Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Learn to Sketch

I got a call from former colleague, Jeff Kennedy, last week. Among other things, he is offering an interesting class for engineers that will teach free hand sketching.

I have to admit that I'm terrible at free hand sketching and have been trying to improve my ability for years. In the 90's I started working with industrial designers and really saw the advantage of being able to describe a concept with a quick sketch. We could sit with a client and turn our thoughts into a picture as we met. And, since a picture is worth 1000 words, we were able to quickly and accurately communicate and document our discussions. The same was true for brainstorming sessions, where the ideas being proposed were understood by all and immediately documented for later review.

I was looking through a book about Leonardo da Vinci and began wondering how much of his creativity was due to his ability to express his ideas in sketches?

Now CAD is a wonderful tool and I especially like how SolidWorks allows the generation of virtual concept models quickly and easily. However, I believe there is a disruption of the innovative thought process, especially in group settings, when using CAD.

So check out Jeff's offering here and if there's interest I will try to put a group together so we can share the cost.

No comments: