Architecture Presentation Board Layout: Sizes, Grid, and Render Prep

How do you prepare an architecture presentation board, and what size should it be?

An architecture presentation board (a “pafta” in Turkish) is the sheet that explains a project to a jury or a client at a glance: plan, section, elevation, render, diagram and a little text share one surface. Deniz Kürşad's article in a Turkish fine arts journal (“Mimari Sunum Paftalarında Görsel Tasarım İlkelerinin Uygulanması Üzerine Öneriler”, Atatürk University Journal of the Institute of Fine Arts, 2020, available on DergiPark) says these boards are mostly A0 or A1, used in portrait or landscape. It also says there is no set standard for board design.

You usually do not choose the size; your brief does. The final-jury rules of one university architecture department for the 2024-2025 spring term show how much it varies: the first two studio courses ask for 50×70 cm, the third asks for A1, and the fourth asks for A1 or 70×100 cm and notes that the board may be extended horizontally. Open your own brief first and take the size and orientation from it.

A-series paper sizes are defined in ISO 216. A0 is 841×1189 mm, and each size is the previous one cut in half across its long side. Table 1 below converts A3 through A0, plus the two sizes from the example above (50×70 and 70×100 cm), into pixels. The formula is millimeters ÷ 25.4 × dpi. The sizes are portrait; swap width and height for a landscape board.

The 150 and 300 dpi columns are only two reference points. Your print shop or your brief tells you which resolution is enough; if it does not say, ask.

A render rarely fills the whole board, so what you need depends on its printed width: width (cm) ÷ 2.54 × dpi. A render that will be 40 cm wide needs about 2362 pixels at 150 dpi and about 4724 at 300 dpi.

How do you build the layout: grid, reading order and one hero image?

Laying out a board means choosing what the viewer looks at first. Kürşad's article names three layout types for architectural boards: grid, single image and blended. In a grid layout the components sit on an invisible grid. According to the article, that grid also guides you before you start, and alignment plus the gaps between components keep the board balanced and readable.

For reading order, the article suggests leading the eye first to the visual emphasis, then to the text, then to details such as diagrams, axonometric drawings, legends and the site plan. The main idea should be clear at first glance; the article describes that as usually a large visualization with strong color and high contrast. A second focal point can use smaller images and supporting text.

Choose the layout type by your project. If you have many drawings of equal weight (typology plans, details), a grid makes the job easier. If the project rests on one strong perspective, the hero image takes most of the board and everything else supports it. This reading comes from general practice; the article does not match layout types to projects this way.

In practice this means the following (general practice, not rules):

• One hero image. If six images share the same size, none of them is the hero.
• Leave space. The article describes white space as a tool for building hierarchy.
• Check from two distances. From far away the title, hero image and color should read; up close, the plans, sections and text.
• Keep related things together. A caption belongs next to the image it explains.

If the brief gives a number of images, follow it. If it does not, one hero image and a few supporting ones is a reasonable start; that is a suggestion, not a jury rule.

Which drawing goes where on the board?

Place each item by its job. In Table 2, the placements that have a source are cited and the rest is general practice. If your course has its own layout, that layout wins.

The sources are as follows. For plans facing the same way, north arrows, section lines and drawing with the surroundings: a university's slides on architectural project expression techniques. For the title block and legend: Kürşad's article and the Ankara University landscape architecture department's slides on board layout. For the bottom-right and top-right corners: the drawing and presentation standards of the Istanbul Metropolitan Branch of the Chamber of Architects (Mimarlar Odası; the page shows a 2015 date). That standard says it is preferable for plans, sections and elevations to share one scale; it does not make it mandatory. It also groups the north direction, prevailing wind and view in the top-right corner.

Some courses separate the concept board from the plan boards. In the final-jury rules mentioned above, some courses ask for no plan, section or elevation on the presentation or concept board, and the render board appears as its own deliverable. Learn from your own brief which drawing goes on which board.

How do you choose a color palette, background and type?

Use few colors and pull the palette from the main render. According to Kürşad, the color of a board should support the style of the project: if the project is mostly green, the board can use green as its concept color. Keep color in title backgrounds or small decorative elements so that it does not compete with the render.

For an interior project, before you lock the palette you can see the same photo in several styles side by side with Style Comparison; you can pick at most 8 styles at a time. Treat it as a way to probe options: the materials in the output are not your project's material decisions.

For the background, Kürşad's article mostly recommends white: it separates images and text from the background best, looks more refined and professional, and does not distract. A dark background can work too; then keep the contrast between text and background high. The article's example: yellow text on a white background is hard to read, while yellow or white text on a black background is easy to read and dark blue text on it is hard. The article also advises against placing a low-opacity 3D image behind the content, because it lowers visual quality and adds clutter.

How do you set up the type?

Three levels are enough: title, subtitle and body. According to the article, build the hierarchy with different members of the same type family and use no more than two families. There is no firm number for type size: the article says nothing definite can be said across A0, A1 and A2, and it reports another source recommending 36, 24 and 16 points for title, subtitle and body on a 36×72 cm board. So do not treat any number as a rule. Do this test instead (general practice, not from a source): print the board or a part of it and step back a meter and a half. If the title and hero image do not read, make them bigger.

