Ha! 3DA.......apparently people don't need to pay for design anymore, just beg borrow and steal wherever possible ;)

nothing compares with a combination of well educated client with enthusiastic professional and we're very happy with the professional help we happily pay for

oklouise, unfortunately there is a significant proportion of the general population & community here who don't "get it" in the same way as obviously you do. It doesn't help that in this day and age there is almost an underlying expectation that you can get advice and ideas without having to pay for any of it because it's all literally at our fingertips, on our devices/apps etc......ultimately this mentality is damaging to our industry and sadly undermines the eventual project investment

obviously there are some "professionals" operating to arguably less than professional standards and unfortunately they contribute to the confusion of the value of what we do, and make it harder for you guys to trust us at the time that you actually most needs us. There is also a significant difference between a Pro who knows what their doing properly clarifying/translating information as required throughout the design process, to having the subtleties and complexity dumbed down for the sake of "plain language" that risks misinterpretation and underestimation of what's involved. I completely agree, it's often made way harder than it needs to be, and I think again it's horses for courses and certainly there are many professionals who would arguably be best utilised for their skills specifically contained to within the professional industry boundaries, yet others who are naturally better at "bridging the gap" and liaising/working/communicating seamlessly with both the clients and the industry. Unfortunately, to the average punter it's very very difficult to distinguish and gauge these critical key differences between the various Pro's.

until after they've already paid the fees...eg my neighbour paid $10,000 progress payments to an architect before they realised that the suggested design was to replace an existing garage with a carport.........so very disappointing as i was really looking forward to seeing some exciting professional suggestions and the clients were so badly burned that they missed an opportunity and settled for the most boring renovation..

Yes that can happen and very unfortunate indeed, and clearly a breakdown of communication/misinterpretation/missing of critical brief detail somwhere there.....in some cases like that it can be hard /impossible to regain trust/faith in the process.....which is why i bang on about clearly defining project goals and expectations as soon and as clearly as possible......it goes a long way to avoid what you have described, but unfortunately some operators just don’t have the capacity regardless of their “qualifications”....as i said, vastly different levels of service within this industry that is very difficult to identify just on face value