with a drafter and it's been going fine and that person's been doing design drawings. But now they have a whole house remodel and maybe they're a drafter who maybe they've only been outta school for two years and they've never actually worked in the construction industry, and maybe they don't trust that that person can create the entire construction document set, so they'll bring us in for those larger projects.

Rebecca 17:38

It feels like there's crossover here within the various parts of our industry it's bringing up the role of the engineer relative to the drafts how does engineering become part of your world? And also, can we define what that means for listeners?

Jessica 17:56

Yeah, absolutely. So we have disclaimers everywhere, um, that say that we are not licensed architects and we are not engineers, and the drawings will not be stamped. We also do not do anything foundational or structural and to define it for a listener, that's really the engineer's part is anything that's going to be structural, things like weight distribution, your foundation, your roof, those type of things definitely need to be handled by an architect or an engineer. We've had a project where we did collaborate with an engineer because we took down a load-bearing wall. The way that that looks on our construction documents is we knew that the engineer was gonna put a load-bearing beam in the ceiling, so we drew a dashed rectangle in the set to indicate that we put a call out, that this is where the engineer comes in. The engineer then did a separate sheet which got added to the construction document set and that sheet got stamped. So that's kind of how we work through that.

Rebecca 19:06

That's perfect. Um, and mirrors a lot of my experience in the background.

Jessica 19:10

Yeah.

Rebecca 19:10

What about permits? What about when the question of do you handle permits or are these permittable, what's that look like?

Jessica 19:18

We've never had an issue with permits. And we've worked in many, many states. We do a lot of work in the south where it's probably a little bit easier to get permits. But We've even had a project in California and it's my understanding that California is a harder state to get permits in. Like I said, we've worked all over the country and we've not had an issue yet. Typically what will happen is our title block will have the client name and address, and then we will do electrical plans, show plumbing locations. Um, we'll pull dimensions to the center of the flange so that you can kind of see where the J box is gonna go. And that is usually enough for the electrician and the plumber to go pull a permit. Um, we also do demo plans and that's typically enough too, if the GC needs to go pull a permit.

Rebecca 20:17

Going back to the hourly rate, you had mentioned that a lot of your best clients are the kind who have a robust firm, but they don't have a big team and they don't wanna grow the team. I didn't know if you wanted to speak to this at all, but the cost of having a team member is very different from hiring somebody fractionally. Do you wanna speak to what it really costs to have an employee beyond what they might be paid?

Jessica 20:41

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll, I'll say something that I see a lot is interior designers trying to hire junior designers, aKA, someone that's just graduated, to do technical design. In my opinion this would, be very hard to do. To really be a technical designer, you need to have worked in construction. You need to have been around construction. You need to have been bullied by a couple of contractors. You need to have worn a hard hat. You, you really need to understand how things get built. I have a master's degree in design and, and I'll say even if you're graduating with a master's degree, I still don't feel that you have the ability to do technical design. You can probably do design drawings, but that's, that is different. Um. So to hire a technical designer, you're essentially hiring a senior interior designer that also knows how to do technical design. And depending on what state you're in, this could easily be a six figure salary.

Rebecca 22:03

Very different from just $88 an hour when I need it.

Jessica 22:07

Exactly.

Rebecca 22:08

You're not on the hook for all of that. Plus the whole hiring process, which we all know, nine times outta 10 seems to end in flames.

Jessica 22:16

Yeah. And the other part is if you yourself don't know technical design, you're hiring a junior designer to do it, you don't have the ability to train them because you don't know how to do it yourself, it's gonna be a higher salary to really get someone in there that knows what they're doing. And then you have to keep them busy. Technical design doesn't last the entire project. If you had a full-time employee, once it goes into construction, if everything's gone well, they probably don't have much to do at that point on the project.

Rebecca 22:49

Going back to your ideal client size, not working with huge teams. Because if you have a huge team with 30 different people in departments. That's when each department can be kept busy with their area of expertise.

