Can we talk about that old timer who told me to stop using gridlines

I had this senior drafter at my firm in Philly tell me to turn off all gridlines because they'd make my drawings sloppy. I listened to him for 6 months and my floor plans came out so crooked on site that the framers called me out. I finally turned them back on last week and my line spacing went from guessing to dead on every time. It cost me $400 in wasted materials on one job alone. Has anyone else gotten bad advice from someone with 20 years of experience who was just stuck in their own way?

2 comments

2 Comments

dylanbarnes21d ago

Gridlines are a crutch that keep you from developing real hand-eye coordination.

the_robin21d ago

Gridlines are like training wheels - they help you get started but can hold you back if you never take them off. Once you force yourself to draw without them, your brain actually starts learning to judge spacing and angles on its own. The real coordination comes from making mistakes and seeing where you went wrong, not from following preset lines. Gridlines give you a false sense of accuracy that disappears when you have to sketch something from life or your imagination.