Put a small cabinet, desk or shelf before you. Stand facing it. Then walk to one side. Finally, look down from the top as far as your room allows. Each of these three positions tells you something different. In the front view, you see the doors, drawers and shelves. In the side view, you learn how deep the unit is and where the supports are located. In the top view, you discover what the outline of the unit looks like, how the walls are positioned and how much walking space is available. Furniture designs use these three different views because no single view can provide all the information clearly.
A perspective drawing helps you imagine the style of your furniture design, but it can obscure errors in size. For example, a deep cabinet may seem small from a perspective view because the sides slope backwards in the drawing. A desk that looks wide in perspective may not have enough room underneath for your knees. Drawing from the front, side and top views eliminates much of this visual trickery. All the lines are straight, and you can directly compare corresponding dimensions. You will see mistakes before you waste time refining knobs, paints or edges.
First, draw a simple front elevation. Indicate the overall width and height, and mark where the main panels, legs, shelves, drawers or cabinet doors will be. Remember that every piece has a thickness rather than being a line only, and you must allow room for that. This immediately changes your calculation of the inside space. Now draw the side elevation in the same scale. Draw each shelf and support height as indicated on the front view, then add the overall depth. A shelf that moves between the two views is an obvious sign of trouble, and you need to fix it.
The top view helps the furniture relate to the room and its contents. For a desk, it shows the worktop depth, the chair and how you access it, the space required for cables, and how much room you have left for walking. For a cabinet, the top view will help you see if any doors or drawers will bump the wall, a skirting board or something else. You draw out how the doors and drawers move with faint lines or arcs, then trace where a person’s hands, knees and feet will need to be. This is very helpful when your furniture is going into a corner or a very narrow passage, or the room has skirting boards, and space is limited.
A common challenge is that all three views must stay in sync. For instance, a designer may make a drawer wider on the front view, but then forget to change the position of side runners or the internal division of the drawer elsewhere. Use guidelines when transferring measurements that are shared between views. Be sure to label that measurement in exactly the same way on every related view. When you make a change to any view, compare two views against each other; the front with the side, the side with the top and the top with the front. This will help you catch any errors in the height of panel positions or where a panel moves in the third dimension, or a shelf or support that appears in one view but not the other.
Once all three views show agreement without you having to change them repeatedly, improvements are visible. The design’s width matches its depth and overall size. Shelves stay the same heights as in your elevation drawing. Any doors and drawers have space to move. At this stage, go back to your perspective drawing and draw the furniture again according to the measurements you just checked. The view may now look a bit different to your initial concept, but it will be a design that is easier to understand, test and progress to the next stage.