Jessica 23:02

Yeah. Absolutely.

Rebecca 23:03

One of the things I heard from designers as we were leading up to this episode was what about creative control? Because they're a bit concerned about somebody having too much of an opinion, but also on the flip side of that creative help, like if you see something that needs to be resolved or isn't buildable. How do they navigate them staying in charge, but also do you help them when they are facing something they might not be, realize they're facing.

Jessica 23:33

Absolutely. So as far as creative control, our job is to make sure that the interior designer's design intent is met. I don't care what that is. if we're hanging chicken bones from the ceiling, we're gonna make it work. We're gonna make it buildable. I'm gonna figure out how to hang those chicken bones, like whatever it is that you wanna do, we're gonna figure out how to build it. Um, we have no ego about this. I'm on the technical side because I don't think that color and soft goods and working directly with homeowners is my strong suit. So there is no clash on creative control As far as finding problems before they happen. That is absolutely something that we're looking for. So just to go back to my concrete ceiling example, I'm gonna say, I'm worried about the weight here. Here's some ideas. Maybe we figure out how to make panels if you truly want concrete, or I saw this Venetian plaster product that looks like concrete. And then I'm gonna consult with the interior designer to see which direction they might wanna go. But at the end of the day, if they say, I want a 20 foot by 20 foot piece of concrete and I want it adhere to the ceiling, I'm just gonna put a disclaimer on the drawing and keep moving.

Rebecca 24:57

What about if it's something that's technically buildable but might not be as functional as it could be. I'm thinking maybe like in within kitchen cabinetry, a lot of times people will throw something in, but it's not an optimal use of space. What if you see something like that? It's kind of in the gray area.

Jessica 25:14

Yeah. So one of the things that we do are red notes. Let's say that we're working on a kitchen for you and you've got an appliance across from the island, and the egress around the island is 34 inches. We're gonna note that in red. When I send that back to you, I'm gonna say, Hey, what do you think about pulling the island back? I'd really like to get you to 42 inches, and if we can't get to 42 inches, let's try to get to 38. And we love to give people options. I might say, I'm gonna draw what you asked for, because we're all visual, right? All designers are visual. I need you to see that this doesn't work. So at that point, we'll go ahead and do option two. We'll pull the island out. We'll give you that really nice 42 inch space, and then maybe put bar stools to show you that hey, the island's kind of in the living room a little bit, but it's still gonna be better than what it was. And then maybe option three is we do a more narrow island and then I let you choose. I used to work for a developer and one of the things that they used to say was choices not changes. So I feel like in design there's usually two or three ways to build everything. And sometimes it's faster for us to just go ahead and draw it all three ways and then let the interior designer choose which direction they want to go.

Rebecca 26:41

That's actually very cool. I love that answer. Um, that made me go somewhere in my head and I was gonna go somewhere else. Now my 48-year-old brain is to a stop. Okay. Hold on. Um, truly. Okay, let's talk a little bit about how to make things go as efficiently and as effectively as possible 'cause while design iterations are great and they're a really important part of design, we're also trying to spend our clients' money well and be as profitable as we can. So two questions around this one. The first one is, do you adhere to a certain kind of code set given that code is different all around the country? You were just talking about that island clearance. Are you following NKBA guidelines? Like is there a certain code set that you recommend designers work off because it's more universal? And what can a designer do to make the process as efficient as possible?

