Dear Colleagues,
Here is a compilation of the replies to my research request for work in the field of drawing and thinking. I requested material with a focus on such questions as these:
- How does drawing represent reality?
- How does drawing help designers to shape future realities that do not exist when they are drawn?
- What is the relationship between drawing and the evolving states of designed artefacts?
- Does drawing make thinking visible?
- If drawing makes thinking visible, how does this take place?
- What effects do drawing create on evolving human thought?
- What relationships exist between drawing and other forms of information visualisation?
- How does drawing function as a form of diagrammatic thinking?
- Do diagrams, models, and chart s represent a version of drawing?
- What relationships are worth considering between drawing and knowledge representation of other kinds?
- What does the current literature across different fields tell us about drawing?
This was an open-ended inquiry, and I also requested suggestions.
Apart from senders who wanted their replies to remain private, I promised to post the responses. 21 replies follow. This topic appears to interest people from many fields — I had responses from several lists. Thanks to everyone who answered.
Ken
Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/ <http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/>
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Email [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Academia http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman <http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman> | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn <http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn/>
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1) Barbara M Stafford
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Dear Ken,
Do you know my book: Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work of Images University of Chicago Press, 2007? Chap. 1 deals with your topic ["Form as Figuring It Out"] but pattern-generation threads throughout. You pose a great question!
I have a new book of essays coming out in May also with U of C press that might interest you more broadly. Am taking the liberty of attaching the book cover.
All the best,
Barbara
http://www.barbaramariastafford.com <http://www.barbaramariastafford.com/>
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2) Tim Smithers
Tim Smithers <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Dear Ken,
I saw your Humanist post about drawing and thinking.
I don't know if this is of any interest, but here's an old
paper on mine on the topic, I would say.
Tim Smithers, 2001: Is sketching an aid to memory or a kind
of thinking?, in proceedings of 2nd International Conference
on Visual and Spatial Reasoning in Design, Bellagio
Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy, July, 2001. (PDF
attached.)
I still very much believe in what I wrote back then, despite
getting bashed up for it in the Bellagio workshop. I did get
strong support from George Stiny though, who was also at the
workshop.
More recently I have seen several examples of designers making
(so called) early sketches as a way of identifying some
initial design requirements. These early design requirements
may (or may not) get revised and transformed as designing
proceeds, so that these early sketches appear to display no
relation to the final design. Even if they still do bear some
resemblance, this does not mean these sketches were made as
early versions of the final design. I think the role of
sketches in designing are several, depending upon the kind of
thinking being done with them. The idea that drawings are
early versions of a design is largely mistaken, I (still)
think, and too simple to explain what can be observed as going
on in real designing.
Best regards,
Tim
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3) Melissa Terras
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There’s a large research community interested in these areas, and a whole lot of prior work - I’d start by looking at the articles by my colleague Lucy Lyons and chaining from there? Also https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/tracey/drn/ <https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/tracey/drn/>
PUBLICATIONS:
2015
●‘Drawing embodied knowledge: a dangerous activity’ chapter in Artistic research anthology, Fentz C. & McGurick T. (Eds.), NSU, due for publication Autumn 2015
2012
●‘Drawing your way into Understanding’ article in Tracey Journal of Drawing and Visualisation Research, May 2012 (ISSN 1742-3570)
● ‘Delineating Disease’, article in Atrium Report of the Northwestern Medical Humanities & Bioethics Program, issue 10, "Graphic”, Spring 2012
●‘Dignity: drawing relationships with the body’, chapter in A Imagem na Ciência e na Arte: Representações do Corpo na Ciência e na Arte, Azevedo Tavares, C., (Ed.), Fim de Século, 2012
2010
●‘Delineating Disease: drawing insights in the medical museum’, chapter in, Science Exhibitions: Curation & Design, Filippoupoliti, A., (Ed.), MuseumsEtc. 2010
2008
●‘Delineating Disease’, The Bulletin for the Royal College of Pathologists, Number 142, June 2008
2007
●‘Walls Are Not My Friends’, article in Working Papers in Art & Design (ISSN 1456-4917)
https://www.lucylyons.org/about <https://www.lucylyons.org/about>
Melissa
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4) Alma Hoffman
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Hello!
I wanted to reach out about the topic you’ve posted. I’m writing a book (undergoing peer review at the moment titled Sketching as Design Thinking.
The questions you posted are of great interest to me too.
I’m not sure how to proceed in terms of establishing a conversation. Also, I conducted an online survey titled Exploring Beliefs about sketching in design education and practitioners. 320 people participated.
