Books on industrial design?

#27

This is a great book for sure, but I don’t think it’s a good reference for design sketching. It’s more polished 3D renderings than sketches. I’d highly recommend Scott Robertson’s books, Lift Off and Start Your Engines, which both contain a ton of sketches showing the idea trail up to the final renderings. HisDrive book is good, too, but seems to have fewer rough sketches than the other two.

In my opinion, these are must-owns, and at around $15 each for used soft covers on Amazon, price shouldn’t be an issue.

#28

You are right especially in terms of the pricing. I also have them both and I enjoy to extract ideas and elements for inspiration out of them but to me as industrial designer I personaly prefer simons sketches because in my eyes the choice of line spacing, the shape proportions and the design decisions overall are technically mature as they are in robertsons books. Simons book also shows thumbnail drawings before he gets to the polished sketches where you can see different stages on the way to the final designs.

Yes, Scott shows nearly every approach compared to Simon because he wants to show all the possibilities. But I think the design style matters a lot and not soley different techniques. I also have the book “drive” which is very much oriented by cosmic motors and there you can see the difference in the design even more. But as mentioned, that´s my personal view.

#29

I can’t think of any ID books I’d recommend. And considering I’m helping a new ID hire develop his skills, I wish that weren’t the case.

My recommendations would instead be:

  • find some broken things and dismantle them, paying close attention to the external surfaces which are designed and modeled for manufacturing
  • find some broken mechanical things, dismantle them and try to reassemble them; paying attention to the mechanics which makes the device function (don’t worry about electronics, as increasingly they tend to conform to shape instead of driving shape)
  • decide what kind of sketching to which you aspire and then practice it. Transportation designers tend to be more accomplished sketch artists, but some of the more famous designers within the ID field (as opposed to entertainment design) are actually not very good at sketching (in 2D; though they might be great at building foam core mock-ups or sculpting in foam).

Generally transportation designers tend to have a lot of “search lines” in their drawings and so the line thickness and darkness tends to vary more, while general product designers tend to use fewer search lines and draw more deliberately. Some people (myself included) went to good transportation schools but work in product, and so we tend to mix styles as necessary; depending on client and deadline. Toy designers, from my experience, tend to have a much more cartoonish style with heavy bold outlines.

Core77 is a good resource, as mentioned above. I think there are some old threads specifically about good ID books.

Best of luck.

#30

Yeah I’ve got Lift Off and Drive, they’re good too. I like how Drive makes it more accessible by having student collaboration. If you’re just getting into it, seeing the results of someone currently being trained can be good encouragement to keep at it.

#31

Here’s some stuff that may be of interest.

http://vimeo.com/7956339

http://vimeo.com/11631211

http://www.idsketching.com/

http://www.designsojourn.com/good-books-on-design-sketching/

Now start putting those drawing hours in. That line work isn’t getting any less wonky if you don’t. :arteest:

#32

The first book in the last link looks really useful. Do you have that one?

#33

Actually the first three… so easy to just spend!

Quadart’s right, practice now you’ve got the books. Don’t be tempted by all these wily design books or you’ll end up a librarian instead of a designer. :wink:

#34

great links - thank you for posting!

#35

SciFiBrow–No, I don’t have any of those books. The basic principles presented in them I gleaned many years ago from various sources in my technical illustration techniques, geometric construction and in-depth perspective studies—back in the pre-PC days. I still have all of my drafting implements from those days (proportional dividers, ship curves, ellipse templates, beam compass, etc., etc.), which were necessary to produce precise technical line work, after the freehand fleshing out of the object was done. The only books related to the topic that I still own now are ‘Engineering Design Graphics’ by James Earle (840 pg textbook bought for an AutoCAD course I took back in 1987) and ‘Rendering with markers’ by Ronald Kemnitzer (which happens to be MIA from my bookshelf), both bought back in the 80s.

Fahrija–glad you found the links useful.

#36

I´m at work right now, but i cheked the videos a little…looks amazing, thanks a lot Quadart.