Jessica 27:40

Yes, so we are following the National Kitchen and Bath Association standards. And then we have internal SOPs that we try to follow. So just from being in the industry, things that we found that work a little bit better or, you know, look a little bit better. That is definitely something that we're following. As far as keeping things on track and you know, trying to manage time efficiently, that is definitely something that we're focused on as well. Our team is all about production. We wanna get your project in. We want to put our head down and focus on your project and give it the focus that it needs. And then I wanna get it back to you so that you can mark it up. The more information that we have, the more we can do on the front end. But to just start a project, we really need three things. we need site photos. And the reason we need site photos is because we wanna look for site conditions. When you're out there on site and you're taking photographs, I know the homeowner's following you around, talking to you, and things are gonna get missed, right? Like you're not gonna notice the giant soffit above the vanity and you're not gonna notice the weird vent on the wall that's gonna be right in the way of the molding that you wanna put up. So while the client is talking your ear off, you can take those photographs and then you can send them to us and then we're gonna look through them and really look for those site conditions. The other thing that we need are dimensions, and we get those in many different ways. Some people are using Canvas io, which I think recently they changed their name, and that's great. That creates a DWG scan. Some people draw the floor plan, that is fine too. I have a couple of clients that'll just take pictures of the walls and then straight from their iPhone, they'll just draw the dimension on the wall. And in a more simple space that works fine sometimes. But yeah, we need dimensions, we need site photos, and then we need the goals of the project. If we're gonna do kitchen layouts for you, and not everyone does this, some people have a cabinet company, some people do their own layouts. But if we're gonna do the kitchen layouts, we need to know what the goals are. If the goal is to create a larger island and add more storage, that's very different than if the goal is they hate uppers and they want all floating shelves. And then I also ask for construction notes. If you wanna take the soffit out, you're relocating the hvac, you can go ahead and let us know that in the beginning. The other thing is I'm gonna reach out and ask you questions. If we can't move efficiently on the project, we're gonna put it on hold and I'm gonna reach out and ask you the questions that we need. We're not gonna just spin our wheels. We will make assumptions when, when we feel like we have 90% of the information, but if we have 10% of the information, we're not gonna make assumptions. We're not gonna send you a packet that's just completely wrong.

Rebecca 30:51

Yeah, call that designing in the dark and I refuse to do it as a designer, that's not gonna set anybody up for success.

Jessica 30:58

Yeah.

Rebecca 30:59

What about video? Is video helpful?

Jessica 31:02

Video's helpful too. The best kind of documentation we can get is when you stand in the middle of the room and take a picture of each wall and also take a video kind of scanning. Um, and then don't forget the ceiling, the ceiling, ceiling's. Our fifth wall, we need the picture of the ceiling too.

Rebecca 31:19

And also look in the closets because half the time you open a closet and half the closet's missing 'cause of HVAC or a staircase or something that you can't see till you open up those doors.

Jessica 31:29

Yep.

Rebecca 31:30

So what are the things that designers. Shouldn't do. Like, what's the best way to derail this process?

Jessica 31:38

Gosh. I think we're pretty good at working with creatives who, you know, maybe are not the most organized. I kind of enjoy that, to be honest. I really like wildly creative people and, and helping them get things dialed in. So I wouldn't say there's anything that would completely derail it. maybe just like lack of communication. And it very rarely happens. most of the designers that we work with are so on the ball and they wanna get the project done, and they want it to be awesome. I do hear from interior designers who will say, my process hasn't been great and I've been figuring things out on the fly, and I'm, I'm leveling up my business and I'm ready to get organized. Blue Sky Creative is here to support you are not here to support me, so I'm gonna meet you where you are. We have things that work really well, like using Google Drive sharing, and having a kickoff call. My calendly is always available to you if you wanna jump on. We use a lot of Loom videos... I tell our interior designers, if you're up at 2:00 AM with anxiety and you need to make a Loom video to get your ideas out, just make one and send it over to me and we will tackle the revisions that way. I really like to meet people where they're at.

Rebecca 33:04

We're always getting spam email saying, Hey, you want me to do your 3D renderings from, you know, all over the world. I never pursue them for a lot of reasons. And one of them is I don't know the difference between a good provider and a not good provider. Construction drawings and design drawings, they follow some standards. You know, a blueprint set should look like a blueprint set. But 3D renderings can be anything from kind of a weird, grainy concept of a room to something where people think it's a photo of the real space. Yeah. Where do you fall in that and what do you think is important?