For the book, I interviewed 10-12 designers as well. I had very engaging conversations with all of them.
Alma
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Alma Hoffmann
Assistant Professor
VAB 348
501 North University Blvd
Department of Visual Arts
University of South Alabama
Mobile, AL 36688
p. 251-461-1437
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5) Sigrid Zahner
"Zahner, Sigrid Kirsten" <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Dear Ken:
Regarding:
How does drawing represent reality?
- How does drawing help designers to shape future realities that do not exist when they are drawn?
- What is the relationship between drawing and the evolving states of designed artefacts?
- Does drawing make thinking visible?
- If drawing makes thinking visible, how does this take place?
- What effects do drawing create on evolving human thought?
- What relationships exist between drawing and other forms of information visualisation?
- How does drawing function as a form of diagrammatic thinking?
- Do diagrams, models, and chart s represent a version of drawing?
- What relationships are worth considering between drawing and knowledge representation of other kinds?
- What does the current literature across different fields tell us about drawing?
This is an open-ended inquiry. If these topics suggest questions that I have not asked, I’d be interested in suggestions.
I am very interested in the above questions. As the professor of sculpture at Purdue my practice and teaching methods include drawing in space (with wire for example) to help students understand volume away from the page (both intellectually as a concept and visually). It helps both engineers and artists. This is not a topic I can expand upon in an email, but would be very interested in participating in this type of research/discussion.
I am also interested in reusing discarded materials in art practices, because I observe so much waste in the art/design world, often within work that purports to be part of the discussion of global warming etc.
Please let me know if I can be of use in this discussion.
Sigrid Zahner
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6) Mary Pollock
Mary Pollock <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
KMen—
Check out Field Notes on Science and Nature, ed. Michael R. Canfield. In this anthology, several of your questions are addressed directly and indirectly by the authors—all scientists. Besides, it’s just a gorgeous book
Mary Pollock
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7) Seumas Raibéart Coutts
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Ken, I would suggest you have a look at - The Pleasure in Drawing by Jean-Luc Nancy and Philip Armstrong.
Hope this proves to be helpful.
Best
Seumas
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8) Leslie Atzmon
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Hi Ken. Hope all is well with you. I do write about this some. But you also might want to check out Gabriella Goldschmidt https://technion.academia.edu/GabrielaGoldschmidt <https://technion.academia.edu/GabrielaGoldschmidt>
And kyna Leski http://kynaleski.com/ <http://kynaleski.com/>
Best,
Leslie
Here’s more.
Leslie
http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rQjN1m8AAAAJ&hl=en <http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rQjN1m8AAAAJ&hl=en>
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9) Jack Ox
Jack Intermedia Ox <[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Cole, Jonathan. (2013). Capable of Whatever Man's Ingenuity Suggests": Agency, Deafferentation, and the Control of Movement. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The Hand, an Organ of the Mind; What the Manual Tells the Mental (pp. 3-25). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. <>
<>
Prinz, Jesse, J. (2013). Hand Manifesto. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The Hand, an Organ of the Mind; What the Manual Tells the Mental (pp. xiiii-xvii). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. <>
Radman, Zdravko. (2013). Beforehand. In Z. Radman (Ed.), The Hand, an Organ of the Mind; What the Manual Tells the Mental (pp. xiv-xxii). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. <>
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10) Gunnar Swanson
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Ken,
One way I work in the field of drawing and thinking is by teaching graphic design students to use drawing to formulate (then criticize) ideas.
I tell my students that I could be replaced by a parrot that just repeats "Make it real. Make it now. Make it real. Make it now." I have pencils imprinted with MAKE IT REAL. MAKE IT NOW and we give them to every student in our classes. I will often just say to a student "Read your fucking pencil." Drawing is one way to make certain things real.
My sophomores are just finishing a trademark project. Early in the process, they made a word list and learned various techniques for expanding the list. They highlight particularly meaningful or intriguing words.
They then did vocabulary drawings—quick images of any of the words that can be drawn, and other visual ideas. We teach various techniques for expanding the range of drawings. (We emphasize that these are not thumbnails of logos. They are strictly vocabulary.) They highlight images that are meaningful or compelling.
They then look at all possible combinations of the good images. Those constitute ideas that can be refined into pictorial or abstract trademarks.
I can say that I’ve never had a student who was caught with his pants down on designing a mark. Anyone who doesn’t have ideas for the trademark hasn’t done the vocabulary part. I don’t know if this does you any good in your thinking. I’m happy to elaborate on anything if you want.
