Vectorworks Training – Growing Again

On the back of the move to new premises, the new website and the fact that our training courses are currently over-subscribed, it’s not a surprise that Vectorworks Training is looking to recruit again!

So, are you looking to work in the design industry at the cutting-edge of technology, with our fantastic clients and develop a career within our growing team?

Vectorworks Training is the leading provider of Vectorworks software, training and support services in the UK and we currently have a full-time vacancy for a Junior Training Professional to join our dynamic and growing team. This is an exciting role for someone to expand their career in many ways and gain exposure to a range of design disciplines as well as many different roles across a growing organisation, including sales, marketing, training and support.

To be successful in this role you will have completed some form of design training (ideally with some exposure to the world of Architecture), and will have some experience of using a CAD system. Full training on Vectorworks will be given, but experience of other CAD systems will be an advantage, as well as a general aptitude for software packages.

Technical skills we can teach you, but far more important to us will be your ability to communicate with our clients effectively, both verbally and in a written form to provide effective training and to help build and maintain our strong client relationships. Not for the faint-hearted, this role requires someone adaptable with a “can-do” attitude.

You will be based in our offices in Newbury, Berkshire, but the role will involve some travel throughout the UK and Ireland.

We offer training and support to a wide range of design professionals, from Architects to Landscape Designers and from Interior Designers to Theatrical Lighting Professionals. Our clients may be working alone in a small business or part of  much larger organisations.

If you are interested in this role and would like to find out more, please contact Adrian Slatter initially, enclosing a copy of your CV and giving an indication of your salary expectations.

Designers passing out – in more ways than one!

Midsummer’s day tomorrow, so far away from Christmas, but we have had some presents this week regardless.

New Premises for Vectorworks Training

We mentioned the new website last week – well to go with that we have at last secured our new offices, still on the outskirts of Newbury. The office houses a training suite on the first floor, complete with Apple iMacs and PCs, capable of hosting all of our scheduled courses. On the ground floor, Adrian will be busy with the sales, marketing and support teams as our Vectorworks customer base continues to grow.

Surrounded by fields, but only 5 minutes from the M4 it’s an ideal base – see below.

Adrian chats with an equipment manufacturer at ABTT

Very unusually, we have been at 2 exhibitions this week – one as an exhibitor and one as a visitor. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we were extolling the virtues and benefits of Vectorworks Spotlight to a very receptive audience at the ABTT show (Association of British Theatre Technicians). Lighting Designers and Set Designers lead such interesting and varied lives – maybe

a U2 concert assignment last week, World Cup in South Africa this week, children’s TV show next week. I have to say that the equipment on display was impressive and fantastic to see that most of the products are already in Vectorworks Spotlight libraries, a great headstart for any designer. We were kept busy on the stand most of the time and Vectorworks demonstrations typically had a

jaw-dropping effect on people who had not used it before, although, if the student interest is anything to go by, there won’t be many non-Vectorworks users emerging from college soon! However, Adrian and I did get the chance to leave the stand in the hands of Kate and Ryan from time to time and talk to some of the few suppliers who aren’t in the resource libraries – Adrian’s passion for Vectorworks, every bit as big as mine, brought some interest from manufacturers as well as potential users.

Oxford College Passing Out Parade!

On Thursday, Kate and I got a chance to see the end of year exhibition at the Oxford College of Garden Design. It’s a real thrill walking round the exhibition, seeing  Vectorworks drawings showing off the skills of newly-trained Garden Designers. I have to say, I have nothing but admiration for everyone on the course who has spent a year, not only getting to grips with Vectorworks, but more importantly grasping the principles and nuances of garden design, finding their feet and finding their style in a hugely pressured environment. Yet again, Duncan Heather has brought all the students through with stunning projects – good luck to everyone and do keep in touch!

Interestingly, we ran our Vectorworks 3D course again on Friday. We had a mixed attendance of  Garden Designers, Commercial Interior Designers and Exhibition Designers. Both Garden Designers said that they were now being  ASKED by clients for 3D visuals in order to compete for work, hence their attendance. Not only that, but the thought that computer-based visuals would never be accepted by clients as well as hand-rendered drawings , was a view held only by their non-Vectorworks contemporaries, NOT their clients.

So – Glasgow here we come for the first two days before interior design training on Wednesday and our popular Landmark course on Thursday. You can find a full Vectorworks course schedule on our new website.

Vectorworks-Training.co.uk

The new Vectorworks Training website is released! Hopefully it’s brighter, more informative and helpful – explaining what Vectorworks can do for Architects, Landscape Architects, Interior Designers, Set Designers and Lighting Designers alike. Not only that, but you will be able to keep up to speed with our current classroom schedule and book on very easily.

