Resources

Field Template Dealers

What others are saying

When I started using Vectorworks some 16 years ago I was fortunate to come across the Field Template SoftSymbol range not long after. They are the absolute benchmark for high quality, detailed and most of all clearly drawn symbols. They are the first ones I reach for when starting a new design and as a side by side comparison with the stock supplied VW symbols…well there is no comparison.

Max Conwell
Lighting Designer, Naked Eye Lighting Ltd., www.nakedeyelighting.com

Some [lighting designers] have always drawn their own symbols. If that’s the path you choose, that’s fine. For everyone else, there’s Steve Shelley and his SoftSymbols™. The range of products covered is remarkable. The price, given the amount of work that must be involved, remarkably low. Which is perhaps why they’re so widely used, particularly by lighting designers and their associates in America - a country that really does care about beautiful light plots. If you do too, check them out: this is a working classic, still in use daily...

Rob Halliday
Lighting Designer and Author for Light and Sound International, February 2020

What makes SoftSymbols so useful is that they are thoroughly researched, well made and above all, stick to some rigorous drafting standards that are maintained across the whole catalog.

Mark Doubleday
Lighting Designer, UK

Soft Symbols are my Vectorworks symbol library of choice, and have been since my tenure as Hubbard Street’s Lighting Director. Steve has created a product that is incredibly thorough, thoughtful, and well-organized. It looks great at any scale, is appropriate for every type of lighting gig, and could only have come from someone with his level of experience and attention to detail. It is an invaluable resource to me and will continue to be my go to library for the foreseeable future.

Matt Miller, Freelance Lighting Designer/Director
Chicago, IL

SoftSymbols are the symbol library of choice for the Lincoln Center Festival, and for all my other professional activities. They are cleanly built, graphically sophisticated, and the libraries are by far the most complete. There’s no other choice as far as I’m concerned.

Aaron Copp, Lighting Coordinator, Lincoln Center Festival, and freelance lighting designer
New York, NY

I did the Lab Rep Plot revisions with SoftSymbols. LOVE IT! So does the crew and the union House Elec. We also think the twenty-or-so production teams coming into the Lab this spring (who’ll receive print copies of this drawing) will love it too. I cannot tell you how happy I am to have SoftSymbols™ - I trust my layouts again, since your symbols are the same size as the objects they represent (DUH!), and my drawings look more like my drawings again. Woo hoo!

Martha Mountain, Freelance Lighting Designer
Washington DC

A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting 3rd ed.

ISBN-13: 978-0415812009
ISBN-10: 0415812003

In the first edition of A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, Steve Shelley cracked open his production book and showed how to prepare a lighting design and create the paperwork needed to mount a production.

In the second edition, he pulled back the curtain and showed the methods and processes that go on before the light plot is finalized and ready to go to into the shop, even dealing with cutting the plot in half.

In this third edition, Shelley throws the door wide open and shows step-by-step how to construct every lighting system in the Hokey light plot. Combining his diacritical analysis, killer drafting, and analytic use of the Slinky Method and Slinky Calculations, he presents the Periodic Table of Fundamental Lighting Systems and shows the basic methods used to create multi-instrument lighting systems.

Highlights Include

* Over 100 new topics, including analysis and application of the three categories of collaboration; detailed examinations of production meetings, approaching production schedules and budgets; one-on-one meetings and checklists with management and the creative team.

* Over 50 new illustrations, including Shelley's Periodic Table of Fundamental Lighting Systems -- groundplans, sections, and front elevations that illustrate basic system wash configurations for each direction of light.

* Analysis, calculation, examples, and step-by-step technical construction of each lighting system in the Hokey light plot.

* Detailed examination of techniques used to light backdrops, scrims, and translucencies in the scenic stack.

* Explanation of a manufacturer's cut sheet, and how to apply basic formulas to determine beam size, footcandle, and gel transmission for lighting instruments.

* Updated discussion of the process for pre-programming computer lighting consoles prior to the load-in.

* Comprehensive overview of archiving paperwork and softcopy for a production.

Visit the book’s website here: A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting, 3rd Edition, published by Routledge.

Accepted payment methods: Visa, Mastercard, and American Express