Freehand sketching in design reasoning

Latin Design Process, 2010

We intend to analyze design as a cross-fertilization of visual language. For such purpose, we will consider art as exemplary practice of such language. The communication will focus transition from modern to contemporary. That is, modern reflecting the artistic as symbolic derivation and contemporary art as symptom expression. We will interpret the process of design project through drawing, regarded both as project’s instrumental utility (technology) and condition for disciplinary reflection (art), addressing the issue of the significance of understanding drawing in design project practice. In this scope, at the level of artistic production, there are two cornerstone conditions implied: 1. the inclusion of the receiver within the work, "despising" the productive meaning in favor of the process; 2. the critical (semantical) valuing of the work to the detriment of its material execution (practice). Considering design project as: 1. practice whose language is (is able to be) mostly visual and 2. based on a Latin framework of analysis and specifically Portuguese, whose tradition derives from School practice (fine arts, including architecture), we intend to analyze to what extent is art, in its visual language status, an influence, or even an intrusion in design project procedural practice. For such, we regard drawing as discipline and subject serving the objectivity of the present communication proposal. We propose as object for analysis project drawings from contemporary Portuguese designers whose merit is national and internationally recognized. Objects collection is performed through their authors and in the scope of an ongoing research regarding the relationship between drawing and project practice in design. We aim to understand design object, as exchange of project’s full communication, through the following question: how can drawing, as a mediator of the practice of project design, induces the creation of the object and hence its existence as language in design? We intend to answer this question considering that drawing, as language materializing the project, is mediator for representation (through technical expression), classifying function (through program) and interpretative mark of imagination (through authorship). Understanding to what extent drawing language contamination influences the process of design project raises the issue of the relevance of drawing, through graphics, to assure the transformation of the object into symbolic added value to the project’s space-time frame.

EduRe'16. International Conference on Education, Social and Technological Sciences

Freehand drawing is a basic tool to explore shapes and visualize ideas during the first phase of projective process in industrial design. Sketches, expressive and quickly executed, allow designers to highlight the most interesting aspects of the product to be designed and help to define its shape and general features. Due to the immediacy that characterizes the manual drafting industrial designers in training learn to become able to translate any ideas graphically and thus able to communicate with other designers, initiating a dialogue on the product to be designed. In the Bachelor's Degree in Industrial Design and Product Development Engineering at the Jaume I University of Castellón (Spain), the subject 'Artistic Expression II' maintains and strengthens the knowledge gained in other subjects about the different graphic techniques, making drawing a means of expression for represent, synthesize and define the shape of objects. However, it has been found that the subject ...

While designers use a range of visual representations throughout different stages of the design process, the style and form of representation is uniquely different during the early graphic ideation phase. The often used medium like sketching, by externalizing the developing thought process during this phase, serves the primary function of communicating with self. In fact these representation efforts acts as extensions of the activities of the mind, busy solving the design problem. Part one of this paper identifies how this point of view influences the process of execution of the sketches. The discussion implies that the mind can dedicate substantial attention to the problem solving aspects, only if the process of representation is routinized and operates like a near natural act performed with limited conscious attention. The second part explores the pedagogic implications of this hypothesis, and attempts to search for a structured way of making the act of sketching a routine and near natural activity. The variables that can lead to such a goal are identified and categorized into four sequential levels. The first level emphasizes sketching with the feel of the pencil path, along with fluency, speed and independence of direction. The second level stresses on delinking the eye movements from the action of drawing and the third defines issues involved in control of complex motor actions in sketching. While the first three levels are treated as the basic prerequisites, the last level emphasizes developing a feel of operating in perspective space, an ability necessary for representation of real world objects. Visual representations are an inseparable part of disciplines like architecture and design, which deal with decisions about spatial creations. These representations are seen as effective and concise manifestations of designer's thoughts, ideas and decisions arid act as a vehicle for communicating with the team. Because of their ability to precisely capture and convey thoughts and decisions, visual representations are often called a designer's language. Indeed, they do serve some of Rediscovering the act of Sketching 178 the functions of the natural language, for the professional groups who share the common codes, symbols and conventions of this language. But is this an adequate characterization of the role that these representations play in design? Designers tend to use the entire range of visual representations during the various phases of the design process. Early creative phase, often referred to as graphic ideation, is crowded with doodling, thumbnail sketching and freehand perspectives, which serve mainly as innovation tools. Downstream applications need a more precise and formalized system of communication. Categories like engineering drawings, orthographics, layouts and maps, often used in the later part are more precise. They show a higher degree of abstraction and are also considerably more formal than freehand perspective sketches and doodling of the ideation phases. The purpose as well as the nature and style of representation during this phase is clearly different than the later phases of the process, where precision in communication is emphasized. 1

AN ANALYSIS OF REPRESENTATION DRAWING AS A DESIGN TOOL (Atena Editora), 2023

The different forms of communication make possible the understanding between people, and the verbal and non-verbal languages are the vehicle that provide these interactions, in a flow that makes sense in their contexts. In this article we will deal with the teaching-learning process, in the development of the ability to draw and visualize the shapes of known artifacts, and or those imagined, but capable of being represented.Drawing is a powerful form of communication and becomes efficient as the noises disappear, that is, drawing is easy to understand and self explanatory, in its shape, materials and textures. "To make good perspectives you have to know how to draw". This knowledge is not a manual skill, but a cerebral operation of the way we see things. The exercise of the mental process through drawing and constant refinement increases the capacity for three-dimensional perception. This study permeates forms of two-dimensional representation of artifacts, the efficiency and effectiveness of methods and their techniques, such as: cube method, master line, perspective with vanishing point, frame, ballpoint pen, among others). The analysis of these techniques was carried out from their application in the field, with the participation of sixteen volunteer design undergraduate students. The purpose of the study is to confirm whether the practice of exercises using these techniques improves the students' quality of communication through drawing and its importance in the design process.

