Drawing Product Ideas

CHAPTER FIVEBUILDING FROM CIRCLES, TRIANGLES, AND MORE

While combining lines, boxes, and arrows goes a long way, you'll need to be able to draw elements based on other shapes, like circles and triangles. Once you master that, we'll explore some more complex forms like simple representations of people and cursor hands. Let's jump in.

CIRCULAR ELEMENTS

Let's start with a basic circle and a few elements we can build out of circles. Get your circle template or compass ready. Let's try drawing a bunch of circles similar to Figure 5.1. Feel free to use different sizes and fill up your paper.

Forms: Radio Groups

We'll start with the most utilitarian yet essential uses of the circle, and that's in forms. Circles are what separate a checklist from a radio group. Radio groups allow people to make only one selection within the group.

FIGURE 5.1

Remember how we drew the checklist? Instead of using squares and checks, let's use circles and points. Let's start with a basic circle as drawn in Figure 5.2. Let's draw a small circle that's approximately a quarter inch in diameter.

FIGURE 5.2

Next, just as we did with the check box, let's add a thick text line to the right of the radio button as depicted in Figure 5.3.

FIGURE 5.3

Radio buttons only make sense when they appear in ...