I love illustration! It's my way of story-telling.
My quick birds-eye sketch of a front yard design (above) tells the whole story of a single design idea. (And it helped gain approval by an exclusive homeowner association yesterday, yay!) Just as a drawing in a kids book keeps the children interested and helps them "see" the story, exploring a design from all angles, such as plan view, elevation, AND the birds-eye view aids clients to see the whole story. AND, helps me as the designer to generate details that otherwise weren't "seen" yet. Though my clients may never see their finished project from this angle, it's a catch-all view that explains the interaction between all the elements... in essence, a picture is worth a thousand words.
BIRDS-EYE VIEW: an elevated view of an object from above.
According to Wikipedia, the term has been around since classical times, and before airplanes it was a drawn or photographed view taken from a high location, such as tower or mountain, and represents the imagined (birds) perspective. Today, with satellite imagery and aerial photography, the term "aerial view" is often interchangeable, but aerial can encompass even the plan view of an object. Whereas birds-eye views are exclusively from an angle.