Design education adopts different education models that changes constantly due to differences among disciplines. Education models can be varied with different training techniques. The design approaches introduced during the design process, which forms the basis of design education, gain meaning through sketching " with free-hand drawing " which is an effective communication tool for the profession. Sketching ensures fast development and introduction of opinions, serving as an active transmitter of visual expression. The computer technologies that are advancing rapidly today turns the traditional design, the " free-hand technique " , into an element with a conceptual impact on the design process. The study aims to discuss the " process of sketching " behind the design factor in the architecture and interior architecture education in Turkey and to analyse the method of sketching as well as its application styles, design, presentation, education, process and results, discussing the importance of sketching process in the education. Finally, the sketching process is associated with the concept of design, emphasizing that it is essential for the architecture and interior architecture design education and it is a skill that must be enhanced through education.

Senses & Sensibility in Lisbon. Design Marketing and Visual Culture in the Right Place (coord. E. Côrte-Real, C. Duarte, F. Rodrigues), Edições IADE, Lisbon, , 2012

In this paper, the object’s evocation and experience is considered by examining drawing as project’s disciplinarian function. We depart from the argument that drawing is the visual language that imagines, examines and makes the project’s materiality visible. Drawing as function to materialize the project, in the condition of existing towards... is, in this case, mediator for representation (technical expression), the act of classification that discriminates and influences the project (program) and interpretative mark of imagination (authorship). The theme we intend to develop considers drawing as a set of images that as a language configures projectual reality. We will address the issue of knowledge through drawing by means of its practice in the project. In this case, drawing is an instrument that carries and interprets a particular cultural expression, transferring it onto the project causing it to acquire a specific symbolic register. We depart from the hypothesis that drawing practices in the scope of design project differentiate the projectual result, conferring the object its singular identity. We seek to justify the hypothesis through the importance of drawing as visual language deriving from the artistic field, within the contingent Western interpretation. That is, awarding drawing the ability to be the project’s critical interpreter. Our interpretation context addresses the practice of Portuguese designers whose work is institutionally recognized in Portugal and abroad. The analyzed material - drawings - results from the ongoing doctoral research on the proximity and influence of drawing on Design Project practice. The purpose is to verify the terms of use of drawing through authorship, aiming at contributing towards design knowledge through three vectors: 1. the imagetic and authorship approach, 2. technology and classification approach, 3. representative and programmatic approach. To conclude, we propose drawing as language for multiple perceptions, possibly fragmented, fissured, disjointed, and possibly trans-figured into project’s metalanguage. Keywords: Drawing, Design, Project, Representation

Wonderground, 2006

This text occurs from the interpretation in progress about the relationships between design and drawing. We intend to contribute to the study of the configuration of the object of design through the symbolic image implicit in the drawing and of the drawing allowing for the appearance of the object-thing that reveals itself. After having analysed the relationship between design and drawing in text Design through Drawing (Pombo and Magalhães, 2005, 61-72) through the classification of design as a result of the triangulation author-programme-technology and drawing as the interpreter of the concept representation-classification-imagination, we shall analyse the implication of drawing in the project as representation of the idea in the configuration of the object of design. We shall consider the representation through image and the object as reference of the lacanian «thing» (the non represented), searching for the formal differentiation between the image-representation and the object-thing and its relationship in within the subject of design. The structure of argumentation derives from the previous text and is now amplified through two issues: _the first: the implied representation of the concept in the project in design; _the second, in the way the concept manifests itself in the configuration of the object-thing. The study of the relationships between design and drawing is important to the research in design, considering that drawing is a qualification intermediate of the projectual development. The argumentation will be supported by the authors present in the bibliography. Keywords: design, drawing, representation, image, object-thing, configuration, symbolic.

Conference Proceedings for Conference on Architectural Education “Design Pedagogies: Analyzing current trends and shaping the future", 2018

The first semester of B. Arch at NFC-IET Multan is geared towards opening the young architect-in-making’s mind towards the possibilities in architecture using drawing as a medium to observing, recording, imagining and communicating their ideas. A key project in this regard, that also led the students to discovering the two fundamental intangible building blocks of architecture; light and space, and familiarized them with the basic design principles, was introduced in the second half of the Fall 2017 semester. 5 works by master painters were dissected and analyzed by the students through lenses as varied as light, space, texture and hierarchy etc. and their findings were presented through their own versions of these paintings. The results were varied and quite encouraging as students found their own correlations between various elements of a composition. This paper is an attempt to record the process and criticize the project as a whole from conception to final results and assess its role as a viable project for 1st year of architectural studies.

There is often a view that concept development is a mental activity, while drawing is a finished presentation of the outcome of this activity. The underlying assumption is that a magic leap takes place and these are transformed to precisely drawn plans, sections and elevations of the finished product. Based on this assumption students of architecture tend to move from the conceptual sketch to the design solution and from speculation to execution in 'one step' logic. In reality architects generate explorative drawings in the design process to develop, articulate and refine an idea. This paper reviews drawing strategies employed in the design process. The aim is to examine the role of drawing in exploring concepts through its graphical system. It argues that: there is a close link between the development of architectural concepts and visual expression; design is an intellectual activity in process rather than a static situation; this activity takes place through formal and spatial experimentation based on visual transformations; during the design process metaphoric interpretations establish associations between a formal and a conceptual order.