rediscover the benefits of designing and drawing in the digital era

Even in the digital age, there’s a place for designing, thinking and presenting ideas by hand. Drawing by hand communicates to the lizard brain. As a form of art, it maintains your design options and connects your clients with their emotions. It accesses regions of the imagination that have evolved over millennia of human history and may be unavailable via keyboard and mouse. It helps you stand out from your competitors. It's not right in every situation, and one would be foolish to give up the benefits of modern 2D and 3D CAD production, but when you want to keep your early design options fluid and differentiate yourself from the crowd, hand drawing is hard to beat.

I have been a registered architect and illustrator for over 25 years. My specialty has been to provide sketching, rendering, and what I call "design stenography" services to many of NYC’s leading architects. This often involves working in their offices (or via Zoom), drawing on my experience as a designer to fill in details when necessary to help design teams get to the next phase. For more information, text me or call me at four-one-three; two-five-zero; eight-eight-zero-zero or at jakers3@gmail.com. Leave a message if I’m out and I’ll get back to you right away.

And be sure to browse our new online courses in Procreate, Sketchup for iPad and (coming soon) Morpholio Trace

my story

James Akers is a registered architect and architectural illustrator with over 25 years experience. His YouTube Procreate tutorial channel has thousands of subscribers (please join us!), and he provides both in-house and studio-based sketching and rendering—what one might call "design stenography" services—to many of NYC's and Boston’s leading architects.

This website is dedicated to Spencer James Akers, who would have loved the fact that his dad is still using both the Squarespace website and the gmail address he helped him set up. I love you, Spence.