Drawing Product Ideas

CHAPTER SIXILLUSTRATING LIGHT, MOTION, AND OTHER CONCEPTS

Sometimes it takes more than the basic icons and symbols covered in the last two chapters to communicate the essence of an idea. Illustrating concepts like light, depth, form, material, motion, and texture can further explain your idea (see Figure 6.1).

There are a few simple ways to convey these concepts in your product drawings without having to have the skill or training of an accomplished artist. Let's take a closer look.

SHADING TECHNIQUES

Before we dive into the actual concepts, let's talk about shading. You can use different shading techniques to communicate many of the concepts explained in this chapter. Take a look at the drawing in Figure 6.2. In it, we can see how Leonardo da Vinci created a sense of light through the use of shading to help his viewers understand the complexities of this polyhedron form.

The drawing's light source originates from the top-left corner of the drawing. He used darker shading to represent surfaces that face farther away from the light source. Da Vinci's use of shading also gives us an increased sense of the polyhedron's material, shape, and texture.

FIGURE 6.1

FIGURE 6.2

Source: Polyhedra by Leonardo da Vinci, from Luca Pacioli’s “De divina proportione,” 1509 edition