: Looking for a software to design blueprint style technical drawings I am looking for a software to draw a diagram like the one in this picture.

@Tiffany317

Traditionally such technical drawings are made with the help of Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. These simulate the blueprints made by architects, engineers or designers of the times when we did not yet have computers in all offices. CAD software used to print with the help of a plotter to large scale paper sheets. This further made them look similar to a manual blueprint.

Today however large scale conventional ink- or laser-printers are available which made the plotters disappear. Still the look of the prints are traditionally imitating an ink drawing.

From all CAD applications the most well known may be AutoCAD or TurboCAD but there are plenty of proprietary, free, or Open Source alternatives:


List of CAD editors


If not for engineering but only for illustration we probably do not want to learn any of these heavy weight applications. We then may get similar results with any graphic editor. Personally I would prefer a vector oriented applications to do this.

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@Hamaas979

This could be done in just about any drawing software (Photoshop, Illustrator, GIMP, Paint.NET).

My personal workflow would be to create the brushed aluminum background in Photoshop then bring that into Illustrator to create the line drawings.

For help with how to do that, these search terms might help: blueprint style, wireframe, or technical drawings.

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