How do you prepare a render for the board?

Prepare the images for the board as a set, not one by one: the same camera logic, the same light, the same size math. In BentoMesh the route looks like this:

1. Fix the source view. Set the camera once in the model or drawing and decide the angle before you render. Take a screenshot of the view as JPG or PNG.
2. Give the plan to the right tool. For a colored plan use Floor Plan Colorization: it detects rooms automatically, you edit the room list before generating, and you choose a floor material and a furniture style. The output is a color plan image seen straight from above. If you upload a plan to Image to Render instead, the tool turns it into a photo-like space and interprets the room positions itself; with an image that looks like a floor plan, the interface shows a warning and points you to Floor Plan Colorization.
3. Generate the perspectives. Use Image to Render for a sketch or a model screenshot (JPG or PNG, up to 20 MB), and Create Render when you want to work through the form. If you add a source image to Create Render (up to 15 MB), the form says the camera and geometry are preserved; that is not a guarantee.
4. Keep the light consistent. Pick the same time of day for every image in the project. The Create Render form offers eight options: Dawn, Daytime, Noon, Golden hour, Sunset, Blue hour, Night and Late night. With a source image, five remain: Keep source lighting, Daytime, Golden hour, Blue hour and Night.
5. Add scale. Add People & Cars adds people to an interior render, and people and cars to an exterior one (JPG or PNG, up to 20 MB).
6. Meet the pixel requirement. Do the Table 1 math first. Upscale enlarges an image 2x or 4x and shows the result on the page as “Output size”. As of November 11, 2026, in single-image mode an image whose long edge is over 1600 pixels is first reduced to that size, so the long edge of the size shown on the page does not exceed 3200 pixels at 2x or 6400 at 4x. An image 40 cm wide needs 4724 pixels at 300 dpi: 6400 pixels is enough at 4x, 3200 is not enough at 2x (the 2362 pixels needed at 150 dpi is fine at 2x too). A full A1 width needs 7016 pixels at 300 dpi, which even 4x does not reach. Check the real pixel size of the file you download, and if it falls short, use the image smaller on the board.
7. Compare with the source. Put the result next to the source: the same number of windows, columns and floors, the same roof shape? Render Analysis is a second pair of eyes: a text report with a score and critique. It does not generate a new image.

(Example scenario) A student is preparing a portrait A1 board for a villa project. They take the exterior perspective from a screenshot of the model with Image to Render, generate the interior views with the same time-of-day option, and color the plan with Floor Plan Colorization. They work out that the hero image will be 40 cm wide on the board, compare the pixels it needs with the size Upscale shows, and shrink the interior images that do not have enough pixels.

What are the six most common board mistakes, and what should you check before submitting?

Six mistakes make a board hard to read:

• No hero image. Every image has the same size, so the eye has nowhere to land.
• Too much text. According to Kürşad's article, presentations run about 25 minutes, so boards do not need much text and a visual-heavy approach is usually preferred. Use a diagram instead of a paragraph.
• Plans face different ways and there is no north arrow. The reader loses their bearings between plans.
• The renders do not match. One is noon, another is night, and the camera heights differ. The board does not look like one project.
• Text that does not read on its background. Dark gray text on a dark background, or light gray on a light one.
• Too few pixels. A small image printed large turns into blocks; do the math before printing.

Before you submit, check:

• Do the size and orientation match what the brief says?
• Are the title block, north arrow and scale in place?
• Did you work out the pixel need of every image and check the real size of each downloaded file?
• Is there any image left with a watermark?
• Is the AI use allowed by your school, and do you need to disclose it?
• Did you print a proof? Can you read the title and hero image from a meter and a half away?

What are the honest limits of using an AI image on a board?

An image you put on a board is a presentation image. Know its limits:

• Your school or brief makes the rule. Whether AI use is unrestricted, must be declared or is banned is set by your school or the brief. If it is allowed, mark the image as AI-generated with a small note on the board.
• The image is not a measurement. It does not replace a measured plan, section or elevation, and a colored plan image is not to scale. Dimensions and levels come from your own drawings.
• Geometry can change. Even with a source image, windows, columns or roof shapes can come out differently; BentoMesh does not guarantee that geometry is fully preserved. Compare every result with the source.
• There is no pixel guarantee. Enlarging is not guaranteed to bring back detail the source never had; check the output size in the file you download.
• Processing happens in the cloud. The image is processed on the BentoMesh server and at a third-party AI provider that produces it; get permission first for a project with confidentiality terms.
• It does not lay out boards. BentoMesh prepares the images that go on a board; you do the layout in the program your school or office uses.
• The free tier adds a watermark. Images generated on the free tier carry the BentoMesh watermark; images generated after your first real payment do not. Do not put a watermarked image on a board you submit.
• There is no Android app. On mobile there is only the iPhone app, and its tool list can differ from the web depending on the app version.

Registration is free; when you verify your email or phone number, or sign in with Google or Apple, a one-time welcome credit is added to your account, subject to the conditions on the sign-up page. Current packs are on the credits page. Some pages linked here do not have an English version yet and open on the Turkish site. This guide is also available in Turkish: Türkçe sürüm / Read in Turkish.