Jessica 33:45

Yeah, with 3D renderings, you're absolutely right. There are some that are just plain bad. But also there's different styles. There are 3D rendering artists who do a more painterly style. maybe things are a little bit more pastel in nature. Our style is realism, we're trying to really capture how it's going to look once it's built. To do that you have to be very good at lighting, 'cause lighting is what really makes a 3D rendering look good. You need the lighting sources to be "real," and I'm using quotations here, but you need them to be real. You need to light the actual lights in the room. And then you also need to light the windows. You need to have light coming in from the windows, and that's how you're gonna get realism. Getting to that point with 3D does take years and it's not fast. I tell people, if you are looking for a two day turnaround on a 3D rendering, we are not the firm for you. There are 3D rendering artists that do that. What they're probably doing is they're probably using things from catalogs that already exist and doing a fast model and then putting it into a rendering software and sending it out. We are building everything pretty much from scratch. So whatever your lighting fixture is, we're gonna build the lighting fixture, we're gonna build the cabinet face, we're gonna build everything. And that level of detail does take time.

Rebecca 35:29

And it's that integration between all of that work and the fact that it also results in accurate buildable drawings, drawing that makes that time worthwhile.

Jessica 35:38

Absolutely. for us, because these 3D renderings are not just for the homeowner and they're, not just for vibes, right? These are going into a construction document package that a GC is gonna look at. So we want the molding to be the correct molding type. We want it to be in the correct size. We want the scales to be correct. In my opinion, if you are using the 3D renderings for anything that has to do with construction, then you need to be working with someone that understands technical design.

Rebecca 36:15

Do you feel there's a place for quick modeling, quick rendering, cheap outsourcing, or even AI rendering?

Jessica 36:23

Absolutely. I think to get out a concept just to make sure that it's gonna work and maybe no one ever sees it except for you. Maybe it's just the internal interior design team that's using it. Or maybe the, you know, the homeowner is fine with something loose. They just wanna see how the colors play together, how the wallpaper is gonna look with the sofa. I do think in those cases it can work. I probably would not do something loose for commercial. But for residential, I do think there's a time and a place for a kind of a down and dirty 3D rendering.

Rebecca 37:02

But as you alluded to, being very clear that that's what this is, is very important because clients are so much more literal than we ever expect them to be, and you don't know what they're zeroing in on. I think these tools are really valuable but we have to be very careful that we didn't save time in one area only to create a monster in another area.

Jessica 37:22

Absolutely. That's one of the reasons why we don't do that and we don't offer those types of renderings. I've had designers reach out and ask for things that we simply don't do. And it's just kind of against our values as a technical design firm. There are 3D rendering artists that will just put in a lot of extras and, and things that maybe can't even be built, you know, but that's just not our process.

Rebecca 37:55

Because your reputation is literally relying on it's buildable.

Jessica 37:59

Absolutely. There is no better compliment for us than when the interior designer reaches out and says, my general contractor pulled me to the side today and told me that these were some of the best construction documents they've ever had. When we hear that, it just lights me up. If we consistently put out good work, then I know that our clients are gonna get that feedback, and that makes me happy for us and for them.

Rebecca 38:24

Which is the perfect segue into talking about hiring a provider. How in the world is a designer who has never outsourced this stuff and may not even do their own drawings, right? How are they supposed to vet a provider? What are they supposed to look for? How will they know they're supposed to get off that ship because it's sinking? what guidance can you give people?