It will also give you the opportunity to find out where you can see Vectorworks on show as we embark on a very busy schedule of events and exhibitions.

In amongst all of this, as you will see from the Contact Us page, we are also on the move to new offices, still in the Newbury area, enabling us to extend and improve the training, support and sales service we currently offer – but more about that next time…

Also, a big thank you to Joanne Somerville and the team at Design Eclectic who have been fantastically helpful in setting up the site.

As well as the classroom training in Newbury, we’ve been very busy training in London, Newcastle, Manchester and we’re back in Glasgow next week – so wherever you are based we are more than happy to come to you if you want us to. Also the new website and premises will enable us to move our online training offering forward during the summer.

So now for a busy week of moving into new offices, whilst still training and exhibiting at The Association of British Theatre Technicians – ABTT Show where you can find us showing off the fantastic talents of Vectorworks Spotlight, which makes creating 2D/3D light plots easy. At our last training session, one of the lighting designers present was blown away by the functionality, having previously used AutoCAD – he’s now spreading the word to his contacts.

Remarkable Renderworks by Daniel Jansenson, reviewed by Tamsin Slatter

Whilst in Columbia, Maryland with Nemetschek North America, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to review the work of one of my Vectorworks co-authors  Daniel Jansenson – “Remarkable Renderworks”. As you may have gathered, I am a huge fan of Renderworks. It is built so neatly into the Vectorworks product that it takes the user on a streamlined route to final lit and rendered models without leaving the Vectorworks workspace. We run regular courses on Renderworks (next one runs on 28th June) and always have a great time as our students develop wonderfully experimental schemes! “Pink” is often a recurring

theme as is “very, very shiny!”

3D Model created in Vectorworks and Rendered using Renderworks

But onto Dan’s book. As well as being a Renderworks fan, I’m a huge Dan fan – the book is great! It’s an excellent handbook to have next to you and will take

you through the basics of applying and editing textures then build the layers of complexity right through to fully rendered models – at all times reminding you to Keep It Simple – particularly in the area of lighting! I completely concur with this advice. For example, if you are new to rendering, it’s often hard to get your head around the idea that each physical light fitting in your scheme neednot necessarily be represented with a Vectorworks light object. Too many lights can needlessly stretch your render times. Dan reminds the reader of this at regular intervals and points out alternative ways to light a scene depending on your needs.

Dan’s writing style is clear and friendly and this book is a great companion for those really wanting to get under the hood with Renderworks, particularly for interior scenes. It has clear and simple

exercises to follow included on the CD. It’s available to purchase from us here at Vectorworks Training. Give us a call on 0845 003 7066 or drop us a line at info@vectorworks-training.co.uk.

A Week and Webinar in Columbia, Maryland

At the end of last post, my family packed my bag, detached me from my beloved iMac and dragged me to the airport, where we set off for our week of Vectorworks in Columbia, Maryland and the surrounds. We decided that as Vectorworks rules our entire life, we should take our children on our business trip to the home of Vectorworks – Columbia, Maryland. (Sorry school – but they really did learn lots while they were away!)

Our meetings at Vectorworks were great fun and it was excellent to touch base with all the familiar faces again, including meeting some for the first time.

Vectorworks Trainers of the future meet The President (almost)!

The Slatters in Night at the Museum 2!

One of the high points for me was running a joint webinar with Eric Gilbey, Nemetschek’s Landscape Architect and Landmark product specialist. It was great to be able to reach so many Vectorworks Landmark users in one go and to have heard from so many of you directly after the event. If you still have questions, please get in touch. Our webinar series is set to continue in the very near future so please watch this space.

We also took a little time to enjoy Washington DC and be tourists. There is so much to see and do. The museums were fantastic and we particularly enjoyed the Sculpture Garden – part of the National Art Gallery. We learned a lot about American history too.

And so nice of the First Family to endorse our visit!

Vectorworks Training Heads West

I write this when I should be packing my bag to head for Heathrow… Today I’m off to Columbia, Maryland to spend some time with my good friends at Nemetschek North America, the makers of Vectorworks. During the visit, I’ll be presenting a webinar on Vectorworks Landmark with their top landscape architect Eric Gilbey. Tune in if you are free – you can register here. The event is free of charge and will last for approximately 2 hours. All you need to do is sit in front of your computer! Whilst I am in the US, I have various other meetings lined up with users – I’m really looking forward to it.

