sketching for non-designers

So, late last years i did a sketching class internally for some of our chemists (thank you core members for suggestions and thoughts on the class) this has been a great success for that group - (see below) - I have now been asked to do a similar series of instructional classes for our Engineering group (for the ones that see value)

My focus is going to be to help them quickly sketch their thoughts and get them into “cleaner” 2D or basic 3D - keeping in mind that they do not need them to be at a level of refined presentation but instead readable enough for other engineers to be able to build off of the ideas and or have conversations with their leaders - the goal is to get them to explore ideas quick through sketches and collaboration vs going straight to CAD or talking about the idea as “picture this” - with only hand waving.

My ask for everyone is - do you have any good ref books on a topic such as SKETCHING FOR ENGINEERS and good visual samples or thoughts…



Chevis, wanted to share that your teaching session from last year on storytelling via sketching is still paying dividends with the team!

The claims and demos team are continually using their stick man drawings to sell in demo “stories” across businesses vs. just providing technical information. Outcome is that we are now being invited in by sales and category in the creative selling process with multiple retailers.

Also, our summer intern adopted this approach up front with good outcomes immediately this year

This is a bit out there, but there is a book called “Designing Your Natural House” by Van Nostrand Reinhold (side note, bad ass name) that I sometimes use as an example for people. The reason I use it is because the entire book is hand drawn and lettered and it is done in that rather scratchy architect way, but everything is very communicative. I got it after a roommate of mine from college went on to work with an architect. The architect told him “the best way to draw a straight line is to not draw a straight line”… this book really exemplifies that.

I know it isn’t really what you are looking for, but I also just thought you might like the book

(PS… the new batch upload feature is sooo nice!)

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If it’s chemists you’re working with you should get a few sets of polyhedral dice from a game store. This will help them draw molecule clusters in perspective and give them a 3 dimensional representation of how those things go together. These shapes are simple enough for them to get the idea that every thing is simple shapes, even down to a molecular level. That’s the biggest hurdle I’ve found when getting people to get into sketching is getting that point across. It’s all simple shapes.