Jessica 38:46

Yeah, I think it's very different if you're hiring us or a firm like ours versus hiring someone in-house. So when you're hiring someone in-house, if you want someone that's going to come into the office every day, you have the challenge of location. Technical design is already very niche, and now you need to find someone to do this very niche thing in your city. It can be done. And if you are hiring for something like that, then I wouldn't look at anyone that can't send you a portfolio and a good portfolio. You're not looking for a draftsman. A draftsman is gonna be someone that does the type of thing that an architect does. Exterior work. Adding cladding to exteriors. Drawing elevations of the front of the house. They're absolutely not an architect, but they're doing things that look like architectural drawings. You're gonna need someone that knows interior design. So that makes this even more niche, right? Because now we need a technical designer that also knows interior design. 'cause otherwise, you're gonna end up with someone that you have to tell exactly what to draw. You're gonna say, I need a vanity with two sinks. And they're not gonna put in a tower. They're not gonna put in a drawer base, they're gonna just draw base cabinets. You really need someone that knows interior design. If you're hiring, I have to

Rebecca 40:14

just pause for a second because you're making me laugh so hard because we have all, as interior designers looked at architectural drawings of a bathroom or a kitchen or a bedroom, and we're like, somebody's supposed to live here. Like, yeah. What?

Jessica 40:30

Yeah. And there are drafters that get jobs at interior design firms and they're still drawing a rectangle for the vanity. You're gonna need someone that can go above and beyond that. You're gonna need someone that can do space planning and drafters are not space planners, right. Your door swings are gonna be wonky. And not speaking for everyone. Obviously there are fantastic drafters out there that, that do have interior design knowledge and just call themselves drafters. But in some cases you look at drawings and you're like, wow, like you said, someone's supposed to live here. This doesn't seem thoughtful at all. So you need to look at their portfolio and you need to think if this is a portfolio that you would feel comfortable presenting to one of your clients. There are some very messy drawing sets floating around. And that's why I say, if you're hiring someone, look at their drawings. you know, If they get to the point where you are, you are interviewing them for the job, have them sit down and go through the drawings and talk through their process and explain things to you and ask yourself, can I quickly look at this drawing and what's going on? Because if you can't, then your homeowner definitely can't,

Rebecca 41:47

and your contractor might not be able to either. they're also just regular humans trying to chase a deadline and they don't wanna work any harder than they have to. And they will not usually put in extra work just to be nice.

Jessica 42:00

Oh yeah. I mean there are definitely some contractors that will make assumptions. You know, I, I have a thing against Schluter and there's,

Rebecca 42:10

I'll battle you on that one. I'm a Schluter fan, but that's okay. We can stay friends.

Jessica 42:14

Yeah, absolutely. I have a lot of designers that do like Schluter but if you don't like Schluter, then we need to make sure that we put some pencil tile or something in your drawings, because otherwise they're gonna put Schluter in your shower.

Rebecca 42:28

Can we talk about floor transitions? Because that's another area where that comes up. If you're remodeling a part of a home, and I'm assuming you sometimes do drawings for partial remodels. Is that true? We

Jessica 42:38

do.

Rebecca 42:39

Okay. Yes. Do you bring up the transition between the old flooring and the flooring?

Jessica 42:46

Sometimes, so we do flooring schedules where we will show the different flooring materials. Those transitions definitely need to need to be discussed because if you have an old hardwood that's an inch thick and you're doing a three quarter inch tile or a half inch tile, you're gonna need some kind of a transition at that door. If we have a red flag, then we will bring it A lot of times with remodels, we are updating flooring so we don't have to worry about the transition as much. But yeah, it is something that we can put into the drawings if there's a concern or a red flag there, we can put notes in there that they need to build up the tile so that it's flush with the hardwood

Rebecca 43:37

Thinking about not hiring an independent, but thinking about hiring you and your colleagues. what separates somebody who's a good one from a mediocre one? And do. I as an independent designer, really stand a chance of being able to tell the difference?

