Saw a detail drawing in a museum that changed how I think about notes

I was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Boston last month, looking at an old ship engine display. The original mechanical drawings had notes written directly on the parts in the view, not in a separate callout box. It made the whole thing read faster. Do you think putting notes on the view itself is ever better than using a clean title block and leader lines?

3 comments

3 Comments

max_foster14d agoTop Commenter

Funny you should ask, my own drawings are a mess of scribbled notes that only I can read. In my experience, putting notes right on the view is way faster for the person actually building the thing, especially for one-off repairs or prototypes. It cuts out the back-and-forth of looking at a separate callout box. For a final, clean drawing meant for wider use, a title block is probably better, but that old-school method has its place.

barbara64914d ago

Oh man, "mess of scribbled notes that only I can read" is so real. My desk is covered in sticky notes with my own shorthand that makes zero sense if I look back a week later. That method you described for one-off stuff totally makes sense, it's like you're just having a direct chat with the person doing the work.

iris56512d ago

Right? What is it about our own handwriting that becomes a secret code after a few days? I once found a note that just said "fix the thing by the stuff" and I had no clue.