Frequently Asked Questions

AutoCAD is the strongest place for most interior designers to start. I looked at over 1,600 interior design job listings, and AutoCAD came out as the most requested software skill by a clear margin, followed by Revit, SketchUp, Photoshop, and InDesign.

Here’s how they tend to break down in practice. AutoCAD is your go-to for technical documentation, floor plans, elevations, and anything that needs to be precise. SketchUp is where 3D concepts and client-facing visuals come to life. Revit tends to show up on larger, more complex commercial projects.

AutoCAD is the most requested skill, and it’s the foundation a lot of other workflows build on, which is why it’s usually the best entry point.

No, you don’t need any prior design experience to start. Some of my students are just starting design school, some are switching careers entirely, and some have been designing for years and just want to move faster. The software skills are learnable no matter where you’re starting from.

Software is just one part of the bigger interior design profession though, so whether you’re learning in a degree program, apprenticeship, or related job, make sure you’re building those non-software skills too.

Yes. “Not a tech person” isn’t actually a real category. I hear this a lot, and I promise you, it just means no one has shown you the way that actually makes sense yet. That’s exactly what I built this for.

No, these courses are designed to take you from complete beginner to confident, and beyond. AutoCAD and SketchUp are skills, not talents, which means anyone can learn them with the right approach. Most students start with little to no experience.

The course is structured in stages, so you start with the fundamentals, work up through real-world workflows, and finish with more advanced techniques. You don’t need to have finished a design degree or years of practice, just a willingness to follow along one step at a time. By the end, you’ll have the confidence to handle real project work, not just theory.

Yes, especially if your AutoCAD background is from architecture rather than interior design. This is one of the most common questions I get. A lot of students come in with some AutoCAD background from school or a related field. This course fills in the gaps that generic training leaves behind: the workflows, shortcuts, and standards that interior designers actually use day to day.

Yes, both AutoCAD and SketchUp run on Mac, and I teach both platforms fully. Autodesk’s tools are traditionally built with PC users in mind, but that doesn’t leave Mac users out.

Here’s the part that actually matters: I teach using typed commands and shortcut keys instead of toolbar clicking, which means the exact same commands work whether you’re on a PC or a Mac. So if you ever switch platforms down the line, you won’t have to relearn anything. That’s a deliberate choice, not an afterthought.

Free tutorials teach individual commands, quick tips, and trouble-shooting. These courses teach the complete system. Free tutorials are great for getting started. What they don’t give you is structure. My courses are built so each lesson builds on the last, specifically for interior design work, so you’re not left piecing together fifty unrelated videos and hoping they add up to something useful.

You’ll have access to my Audrey 2.0, trained AI course tutors, any time day or night. Ask it a question and it’ll walk you through exactly what you need, in the context of the lesson you’re on. It knows all the course modules, lessons, and resources.

If you run into something outside the course itself, like a purchase or login issue, I’m just an email away.

No, AI changes how you use AutoCAD skills, it doesn’t replace the need for them. I get why it feels that way. AI tools are genuinely useful, and I use them a lot too, including showing you some of my favorite use cases in my courses.

Here’s the reality: AI can help you generate ideas faster or clean up repetitive tasks, but someone still needs to know what a proper layer structure looks like, what a client actually needs in a construction document, and whether the output makes sense for the project. That’s you. AI is a tool that sits on top of your expertise, not underneath it. The designers who’ll do best over the next few years are the ones who understand both.

Yes, alongside the courses I sell CAD templates, title blocks, and other time-saving resources. Many students use the course to build their skills and the templates to speed up their everyday work once they’re up and running.

I currently sell to the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Signapore, and South Africa. As a very small business, managing tax liabilities and regulations across a lot of different countries isn’t possible for me right now.

The good news is that a number of my interior design templates are available on my Etsy shop, which lets me sell to a wider range of regions, including the EU, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, and the UAE. I have less control over delivery and final price on Etsy, but it means I can serve more people.

Your payment may be pending manual approval, which I check daily. Sometimes my payment processor flags a transaction and asks me to manually approve it. I get a notification when that happens, so I promise I’ll look into it as soon as possible.

Start with my free resources: cheatsheets, guides, and checklists. No strings attached. When you’re ready for more, the courses and templates will be right there.

Check the PDF template guide included in your download first. It lists any fonts and files included, and links to the relevant online template guide video. Can’t find the PDF? Here’s a link to all the online template guides.

This is covered in the online template video guides linked in your PDF guide. You’ll find the link in your PDF template guide, or you can find the relevant guide on this page.

The layouts are set up as PArent Pages, so you apply them rather than seeing them pre-filled. The Mood Board InDesign template in my free resource library works this way intentionally. This process is covered in /how-to-make-a-mood-board-in-indesign-in-10-minutes/”>the video on this blog post.

Make your own copy first. Google templates can’t be edited directly. Go to File, then choose Make a Copy, and save it to your own Google Drive before editing.

On a PC: find the font file, right-click it, and choose Install. On a Mac: double-click the font file to open Font Book, then click Install Font.

Most templates include a font file (usually a .ttf or .otf). If it’s inside a zip folder, extract it first (see the next question). Restart any open design programs afterward so the new font shows up.

If the font still isn’t showing up in your program’s font list, close the program completely and reopen it. That solves it nine times out of ten.

On a PC: right-click the zip file and choose Extract All, then click Extract. On a Mac: just double-click the zip file and it extracts automatically.

A lot of my downloads come as a single zipped file to keep everything organized. Once extracted, you’ll see the individual files (fonts, templates, PDF guides) ready to use.

Try downloading the file again from your purchase confirmation or account. This usually happens when a file didn’t fully download. If it still won’t open, make sure you’ve fully extracted it from the zip folder first rather than trying to open it directly from inside the zip.

Still stuck? Email me and I’ll help you sort it out.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel, where all my free videos live.

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Email me at audrey@audreynoakes.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. For anything about an existing course purchase or login, that’s the fastest way to reach me directly.