Jessica 43:52

Yeah, I mean, The first project's always gonna be a gamble. If you do an intro call with me, we talk about your business, we talk about Blue Sky Creative, we talk about the services that we offer, and then I walk you through a construction document set and I show you 3D renderings within the set. So you have seen the work. so Number one, Always, always, always look at the work. Number two, ask things about scheduling. Ask if I reach out to you with a project, when are you gonna squeeze me in? Typically, we are one, maybe two weeks out. It's typically one week, but we're one to two weeks out. That's our standard, a smaller project, we'll try to squeeze in sooner. I had a designer tell me yesterday that she sent a project to the drafter that she's been working with, and she was told six weeks. You wanna ask those questions, because if you are the type of designer that's gonna have a project pop up and you're gonna need to have drafting in a week or two, and you know that about yourself, then you don't wanna bring on a firm that's gonna consistently be two months out on a project. Then I think the other thing is just making sure that you jive with that person because we're gonna spend time together. We're gonna email with each other, we're gonna talk to each other on the phone. And you wanna like the person that you're working with. So it's always gonna be a gamble. But the good thing is, and I don't know how everyone works, but the way that we work is there's no sign on fee. I know there are others who are doing that. We don't do that. We're not charging you $400 to get started with us. we do a service agreement and then we do a project together. If that project goes well and you're happy with the work, then you'll send us another project. So think about it like that. You know, you, you do a project together and if it goes great, then you found your partner. And it doesn't go great, then move on to the next partner.

Rebecca 45:55

Just like dating.

Jessica 45:56

Exactly.

Rebecca 45:58

I'm wondering if you can think about a time when a rendering or a drawing that you were creating caught a problem before it became an expensive mistake?

Jessica 46:08

It happens often. Yesterday I looked at some drawings where lighting that the architect put in is not centered, the can lights were not centered on the fireplace and the fans were centered on the can lights. So the fans were like 10 inches off from the fireplace. which is where they were gonna put the sofas. So luckily they've not gone to framing yet, so we're just gonna do another electrical plan. But we see some wonky lighting in Architecturals quite often.

Rebecca 46:43

Sometimes designers mistakenly think plumbers and electricians are following some sort of standard like, oh, I'll just tell them I need recess lighting, and then there's just one recipe for recess lighting, but that's not how it works at all. There are guidelines, but then in addition to, are they following any guidelines and what are those guidelines?

Jessica 47:07

Yeah,

Rebecca 47:07

Of course there's gonna be a beam, right where you wanna put the light

Jessica 47:12

Yeah, it's, it's, it's so true. Lighting is so specialized and there's definitely a recipe to it, but then a lot of it is just thinking about the furniture and thinking about like, how the space is gonna get used. And the architect is not thinking about the furniture.

Rebecca 47:31

I'm not sure architects think furniture even exists.

Jessica 47:33

No. So yes, we update lighting quite a bit. The other thing that we see see with Architecturals quite a bit is bathrooms not being laid out in the most optimal way. And again, with lighting, like they just put one single J box on the wall above the mirror and I'm like, this was a man, and this man does not wear makeup wear. We need some wall sconces in here.

Rebecca 48:03

Are you doing, and I'm assuming I know the answers, but I do not wanna assume anything. Are you doing switch plans like this switch controls this light, the dimmer is over here. Are you doing all that as part of these drawings?

Jessica 48:15

We'll do RCPs, we'll do electrical plans. We'll lay out the switches. We can do all of that with

Rebecca 48:20

rcp. Not everybody knows what that means.

Jessica 48:22

So with an RCP, that's reflected ceiling plan. And I always say that's like if you laid down on the floor on your back and you looked straight up. So we're gonna show, um, we're gonna show lighting, we're gonna show beams, we're gonna show anything decorative. But the difference with the electrical plan is, like you said, Rebecca, we're gonna show those switches and circuits.

Rebecca 48:43

Once the selections are made, you are actually showing the real, like Kohler handset to the right scale and where it's supposed to be installed and how high the shower head's supposed to be. All of that is to the actual reality of the things that have been specified.

