The latest issue of the Small Projects Forum Journal offers the “Best of Tips and Techniques” gleaned by the Small Project Forum PIA’s 2002 advisory group from issues dating back to the publication’s launch in 1994. Topics include: accurate note taking, architect-builder relations, client relations, time management, and marketing publicity.

In an introductory editorial, SPF Chair Mark Lewis Robin, AIA, of Mark Lewis Robin Architecture, Nashville, explains how the journal offers a place for architects in small practice to share how their personal experiences “road tested” ideas: the good, the bad, and the ugly. “The journal was never a slick and glossy publication. Instead, it has always been more down to earth and folksy, compiled by honest and real-world contributors who are never pretentious enough to admonish someone else’s practice but willing to share personal professional experiences openly,” he writes. “Today, Journal contributors have articles published in major publications such as Architectural Record. Others have had their small projects recognized by winning AIA design awards. We have not changed our hearts. It’s just that the tide has risen.”

Following is a sample of one of the tips, this one taken from Journal 13, published in 1998.

Before and After
by Diana K. Melichar, AIA
Chicago, Ill.

A fun and very affordable marketing technique for remodeling projects is the before/after snapshot comparison. Our client portfolios are filled with expensive, professionally photographed works, but more clients respond with surprise and amazement at the transformations shown in our before/after project photos. When we survey a property to be remodeled or added on to, I’ll take a photo from one vantage point that “tells the story.” Then, after the project is completed, I go back to the identical spot to photograph the “after.”

Copyright 2003 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.