Plans and Elevations are used for a wide set of purposes including to promote, advertise, inform and depict the built environment. Two-dimensional drawings in Environmental design function in many ways and are constructed accordingly. The simpler forms of Plans and Elevations are used to illustrate and depict interiors in broad strokes. These kinds of drawings are known as concept sketches or schematics and are used to pitch an idea to a client or advertise a house or apartment to a prospective buyer. They are necessarily simple to illustrate only the space, flow, function and aspect of a building. Town planning drawings include more details such as dimensions, surrounding buildings, plotted shadow diagrams and set-backs, etc. These will often be presented on a number of sheets, each one depicting a different aspect of the proposed building. Construction drawings are done on large, often A1 sheets, and include a huge amount of detailed information. Several scales are used ranging from 1:200 for site plans to 1:10 for construction process details. These drawings also contain references to additional documentation set by engineers and other specialists.

Students in Visual Communication Design are exposed to a fairly narrow introduction to Plans and Elevations and deal only with the fundamental concepts of depictions of form in two-dimensions, conventions for lines and viewpoints that create Plans and Elevations and dimensioning. As such students are required only to produce schematic or concept Plans and Elevations of the type that would normally be used to pitch ideas simply to a client or to promote them to prospective purchasers.