Jessica 49:01

Yes, absolutely. So a lot of times, like with Kohler for example, they'll have a catalog and we can pull the DWG from the catalog. Um, but with some lighting and things like that, it's not always available. So we'll draw it in AutoCAD and that's one of the things I love about AutoCAD is that you can draw anything.

Rebecca 49:22

Have you ever opened a designer's file and immediately known that it was going to be a difficult project? And if so, what are the warning signs?

Jessica 49:31

Not necessarily opening a drawing and realizing that it's gonna be difficult. I would say usually the challenging projects have very little to do with the interior designer and everything to do with the homeowner making a lot of messy changes in the middle of the project that causes us to have to go back and change a lot of things. I mean, with construction drawings if you change one wall it changes so many but the challenging projects are sometimes the most fun. I'll say that they're, they're the most rewarding, at least.

Rebecca 50:11

And I, as a business coach for interior designers will say that while it can be our clients bringing the chaos, don't feel like you don't have any control over that. We have to communicate to our clients like there is a cost for revisions there is a limit on how many rounds of revisions we're going to do. And decisions are they not allowed to change without there being some sort of a time or money consequence.

Jessica 50:37

Hey friends, this seems like a good moment to jump in here and tell you that if you need help setting some smart rules, clear expectations, and bold boundaries in your interior design firm, you might wanna check out my client Onboarding business bootcamp. It's a live class taught online in a small cohort setting where you'll refine all your essential client documentation from your client intake form all the way to your design agreement. You'll create an onboarding journey that builds your client's trust in you and sets your projects up for profitable success. It's called Lead to Launch and you can find all the details@seriouslyhappy.com. Now back to the show!

Rebecca 51:23

There's a lot of things that you can do to reduce that chaos coming from the clients.

Jessica 51:29

Yeah absolutely. And you know, I try to give grace to the interior designers because I don't work directly with homeowners and I, I can't relate to that very well. So I try to give them some grace. But yeah, I think a lot of it probably has to do with boundaries.

Rebecca 51:45

It does. In your perspective, if decides that they're gonna outsource part of their job, what do you feel like that's really saving the designers from and allowing them to focus on.

Jessica 51:59

It is is saving them from having their design intent lost on site because the contractors, like we said, they will make assumptions. They are going to do what they've done in the past. They're on site working, they're there to finish the job and they're gonna finish the job. And if they don't have drawings, they're gonna finish it the way that they think it's supposed to be finished. So it's gonna save you from that. It's going to save you from having very hard conversations with GCs and not knowing the answers versus sitting down at a page turn and you've got your documentation in front of you and they say. How many J boxes are we supposed to install? And you flip to your electrical page and you count and you say 12. That's gonna feel so good compared to, oh gosh, let me try to figure that out. No, you're sitting there, you've got your documentation in front of you and you're ready to answer those questions. It's really gonna build that trust and it's really gonna make you look good and feel good on the job site. It's also gonna save you from living on the job site and having your phone ringing off the hook during construction.

Rebecca 53:21

Those seem like really positive things to get outta outsourcing.

Jessica 53:27

Absolutely.

Rebecca 53:28

As we wrap this up, what's something that you might wanna bust as a myth? What's something designers think outsourcing will be like, but in reality it's really different from that.

Jessica 53:39

A myth I would like to bust is that outsourcing costs you money. If you are outsourcing correctly, then the client is paying my fee. I think that we shouldn't look at it as, oh, technical design is gonna cost me money. Technical design should just be part of the process. It should be part of what the client is paying for. It shouldn't be coming out of the interior designer's pocket. If if you have a really good fractional partner, like we strive to be, then we're gonna help you make money. We're not gonna cost you money. You're gonna be able to take the bigger projects. You're gonna evolve from doing kitchens and baths to doing whole home renovations. You are gonna be able to get and keep the large new construction projects. We're working on two houses right now that are 30,000 square feet. 30,000 square feet. I'm sure that the interior designer did not start out doing 30,000 square foot, but how do you take on a project like that by yourself? You don't, having good technical design is going to build trust with the team. The GC is gonna recommend you. Builders are gonna wanna work with you. Developers are gonna wanna work with you. They're gonna bring you into their projects. We're not here to take money out of your pocket. We're here to help you grow and help you make more money.