#37

I was digging around for my old Syd Mead books and found an old book by an illustrator that, while I don’t necessarily consider an industrial designer, his work might be interesting to someone in the field; Chris Foss-

http://www.chrisfossart.com/

#38

Yeah it’s interesting to see how some of the greats clean up and some stay loose. There’s definitely a temptation to veer towards Mead’s precision… yet Joe Johnston’s dynamic work is tearing me the other way! It’s good that the originally recommended ID books mention that both are acceptable and it’s a matter of personal taste/style, though there was a slight preference for loose (being likened to handwriting).

Gnome, Chris Foss is awesome! :slight_smile: Berkey even better, though the prices of his books online are astronomical (much like the out of print Mead books).

#39

Quadart, i saw a little more of those links… that Idsketching channel is amazing, i´ll watch them all…thanks a lot again and i´m sure that this information will be of great interest for people entering here too

That is a problem of the wonky lines…i have nothing to do with that:scream:…

…talking seriously, i´m filling sketchbooks with studies and practices of all kind, i didn´t upload them to the sketchbook thread because i was lazy enough to not bother with the scanning.

:thumbsup: cheers.

#40

At Art Center (in the 80s) I had a couple instructors who advocated adding the “speed lines” back in on top of finished renderings. Even if the sketch was very polished and all the underlying linework was removed/traced away/covered up, the lines gave it a quick, “knocked off” look that had a certain energy to it. Always thought that was funny - make it look like you did less work (like a “quick sketch”) by actually doing more work.

#41

That is funny.

I guess it depends on who the work is being done for. The savvy ones will see the design through the many lines, the uninitiated might mistake it for a lack of drawing ability. How does one know who is looking at one’s reel, if they’re going to judge one way or another?

#42

Yeah, it seemed anathema at the time since a client rarely wants work that looks “dashed off”, even if it is. And if you inform them you added the “speed lines” back in on top of the drawing, they’ll probably think you’re crazy and they’re paying you too much. :banghead:

I know the “look” of those lines started with industrial design sketching (and sketching in general), and among modern concept artists it’s frequently seen in Doug Chiang’s work. But to be fair, he usually sketched on paper and used ellipse guides, so the lines were necessary and justified. It’s just funny to see on digital work (Feng Zhu’s comes to mind) where such lines aren’t necessary since they can be deleted or turned off after they are no longer needed. It’s become more of a detail left over from a previous time, like the little floppy disk icon every program uses to mean “save”.

#43

I think Feng’s work is totally wearing it’s analogue roots with pride, like how speedpaintings do with scanned brushstroke textures etc.

#44

this might be an other interesting book for techniques in industrial design sketching:
Learning Curves

#45

It seems the practice goes way back.
Drawing by Leonardo da Vinci:

I think the use of left over construction lines and flourishes are just as aesthetically appealing and functional today as they were in the past. The practice is commonly used in figurative sketching as well. Accentuating form with expressive perspective, contour, and silhouette lines, of varying weights, does much to describe and strengthen aspects of an objects shape/form and the geometry of the space it resides in, whether it’s a loose sketch or moderately tight rendering, depending on style. Its pretentious or contrived usage is usually pretty obvious and not at all appealing. I personally like the look of ‘seasoned’ sketch lines in more finished tech renderings, depending again on style, though not as boldly displayed as in Feng Zhu’s sketches, where they’re a bit too boldly emphasized.
Of course you wouldn’t use them on most finished line-art or a slick, realistic and highly detailed technical illustration like a Kevin Hurley work.

A bit OT, but speaking of Kevin Hulsey’s work, linked below is a phenomenal 960 hour, 2d technical cutaway illustration of a cruise ship, done in illustrator and PS, for those interested in a detailed breakdown of a finished illustration. It was created with the old-school perspective drawing method, as no pre-posed perspective view CAD line art was available at the time of the project. He had to rely on deck floor plans instead. Check out the huge detail images. *Click the options next to ‘ship tutorial’.

http://www.khulsey.com/ship-cutaway-vector-drawing-tutorial.html

#46

I’d seen this image before, but never saw the breakdown. That is absolutely amazing work. As a former technical illustrator myself, I feel like a house painter looking at the Sistine Chapel ceiling.