FROM MANCHESTER TO LONDON, SYDNEY, AND NEW YORK IN 18,250 (ish) DAYS…

I grew up in Manchester, England, before studying architecture in London. After graduation, I relocated to Sydney, Australia to work for Hassell Studios. After an eventful twelve months, I flew to Nepal and spent a year climbing in the Himalayas. Afterwards, I accepted a job at Eisenman Architects in NY, which I loved, but when my visa expired I returned to the UK.

Back in London, I took a fantastic job at Grimshaw Architects designing spaceship-looking buildings which won a lot of awards. After a five fun years, I left Grimshaw to work for KPF architects on wonderful projects that won a lot of awards.

By this point I’d been in London for ten years and was itchy to travel again, so relocated to New York, working for both KPF’s and Grimshaw’s NY offices.

Life moves on. I got married and had two kids, moved to Gensler Architects for a more family-oriented lifestyle, and won more awards. However, something had been bugging me about architectural visualizations…

Everyone was using computer renderings, which made everything look the same.

Too many misty mountain scenes, too many saturated blue skies. I was tired of it, and I knew my clients were.

The same old presentations give the same old results.

Same old illustrator diagrams, same old renderings. How could a client pick an architect amongst all this repetition?

Wasn’t it time to break free?

I'd watched clients obsess over door materials and carpet colors while ignoring the actual design. Why? Because renderings were so common all impact had been lost, and without the wow, all that was left were the details.

Without clear, direct communication of your idea, any image is a wasted opportunity.

My method of visualization and communication has grown through 20 years of presentation experience. I’ve learned to communicate the simplicity of space, materials and light without the images distracting from the design. My illustrations completely change how a client interacts with your work.

Once I understood the strength of my approach, I started a company producing hand-drawn illustrations to help people communicate their ideas. It went far better than expected, and within a year I was featured on the Apple website. Why were these drawings so successful?

They are instantly understandable.

They engage the viewer immediately and directly.

They are unique, so your presentation feels fresh and different.

They make people smile.

Through thousands of case studies this approach has been proven to win work and lower costs.

Let your work speak for itself!

And that brings us to today, where I am lucky enough to have clients in Europe, Asia and the America’s. It seems it took all these jobs and this travel to really understand how to communicate design in a way that speaks for itself…

I’d love to help your work stand out from the crowd, so email me at jim@jimkeen.com and let’s chat!

INTERVIEWS:

ArchDaily: In Praise of Drawing - A Case for the Underrated Craft

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Architizer: Four Common Problems With Architectural Renderings

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Archipreneur: How Jim Keen’s Hand Drawn Illustrations Stand out from Renderings