Gunnar
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11) Stuart Medley
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Hi Ken
Not sure if Kevin Henry has been in touch, but he is the first that springs to mind for me when I read your questions.
Best regards
Stuart
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12) Nicola St John
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Hi Ken,
I’m a PhD candidate at Swinburne University and wanted to send a reply to the below.
My PhD research explores the role of digital drawing as a progression of Indigenous creative practice in remote Australia. It looks into the role of drawing within an Indigenous design process (specifically Western Arrernte perspectives) and how the participants make meaning from drawing and design.
Looking at a specific cultural approach to design enables new understandings of the design process and the role of drawing within in. Western Arrernte imaginings of a design process display strong links to the ancestral and to Indigenous knowledge. Drawing for them is a way to renew and remake this knowledge, and to give it a visible form. Here, drawing is a relational practices and makes ancestral and indigenous knowledge visible while represented the designers connection to this knowledge. I think it’s important to consider how drawing enables this form of knowledge representation – working to keep cultural traditions and stories alive, renewing designers sense of cultural identity and connections to family.
I have publishing some early work from the thesis (attached) but have yet to share the results focused on Western Arrernte perception of drawing, the design process and how they make meaning from engaging in these practices.
I hope you will be able to include some diverse cultural perspectives of the role of drawing and thinking within your future work. It presents an approach outside Euro-centric understandings, which I think worthy of showing unique cultural perspectives of the role of drawing within design process and practice.
Looking forward to seeing where your discussions lead.
Cheers,
Nicola
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Nicola St John | PhD Candidate
www.nicolastjohn.co <https://nicolastjohn.co/>
Faculty of Health, Arts and Design | Centre for Design Innovation
Swinburne University of Technology
Ph: +61 424 417 529
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13)
14) Willard McCarty
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Subject: drawing and thinking
On this subject there's quite a lot of papers and books on specialised
forms of drawing -- diagramming and flowcharting come immediately to
mind. On diagramming: from Venn's On the diagrammatic and mechanical
representations of propositions and reasoning (1880) to Gardner's
Logic machines and diagrams (1958), Larkin and Simon's Why a diagram
is sometimes worth ten thousand words (1987), to Blackwell's Thinking
with diagrams (2001), Dörfler's Diagrammatic thinking (2005) and
Stjernfelt and Østergaard, Diagrammatic problem solving (2016).
On flowcharting:from Playfair's The commercial and political
atlas (1801), Gilbreth and Gilbreth's Process charts (1921) to Krämer
and Ljungberg, Thinking with diagrams (2016). There's Swade's Automatic
computation (2010), with a reproduction of Babbage's Mechanical Notation
flowchart. Everyone will think of Tufte's books.
But digging deeper, perhaps by going wider, would be very good -- on the
kinaesthetics of thinking with the drawing instrument &c.
Yours,
WM
--
Willard McCarty (www.mccarty.org.uk/ <http://www.mccarty.org.uk/>),
Professor emeritus, Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London;
Adjunct Professor, Western Sydney University; Editor, Interdisciplinary
Science Reviews (www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20 <http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/yisr20>) and Humanist
(www.dhhumanist.org <http://www.dhhumanist.org/>)
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15) Maria Spanovangelis
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Subject: R: [Humanist] 32.583: drawing and thinking?
I don't work in this field, however I was a student at Liceo Classico (high
school with Greek and Latin grammar and literature) where I studied
philosophy,history of art, some basics about aesthetics, and I loved drawing
and knowing techniques. As a primary school teacher I'm fond of illustrators
and I was in contact with people working at museums offering laboratories to the
children. Let me know if my experiences can be useful to the debate.
Best regards
Maria Spanovangelis
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16) Mark Bradford
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Hi Ken,
This sounds interesting! I'll send you my thoughts later today (Check out my Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice journal article: 'Drawing-acts and the activity of designing' http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/drtp/2017/00000002/00000002/art00008;jsessionid=uw564pe1dfhs.x-ic-live-02 <http://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/drtp/2017/00000002/00000002/art00008;jsessionid=uw564pe1dfhs.x-ic-live-02>).
Hope you're well.
