Some common drawing practices and tips for green engineers.

Just 7 general tips from the wild for engineering or production drawings. The following practices are common from small mom-n-pop shops through monoliths like Northrop and BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace):

1. Less is more. Use only as many views as needed to fully define a drawing (think black constraints in Solidworks). The shop (factory floor) and QC (inspection dept) want it simple as possible. Excessive views create visual "noise."
2. Unnecessary isometric views eat real estate and chip away at roll paper and ink which is expensive for large format prints so save them for when they are actually needed for clarification. After scaling, your particular drawing should fit on a size A (8-1/2 x 11 inch) sheet. At most offices sizes A, B, and C are most common with size A being most desired.
3. Ubiquitous dimensions like chamfers can be placed as notes in the title block unless they are unique in several places.
4. An engineer doesn't always drive tolerances. It is always a team effort. Your best friends here would be a shop foreman and QC supervisor (inspections). Keep them as loose as possible while still maintaining function.
5. Similarly, GD&T is always a team effort. The shop foreman and QA supervisor are your besties here too. They can help you select the most optimized boundaries. Just like in all points above, less is often more. If you find a control they overlook, check with them first before making it a hard rule. They may need to build or order tooling to make it work.
6. On title blocks or body of drawing do not overemphasize critical notes or dims with centering, bold, italic, underline, etc. as excessive emphasis dilutes them. All shops I have worked at are detail oriented. If there is doubt, talk to your besties in the manufacturing and inspection departments.
7. And finally, understand that standards (guidelines) are not regulations however they may be contractual obligations. If they are not, it is best to try to stick with standards as they are based on best practices.

Bonus: Most engineers ignore lineweight and that is okay. However if you want your drawings to stand out you really should use it as it creates a visually pleasing separation (think ergonomics) for dimensions (normal lineweight) from the model (bold lineweight) and its hidden lines (light lineweight) which reduces noise.

Again I stress, all this depends on the business you work for as every business I have ever worked at had its own niche modded standards sitting over MIL-STD-100 or ASME Y14.100 (not to be confused with ASME Y14.5 or other GD&T).

Happy Cadding :-)