Earlier this week I introduced Oxford College of Garden Design to the delights of terrain modelling in Vectorworks. Much of their work to date has been centred around 2D plans and Wednesday’s session focused on the enormous range of 3D modelling capabilities within Vectorworks. But it was the ability to create a model of the existing terrain and use tools to modify the contours gaining an indication of cut and fill requirements which really captured their hearts! They have just been through the process of drawing 2D plans of their contour changes – realising how easy it will be to use their existing survey information and their designs to translate that to a 3D model got them really excited. We are running a public course on terrain modelling with Vectorworks on 20th May – there are still a few spaces left. Take a look and we hope to see you there. Understanding levels can be the key to a successful build.

Vectorworks Model Post-Rendered with Piranesi

Much earlier in the week, the whole team was invited to go and meet with the guys at Piranesi. I had been aware of the product but so busy that I’d not really taken it. We were STUNNED. For those of you that have real artistic talent (unlike me!!) this tool is amazing. Suffice to say we were sold and our training course will be available soon and we’ll have some more examples of what can be achieved up on the website soon. We are also able to supply the software and support. This image was produced by Kate in just a few minutes using the model created in the exercises in my book. Wow!

Last night, I was delighted to be asked to show off Vectorworks at the opening of Ruscrete’s new design centre in Titchfield, Hampshire. It’s a lovely building and I am quite jealous of their design team who will get to work in this cool new space. The design centre has several show gardens which demonstrate some of the beautiful range of materials that Ruscrete can supply. The idea is that landscapers can bring their clients to the space to get a real feel for these materials.

OK – that’s it for now. Off to catch that plane (and I really must pack first). More from the US coming soon!

The Launch of Ruscrete's New Design Centre

Vectorworks Meets Reality at RHS Cardiff Show

Congratulations to Caroline Jones and her team who were awarded a Silver Gilt medal at the RHS Cardiff Show! I included her Vectorworks model in my last post, she’s been kind enough to supply some photographs of the finished garden. I was interested to know if designing the garden in this way had made any impact on the build process. For example, did modelling in 3D beforehand highlight any potential construction issues BEFORE being under pressure on site?

Caroline tells me that it made a huge difference from the way she has designed in the past. Although the plan was designed some time ago in 2D, using an earlier version of Vectorworks, Caroline decided that this was going to be “the one” to take her to the third dimension. She found 3D invaluable for working out how to place the glass panel in the sleepers. She also found it really useful to look at the exact dimensions of the glass panel, but when disaster struck on site and the glass panel broke, Vectorworks came out again during the build and was used to model “what if” scenarios for changing the size of the panel.

The use of viewports and sheet layers was useful for showing landscapers and the RHS various different views of her 3D model.

Saturday saw us again at the Society of Garden Designers Conference in London. It was great to see so many familiar and friendly faces. As usual, we were completely mobbed by both existing and new users for Vectorworks Landmark which has rapidly become the industry standard CAD package for garden designers. It was very sad that one of the speakers was unable to attend because of the closure of UK airspace. In fact, we drove past Heathrow on our way into London and were astonished at how quiet and eerie it seemed without the constant plane noise. Very peaceful, but of course proving disastrous for so many.

We launched our new range of classroom courses at the SGD event. Our one to one training still remains our most popular option but we have seen a huge amount of interest in our classroom sessions. Our Vectorworks Foundation course is always full and we are delighted to announce that we now have a follow on Vectorworks Landmark day as a classroom offering. In addition to this, we are running a course on Terrain Modelling in Vectorworks – this is suitable for both Landscapers and Architects who wish to show their design in the context of a sloping site, or even “sculpt the land” around new features in the landscape. We find more and more that our clients need to provide quality 3D visuals for their own clients. The Vectorworks digital terrain modelling tools allow you to modify contours accurately and easily, using Vectorworks as a design tool. Then you can show the contractor exactly what your plans involve – as well as gain an indication of cut and fill requirements. And of course, you can present the proposed site in 3D too, allowing you to gain that all-important buy-in from clients.

Forthcoming Course dates:

13th May: Vectorworks Foundation
19th May: Vectorworks Landmark
20th May: Vectorworks Digital Terrain Modelling

For more information, please visit our website

Do I still love David Tennant?

This weekend has been one of chocolate and change. Whilst change is always stimulating, I faced this particular change with some trepidation. After earmarking David Tennant as my second husband, I was facing the new series of Dr Who with real fear. HOW could there be a new guy in the TARDIS? And how could he be so young??? I spent the afternoon in preparation, watching Casanova starring the lovely David T – it seemed the loyal thing to do. When the time came, I was prepared to be disappointed, but was pleasantly surprised. Matt Smith was fantastic and the forthcoming series looks great. Of course he will never be David T, and it would be obscene for me to form any kind of imaginary romantic attachment to him (he is young enough to be my son), but I will be able to watch this with the family and still enjoy. Relief. I wonder if they used Vectorworks in the redesign of the TARDIS interior??

