Toolbox: Levels of SketchingI’ve met alot of designers in my limited experience that complain about the “sketchers”. Sometimes designers with an aptitude for sketching get labeled as being shallow or non-creative. However, I see sketching as a means to and ends rather than the end all. When all is said and done, regardless of how flashy the sketch may be or how killer it may look, the essence of why we sketch ideas as designers is seeded in effectively communicating those ideas to our clients. Sketching is our language of communication.
Sometimes we sketch for fun, but most of the time when working, we sketch for clients or other designers. The sketches that go into your sketchbook are of a different quality than those you would show to your fellow designers in a review or to a client in a meeting, but both sketches have their uses nonetheless. Take this for example, you’re in a restaurant on a lunch break and something comes to mind. You quickly jot it down on a scraggly napkin so that you don’t forget the idea. That sketch too has its purpose. Although it could be the killer idea of a lifetime, the communication may be lacking from you to the client and may be more of a self communication tool.
So then what are the different types of sketches you ask? Well fortunately you are in the right place, at the right time, reading the right blog.
1. Personal Communication Sketches aka the Doodle:
These are the scraggliest of the scraggers. The dirtiest of the dirty. They sketches that tend to live in the sketchbook or on discarded pieces of paper. The purpose of doodling and sketching so roughly is for you the designer to work out the issues with form or function, but in a looser more empathic way. These sketches tend to be most present at the genesis of the product concept. For me, these are the doodles I do when preoccupied in thought on the bus or train as I try to fiddle around with new ideas or sketch techniques.
2. The Thinking Sketch:
Al little more focused and refined, these sketches are usually alot cleaner than the scraggly doodles you find in a sketchbook. You may find yourself showing these to other designers, so you can make certain assumptions as you sketch and use cues that your colleagues would pick up on suck as hatching and contour lines. Simple gestural sketches could also fall into this category. . .
3. The Technical Sketch
Designers bridge the gap between art and engineering. (you can decide for yourself what your role or mantra is) As such, sometimes it’s necessary when sitting and working with an engineer or clay modeler to then speak on their terms. That means pulling out the ol’ exploded views, cutaway views, and cross sections to help communicate your vision for the product your designing.
4. The Presentation Sketch:
This is where you bring out the big guns. These sketches tend to be a little more refined and thought out. you can think of them as being a little technical yet a little emotive. They serve to captivate the viewers interest while then explaining the concept visually. For a client that does not have the visual thinking skills of you fellow designers, it may be necessary to be a bit more explicit in how you explain things in your sketches (hence the technical aspect). Notes, callouts, different views – this is where you’ll want to be overt in how you express the idea.
5. The Emotive Sketch:
The gushy, over the top, killer sketch whose soul purpose is to make your viewer stare in awe at the killer sketch/render in front of them. Yes this is what tends to be the automotive sketch. Descriptive yet very emotional. I rarely do these much as I tend to work in 3-d once I get past the presentation sketch phase, but don’t get me wrong, I totally dig these and love a good emotionally and visually captivating sketch.
Well there you have it. My 2¢ on some different levels of sketching while designing. I’ll admit, it’s not a perfect assessment , so if you have any suggestions or other examples, lemme know, or discuss it in the IDSKETCHING.COM forums, and we’ll append it to the article.
Tags: Basic, Marker, Render, Sketch Tips, Sketchbook, Sketching
thanks, I always had that in mind, but never so clearly stated like this
I love your education in sketching piece. For some people that are new to design, this offers a complete view of what sketching can be. Doodling is not the only means of sketching and I’m glad you illustrated that point! I do wish you would have provided a themed exapmle to better illustrate the stages of sketching from doodling to rendering. Good article, nevertheless!
Yeah i was thinking about doing just that in a longer video piece. Stay tuned
With regards to your first point. The good sketchers often are the better designers. However we should not mistaken good sketching for good content. I have done great sketches that did not work or turned into a poor design solution. Therefore I agree with you about sketching is only a means to an end. There is a lot more that goes into a design.
Regardless good article and keep it up!
Spencer. This is a great article, clear and educational. I wish this would have been taught to us when we had our rapid-viz and marker rendering/computer rendering class. Keep it up.
