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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

The Field Template™ Rules! English Metric Stencil

Over the years we've had reactions to the Field Template™ Rules! stencil from lighting designers around the world.

  • "I say, old chap, why don't you produce a stencil with international symbols?”
  • "Oy! Mate, even though the scales are similar, we need a template in our kit based on the metric scale!”

Well, to all our international friends, we say "Wait no more!" 

Introducing the The Field Template™ Rules! English Metric Stencil, the template used ’round the metric world. This template made it’s debut at the 2010 LDI convention in Las Vegas, and it was maahvelous!

 
  • First, Shelley selected 32 of today’s latest symbols: ETC, Strand, Selecon, Robert Juliat, and Reich & Vogel, along with generic striplights and moving lights. He sorted them into appropriate categories, to allow for easier recognition.
  • Then he added a collection of symbols not found on any other template! LED designations, scrollers, tophats and halfhats, dimming shutters, concentric rings, HMI indicators, and a host of circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles.
  • Next, Shelley arranged the collection of symbols onto his patented Pro•Grid System. The pre-spaced distance between symbols is 50 centimeters, while the surrounding grid is based on 10 centimeter increments. This means symbols can be drawn at any measured distance between each other without the use of a scale.
  • As usual, he also aligned the symbols, so that the thick horizontal line indicates a batten, the hang point for each instrument.
  • Adjacent to each symbol’s label, Shelley’s provided the generic beam spread, the hanging weight [kilos], and metric cut color size for that instrument type, to allow for easy reference.
  • Next, he fit the symbols into a plastic page that’s just a little taller than an A4 piece of paper, and added four holes on the left-hand side—the template can be snapped into a two-ring or four-ring notebook. And the top of the template sticks up above the rest of the A4 paper. Not only can you find the template quick, it acts like a tab!
  • Finally, Shelley designed the template so that the 32 symbols are repeated in TWO SCALES—1:25 and 1:50 . 

And each scale is printed on each side of the template. For that matter, a 1/2” and 1/4” scale is printed across the bottom of the template as well.

No scale ruler - a complete package of cutout symbols in two scales - specific information about each symbol printed right on the stencil. All this seamlessly combined into a single plastic appliance.

The Field Template Rules! English Metric Stencil. Another addition to the Field Template drafting family known as Referance Manuals in Plastic,  allowing accurate light plots to be drafted cleaner, faster, and smarter - on a global scale. 

Viva la Drafting Revolution!! Now available from your Field Template dealer.

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