My second emotional wrangle is over Apple’s new iPad. I know I don’t really NEED one, but it just looks so beautiful. I am sure it is only a matter of time until I convince myself of a pressing NEEEEEEED… I was interested to read Stephen Fry’s article on the subject in which he describes having to have it wrestled from his hands. I will watch with interest. I’m particularly keen to see how the Bookstore works out.

Cardiff Show Garden modelled in Vectorworks by Caroline Jones

And so to this week’s Vectorworks news. I am delighted to wish Caroline Jones and Broxton & Moruzzi Landscaping great fortune with their show garden at the CARDIFF RHS SPRING FLOWER SHOW from 16th to 18th April 2010. Designed and modelled entirely in Vectorworks, the show garden has been designed to be a comfortable and pleasing space for a busy late middle-aged or retired couple who want to enjoy being in their garden without having to do too much maintenance. She and her team have used recycled rubber chippings in different colours which look attractive and don’t rot. Other interesting features include the unusual sleeper wall, the timber globe, glass panels and water feature. The planting has been designed to give year round interest, and to be attractive to wildlife. Caroline has been using Vectorworks for some time, but has used both my book and some one to one training and support to change her working process and make the leap into 3D. Our next meeting will look at terrain modelling – exciting stuff!

Good luck with the show garden Caroline!

Britain Gets Moving with Vectorworks

Regardless of political persuasion, the state of the economy affects us all. We have seen a definite growth in enquiries and business in the last two months and hopefully the new funds for small business announced in the budget will help even further.

In fact, training clients with funding from Government agencies has helped to keep us busy over the last two years. Through references to the quality of our training on Vectorworks we have become an approved supplier of training to the Department of Work and Pensions and Business Link. We are often involved in helping people to get their businesses moving through the use of Vectorworks or helping them to retrain. One example is Karen Randles who is training with us and starting a second career as an Interior Designer.

One factor helping to spread the Vectorworks word is the increasing adoption of the software by educational establishments for students. Not only do we train a large number of students from a variety of colleges during the year, we also lecture formally at some of these colleges as well. The knock-on effect of this is that we are  attracting commercial clients who see Vectorworks as the way forward because increasingly, new graduates are emerging with Vectorworks skills. A recent example is a Landscape Architect in the North-East who made his decision to move forward with Vectorworks and Vectorworks Training, partly based on his feedback from colleges and new graduates.

Hopefully you will see our brand new website go live shortly and we will have dates for our eagerly awaited Digital Terrain Modelling course which is aimed at architects, garden designers and landscape architects. We have seen a good response to our latest Vectorworks Landmark training courses designed to build on from our Foundation training or as a refresher for those already using the software and help them with best practice.

But it’s not all buildings and landscaping. As well as our trip to the North East, we’ve been working with Exhibition Designers and showing them that Vectorworks isn’t just about 2D plans and elevations. They can model and render the whole design in Vectorworks, knocking out a couple of time-consuming extra steps in the process!

Anyone want to run an airline?

Our earlier activity in Scotland is keeping us busy, bringing people from all aspects of design to the world of Vectorworks. This week I have had a really great time, spending 2 days at the National Museum of Scotland working with them, showing them how they can bring their exhibits to life with Vectorworks – it’s always interesting to meet new users and see how they use the software - and designers are always such nice people.

Also, we had a group day with a mixture of architects and landscape architects/garden designers, getting to grips with using Vectorworks to save them time and create stunning client presentations. Everybody had fun and learned lots, so more dates to be arranged in Scotland shortly!

We also announced some new courses aimed at Vectorworks Landmark users and they start at the end of this month. People are already booked on, despite little marketing and we are looking forward to meeting more new customers. This, combined withour new SketchUp course, points to a busy April

However, the week was not without its challenges. Having arranged to fly from Oxford to Edinburgh with a new local service, the flight was cancelled at the last minute as the service provider had failed after only one week of business! The Sunday Times ran an article about the person who had started the airline and this was apparently the second airline he had set up and had failed – all this at the age of 23! However, it does seem that there is a potential business opportunity and a number of more experienced airlines are hoping to step in. I really hope that they do because flying from Oxford would be so much easier and more convenient than the trip to Heathrow.

So – anyone want to run an airline?

National Museum of Scotland