R I A Z » Design Tools

Sketching for Design – Guest Lecture

riaz — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 16:09:53 +0000

A quick ‘introduction to sketching for design’ guest lecture I am giving at the Austin Center for Design and Boulder Digital Works.

AC4D Guest lecturers > http://www.ac4d.com/news_visitors.php

Kadisco > http://www.kadisco.com/2010/09/how-to-draw-a-stick-figure/

Sketch Jams at frog design

riaz — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:18:18 +0000

A few weeks ago I started doing Sketch Jams at frog as way for us to experiment in creating ‘thinking with out hands’ culture. Here’s my wright up for the Jam’s as well as a collection of pictures from the ongoing endeavor.

Sketch Jam is based on the simple idea that everyone, regardless of skill, experience, or job description can benefit from a place and time to tinker, play, experiment and practice design sketching. Design sketches can be paper sketches, software sketches, form sketches, electronic sketches or video sketches. All these are open topics for us to explore with our jams.

Think of it as a space and time to play and think with your hands. Everyone whether they are an industrious Intern or an eclectic ECD, a tubular technologist of a daring designer is invited. Anyone who wants to improve their storytelling, making, tinkering abilities, or just wants to blow off some steam after working on a super demanding project is welcome.

Each ‘Sketch Jam’ will be a series of small containable exercises. A ‘recipe’ if you will, with ingredients and simple steps. You don’t have to go to the Jams in any order and each one can be repeatable and open to any level of experience. Practice is the key here.

* Sketch Jams also have their own space on frog’s design mind > http://designmind.frogdesign.com/blog/author/sketch-jam!-/

Unpreciousness

riaz — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:03:57 +0000

Sketches are not precious and can destroyed to make room for more ideas. Unpreciousness is the quality that an experience sketch needs to have in order for a designer to be able to throw it away.

Unpreciousness may seem counterproductive but actually it’s an essential aspect of design thinking in that it allows for rapid iteration with the lowest cost possible. The level of fidelity of the sketch should only be as much as is necessary to make a decision for all the stakeholders involved. Sometimes this means training the stakeholders to make decisions at a lower fidelity than they might have been accustomed to in the past.

The goal is to create a design process where you have the willingness to scrap what you’ve done and start over.