Our ability as designers to communicate and represent what we can imagine is crucial to the expression, understanding and ultimately the success of our work. We are not only responsible for designing the inputs (ideas) but we also must design the outputs (artifacts) as well as the communication of these artifacts.

The visual communication of architectural ideas is additionally complex as these representations are not only required to explain the conceptual framework of a project but also to convey the reality of the artifact (building). These representations become artifacts themselves while still representing the ultimate full-scale version of the modeled object.

As professionals we understand immediately the inherent value in successful communication methods both visual and verbal. Architecture students, however, tend to focus on the architectural design of the project artifacts without understanding that the representational artifacts must be designed as well in order to be compelling communication tools. The effective design of the architectural diagram, for example, is as important as the design of the actual architectural artifact and in fact the two are symbiotically tied to ensure the communication of the design ideas.