Client told me my hatch patterns were too busy, changed how I do sections

I honestly never thought about hatch patterns being an issue until that engineer said something. I used to throw in like 6 different patterns for concrete, insulation, wood, metal, you name it. He said it looks messy and slows down comprehension on site. So I cut it down to three patterns max and kept angles consistent across all my sections. Now I use solid fill for concrete, diagonal lines at 45 degrees for insulation, and a dot pattern for wood. My drawings look so much cleaner and I spend less time fiddling with settings. It's a small change but it made a big difference in how people read my work. Anyone else get feedback that seemed minor but ended up being a game changer?

2 comments

2 Comments

eric_johnson8d ago

Ha! Sounds like your client was playing interior designer with your technical drawings. I had a GC tell me my lineweights looked like a spaghetti diagram, so now I stick to exactly three widths and label everything twice. Crazy how one grumpy old guy with a red pen can save you from yourself.

thompson.christopher8d ago

My old boss actually had a similar rule from a book called "Architectural Drafting and Design" where it said too many hatch patterns can cause eye fatigue on construction sites. I read that somewhere years ago but never took it seriously until now. You're right about limiting them, three patterns max sounds like a solid rule to follow. I noticed when I cut down to just concrete and wood fills, subs started catching mistakes way faster during walkthroughs. Plus it makes the PDFs smaller when you're emailing them around which is a bonus. It's wild how something so basic can either help or hurt the people actually building your stuff.