…“These concepts look a little far out in development.”
I don’t think my sketching is the jam or anything. But it’s enough to communicate what I need to various business units throughout the company. I wish I had more time to work on my sketching and to be honest, it’s just become a chore. I feel like I just kinda went flat on my sketching. Especially now that I don’t actually do the designs anymore, my purpose and frequency of sketching has changed. The other day I was asked to draw up some carton concepts that we could roll out next year. Because of this the sketches are just of boxes with minor functional characteristics. So of course, I end up stylizing the sketch more than I should.
As a result, one of the marketing guys got cold feet on the project thinking the development time was going to be much longer than they had time for. So it took a little additional communication on my part to explain that’s not the case. I already have a “simple” sketch style, so I don’t want to make it any more bland than it already is. I’m assuming what I could do is make my perspectives and angle of views less dramatic.
Was the marketing guy’s interpretation of your sketches being too loose / underdeveloped? He wasn’t able to look at your drawings, envision the concept and see the light at the end of the tunnel? I think you have to determine what the purpose and the outcome of the meeting is supposed to be.
If you’d like your sketch concepts to still be malleable (assuming the non-designers you’re working with are able to look a rough concept and successfully work through it) then I think your style is fine. If this is a brainstorm type meeting for example.
If you need to comunicate a concept in the context of a roadmap for development, to get a green light or to outline the framework for the project, the sketch needs to be anchored a bit more, to have certain aspects fleshed out and detailed to the point that the non-designers doesn’t have to trust that the all these blurry details are worked out in your head (or will be worked out )
I’ve found that for concepts that lend themselves to it, a quick sketchup model that you can spin around and push/pull works wonders for this. You could alternatively spend a couple hours creating sketch models from chip board and glue. I’ve done this for cartons/packaging and it really helps the concept come off the page. (Don’t use graphics or colors, though, so that the model is still a “sketch” ) Especially if sketching in 2D is growing laborious, move to 3D! I can share some examples via email
Yeah all the sketching I’ve done for the past 7 years are just at the brainstorming stage. Generally, I just need enough to communicate the idea and the details are defined by the package engineering team. During the meetings I have about a minute to visualize an idea for the team and move onto the next idea or build off the existing idea.
I never worked with him before, so I’m not sure what his expectations were or what he’d been used to working with. Other members said the sketches were clear and concise for what they needed. It was just an interesting remark I guess.
I don’t want to make my job harder. I think he’s used to seeing physical cartons and carton specs and making his choice from that information. So I believe they were way to loose and underdeveloped for his comfort.
Maybe it would be benificial to do this kinds of sketches during a discussion/brainstorm between the two of you? Could perhaps make him appreciate and understand the benefits of your way of doing it.
Perhaps you could do quick paper mocks up. Because aside from designers, others have a harder time trying to visualize soemthing you drew up. It might look obvious to you, but to others, they might think that’s too wild to comprehend.
Do a quick mock up and show that it can be done. It also helps them to get a better idea of size and proportions.
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) Especially if sketching in 2D is growing laborious, move to 3D! I can share some examples via email