This is great! I’m a graphic design student (Junior) and this now totally makes sense to me! Thanks!
Thanks for this article — as an industrial design student, it’s sometimes hard to know where sketching is appropriate and appreciated. (I’m personally biased towards sketching, so it’s good to know the art isn’t dead.)
Great article… thanks for share your knowledge and your way to see design sketching!!!!
This is great, cheers for this.
Second year Product Designer in College, we’ve been taught this…but never in such a simple way! I’m looking forward to our next assignment, bring out the big guns, as you say
By the way, you say you work in 3D – you use a graphics tablet yes? If ya do, any recommendations as to which one I should go for?
Cheers!
thanks
You mentioned when you should use each sketch, but it’s also worth saying when you shouldn’t.
If you’re running preliminary ideas past a client in emotive format, you’re taking the chance that they will presume your preliminary content to be at the level of a final sketch. They know you’re just dropping ideas by them, but the look of a final concept might make them back down because they don’t like the unresolved directions you’re taking.
The level of refinement of the sketch should match the level of refinement of the idea.
That’s an excellent point. Thanks for sharing!
In school, a professor of ours gave us almost this exact same lesson. He called them A, B, and C sketches, A being doodles/personal sketches, B being thinking sketch/technical sketch and C being the well thought out renders. It was very helpful for me starting out to figure out how much time and effort to put into sketches at which stage of the process, and kind of just became natural from there.
I think this is valuable info, and am very glad you’re sharing it with the community
Cheers,
Evan
Awesome article. Great explanation on the different types of sketching. I do alot of retail work, so in many cases, we never get to the Emotive or Presentation sketch. Mostly because, pretty as these are, they take alot of time, and buyers and companies don’t really want long turnarounds. So, we go from thinking and technical sketching right into Illustrator. That way we can overlay emotive shading, backgrounds, presentation templates and comments, with the ability to change and adjust colors, features and details very quickly. I miss the emotive and presentation sketch process, but these seem to be for companies with 12-16 month development times, we have only 1-3 months.
Why not go from tech sketch into 3D software, into computer rendering? Sometimes I think the Presentation and Emotive sketches are obsolete.
Interesting thought. I don’t think emotive sketches are dead. I think the tendency to rush into 3d has its drawbacks, at least in my experiences. It depends Akita as well in the type of designer you are. There’s something magical and human about a well out together sketch. With cad, I think things can tend to go a little cold.
Oh, and it’s not meant to be a procedural list btw, but rather an overview of sketch techniques.
Spencer,
Great article! I have been developing an outline for a sketch tutorial and used a similar technique. I too feel it is necessary to stress efficiency in regards to purpose. You did a wonderful job illustrating an appropriate caliber for each situation. I dig your posts,
keep’m coming!
i’m a student at the art center college of design, and i must say that idsketching was one of the key determinants to getting accepted! thank you soo much for sharing techniques, thoughts and articles that continue to fuel my passion to become a better product designer. hope to work as an intern at astro soon!!!
keep spreading the creativity!
david tjahjadi
Glad we could help in some small way!
great post, and brilliant sketches!
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I agree somewhat with Rodger above. I find that Ill go from concept sketch (which for my business is somewhere between thinking and technical with some rendering for a little pop)to 3D because Ive found going any further makes the customer feel locked in to a very different feeling product than they first had in mind. My clients would see the car rendering for example and ask why is it so low to the ground, I dont want flat paint, where do you get wheels that thin and fat and whys the windshield black. *rollseyes* (my customer is a little ‘traditional’) My clients feel more involved in the development if what I show is at a far less formal state. The emotional renderings look great and Id love to do more (and sometimes do for the heck of it) but frankly its a waste of time and doesnt change the most important aspect of all our jobs – whether or not a product will sell.
[...] So what the sketching method is really about? Spencer Nugent posted an interesting article on the Levels of Sketching over on IDSketching that reviews almost all possible methods of presenting your ideas: rough [...]
Thank you for posting this!
I’m really loving the blog, and hope this, as well as the excellent article some other people have written, will help somebody
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