AIBD has been collecting documents and resources for building designers for years. If you haven't looked through Designer Docs lately—or you've never looked at it at all—you might be surprised by what's in there.

There are around 80 resources covering just about every part of working as a building designer.

You'll find things you can use with clients, including a New Home Design Questionnaire, Client Information Outline, Design Worksheet, Home Design Proposal, Room & Budget Calculator, Client Responsibility List, and Steps in the Design Process.

There's even a Design Questionnaire for Your Pets, because sometimes the four-legged clients have requirements too.

For the business side, there's an Hourly Rate Calculator, One-Page Business Plan, Project Tracker, 90-Day Cash Plan, SWOT Analysis Form, and a Project Analysis and Job Costing worksheet.

There are also quite a few agreements and forms: building design service agreements, consultation agreements, a Professional Building Designer Service Contract, Change Order, Notice to Proceed, License Agreement, Addendum Form, and more.

And that's still only part of the library.

There are Construction Drawing and Due Diligence Checklists, residential specifications, bidding forms, site evaluation and field report forms, technical references, drawing tools, and 13 architectural pattern books and style guides.

A lot of the files are editable, so you can take what's useful, adapt it to your own needs and make it part of your workflow. Even if you already have your own systems in place, it's worth looking through the library to see how other designers have approached the same problems.

And if you work for a design firm rather than running one yourself, there's plenty here for you too. The drawing checklists, design questionnaires, due diligence tools, style guides, technical documents and other design resources aren't just for firm owners.

Ready to take a look?

If you're an AIBD member, you already have access. Log in at AIBD.org and open the Document Library from the Members menu.

If you're not a member, join AIBD to get access to Designer Docs along with the other benefits of membership.

-AIBD's Education Committee

P.S. We're working on something even bigger called Business in a Box. We're putting together a new collection of resources focused specifically on the business side of a building design practice.

More on that soon.