Technical drawing, also known as drafting or draughting, is the act and discipline

Academic discipline

An academic discipline, or field of study, is a branch of knowledge that is taught and researched at the college or university level. Disciplines are defined , and recognized by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies and academic departments or faculties to...

 of composing plans that visually communicate

Visual communication

Visual communication as the name suggests is communication through visual aid and is described as the conveyance of ideas and information in forms that can be read or looked upon...

 how something functions or has to be constructed.

Drafting is the language of industry.

A drafter, draftsperson, or draughtsman is a person who makes a drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

 (technical or otherwise). A professional drafter who makes technical drawings is sometimes called a drafting technician.

People who communicate with technical drawings, (those who design and those who are tradespeople), may use technical standards that define practical symbols, perspectives

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

, units of measurement

Units of measurement

A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a physical quantity, defined and adopted by convention and/or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same physical quantity. Any other value of the physical quantity can be expressed as a simple multiple of the unit of...

, notation systems, visual styles, or layout conventions.