Presto Sketching

Chapter 8. Visualizing Abstract Concepts

BEFORE WE LET THE entire metaphorical representation thing go, let’s take a metaphorical look over our shoulder at the ground we’ve covered so far. I hope you can see that the variety of figures, faces, and objects that you are sketching has increased, and I hope you can see where you’re becoming more confident. And there’s that cool “happy accident” you drew with which you were delightfully surprised! I hope you took a selfie at that point: it was worth it. And by now you’re taking visual metaphor in your stride, too.

We now stand at the rugged steppes of conceptual representation. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to sketch the intangible—as opposed to the tangible. You’ll also learn how to synthesize meaning and sketch visual models to communicate that meaning to others.

Conceptual Representation

It’s worth briefly recapping the types of visualizing that we’ve being doing so far (Figure 8-1). First, we looked at how to sketch actual real things, like figures, hands, headphones, and so on. That’s literal representation. Sketching things like this is very useful for telling the story of the problem or solution that we’re thinking about, and helping others identify with that problem or solution by mentally putting themselves in the picture.

Then we tackled visual metaphor, for which we sketched concepts (like walls, targets, and ladders) based ...