Mark
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17) Nicolai Steinø
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Dear Ken,
I gave this paper at a conference at the American University of Sharjah, UAE, last year, which may be of interest to you:
Architectural Drawing : Notation, Reflection, Communication and Presentation.<http://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/architectural-drawing(40d9bb4c-6150-47af-9517-8e126dd5309e).html <http://vbn.aau.dk/da/publications/architectural-drawing(40d9bb4c-6150-47af-9517-8e126dd5309e).html>> / Steinø, Nicolai<http://vbn.aau.dk/da/persons/nicolai-steinoe(43e16feb-2c0d-43d6-95eb-3e12ef2003fe).html <http://vbn.aau.dk/da/persons/nicolai-steinoe(43e16feb-2c0d-43d6-95eb-3e12ef2003fe).html>>.
PPADD 2018 AUS: Process and Practice Across Design Disciplines. American University of Sharjah, 2018. s. 129-135
http://vbn.aau.dk/files/271003923/PPADD_2018_Steino.pdf <http://vbn.aau.dk/files/271003923/PPADD_2018_Steino.pdf>
Best,
Nic
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18) John Gero
<[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Ken
This may be of interest. This is a paper on using eye-tracking to compare how architecture students “read” a drawing of a set of spaces with “reading” a photo of the spaces as built:
http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero/publications/Progress/16GeroShieldsYu-CAADRIA.pdf <http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero/publications/Progress/16GeroShieldsYu-CAADRIA.pdf> <http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero/publications/Progress/16GeroShieldsYu-CAADRIA.pdf <http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero/publications/Progress/16GeroShieldsYu-CAADRIA.pdf>>
Rgds
John
John S Gero
Research Professor in Computer Science and Architecture
UNC Charlotte
Research Professor at Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
George Mason University
Co-Editor in Chief, Design Science
Email: [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Web: http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero <http://mason.gmu.edu/~jgero>
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19) Richard Herriott
<[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Dear Ken and others:
May I be so self-promoting as to share this paper? It´s on aesthetics which deals in part with how drawing is used in a three-way dialogue between the designer, the image and the model/concept (either before 3D form is achieved or when it is a prototype like a clay model). I eventually get to a definition of design sure to set cats among pigeons.
http://www.svid.se/en/Research/Design-Research-Journal/Research-articles/Research-articles-2017/What-is-it-like-to-see-a-bat/ <http://www.svid.se/en/Research/Design-Research-Journal/Research-articles/Research-articles-2017/What-is-it-like-to-see-a-bat/>
Regards,
Richard Herriott
Assoc. Prof.., ID
Design School Kolding
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20) Mattias Arvola
<[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Dear Ken,
this paper by Henrik Artman and me may be of interest. In short, we argue that the drawing can anchor the thinking, which allows you to jointly playi with the ideas.
Arvola, M. & Artman, H. (2007). Enactments in Interaction Design: How Designers Make Sketches Behave. Artifact, 1(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/17493460601117272 <https://doi.org/10.1080/17493460601117272>
// Mattias Arvola
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21) Mel Strawn
<[log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Hello Ken.
Your enquiry and list of questions do interest me. In my 90th year, still involved and with more than a third of my life teaching drawing and design, I'm still exploring the possibilities of visual thinking and exploration.
Your first 2 questions:...- How does drawing represent reality?
- How does drawing help designers to shape future realities that do not exist when they are drawn?
Once executed, a drawing exists as a visible artifact. It becomes its own reality. "Reality" might or might not be some other objective entity, a 'thing' or collection of 'things". It might ideographically (think 'kangi', sorry, Japanese term) stand to register a thing or action or quality or, or, or.... In Shanghai ,you live with this "drawn symbol language" daily. The quality of the "drawing" including its tactile and spatial manifestations is a critical concern as to 'how' it effects future actions/realities. A more usual answer to question one is 'via optics, a selection of photo or eyeballed image'. Consider all the 'how to' books and perhaps David Hockney's book on
optics in post-Renaissance European art. Mathew Crawford in his book on the nature of work, "Shop Class as Soulcraft", goes into depth considerations of how drawing and thinking interact.
The second question seems relatively simple (maybe my simple mind..) Drawings of things that don't yet exist are tangible records of what imagination yields. It becomes an entity that cn be measured and tested as to its possible function or use in any of possible materials. Call in the engineers...
Ken, enough for an introduction. A bit of my work and thought might be gleaned from:
melsbrush.blogspot.com/ <https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwipgf6anqrhAhUDXawKHaO_C-YQFjAAegQIAxAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmelsbrush.blogspot.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw3XjaJSQt-UXUTN5_A77S-y>
Mel Strawn, Prof Emeritus, University of Denver
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