Rebecca 55:10

By getting good at this or by bringing in the help, it does elevate you beyond being the pillow fluffer that nobody wants to see on a job site.

Jessica 55:20

Absolutely. You don't wanna show up to the job site with a mood board. You don't. and it happens! If you want to get brought in to these really big projects, if you wanna work with the best GC in your area, the GCs that are getting called on for the three, four, $5 million homes, you better show up with drawings. We are a behind the scenes extension of the team. Everything's white labeled. Your logo is in the title block. It looks very professional. We turn revisions around really fast. We're here to help you grow, help you make more money, and help you succeed. I'd like to blow that myth out of the water that outsourcing is so expensive and so time consuming because we're here to save you time and make you more money

Rebecca 56:15

and it will take a couple of test projects to make it feel like it's flowing. But that shouldn't be an obstacle to keep you from the success if that's where dreams are heading.

Jessica 56:26

Absolutely. We signed a new client in January and we just did our sixth project with her. Once you get that first one or two under your belt, it's gonna be so easy to just shoot them over and be able to work with your technical partner.

Rebecca 56:44

Is there anything you wanna leave our listeners with today?

Jessica 56:47

I just wanna leave listeners with: if you're afraid of technical design, don't be. If you find the right technical design partner, and maybe that's blue sky creative, then your technical design partner is going to educate you and teach you the things that you need to know. I mean, that's part of the work that we do. and if they're passionate about it, they're gonna want to share that passion with you. There's nothing to be afraid of. I'll also say, don't feel like because you weren't formally trained that you can't do this work. You absolutely can. You're here for a reason. You are talented. There are many, many interior designers that have four year degrees and master's degrees, and they don't wanna open AutoCAD and they don't wanna do technical design. So you're here for a reason. If there's a part of your business that you don't enjoy, they're someone that does enjoy it and they're gonna do a really great job.

Rebecca 57:43

Fantastic. And if people would like to find you, reach out to you, ask you questions, where are the best places

Jessica 57:49

I think the best places our website, which is blue ky creative.com. There's a contact form for new clients in there that you can fill out. And then I'll reach out immediately with a Calendly link and we can hop on an intro call and I will walk you through a construction document package. The other way is through Instagram and so, um, Instagram hates hyphens for some reason, so it's blue underscore sky creative. We would love to see you over on Instagram.

Rebecca 58:24

That's one of my favorite playgrounds as well. If somebody isn't sure about if their drawings are adequate, do you ever help somebody review their own drawings to go. Here's the gaps I'm seeing or, yeah, these are great.

Jessica 58:38

Yeah, we can definitely do a little consulting session where we sit down and look over those drawings together. If you know there's something missing, but you just don't know what it is, we can totally look through those together on maybe a one hour call and figure that out.

Rebecca 58:54

I think that's great. 'cause sometimes we don't know where we're at on the path and that's one of the first things we need to figure out before we can smart

Jessica 59:01

Absolutely.

Rebecca 59:02

Thank you so much for giving us all this insight into your fractional world and I'm hoping that it helps people out there make some really savvy business decisions as they grow their

Jessica 59:15

Me too. Thank you so much for having me.

Rebecca 59:19

Hey friends. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jessica, and it gave you insight into what it might look like to outsource your drawings by bringing on a fractional technical designer.

Rebecca 59:30

And remember, if your clients are bringing too much chaos to the table, there is something you can do about it. Let's have a placement chat and see if the lead to Launch Bootcamp might be just what your business needs to calm the chaos and make it possible to reach your goals as a designer and studio owner.

Rebecca 59:48

I may be living in France, but I'm always just a Zoom call away at seriouslyhappy.com! Till next time.