Presto Sketching: The Magic of Simple Drawing for Brilliant Product Thinking and Design

by Ben Crothers

Do you feel like your thoughts, ideas, and plans are being suffocated by a constant onslaught of information? Do you want to get those great ideas out of your head, onto the whiteboard and into everyone else’s heads, but find it hard to start? No matter what level of sketching you think you have, Presto Sketching will help you lift your game in visual thinking and visual communication.

In this practical workbook, Ben Crothers provides loads of tips, templates, and exercises that help you develop your visual vocabulary and sketching skills to clearly express and communicate your ideas. Learn techniques like product sketching, storyboarding, journey mapping, and conceptual illustration. Dive into how to use a visual metaphor (with a library of 101 visual metaphors), as well as tips for capturing and sharing your sketches digitally, and developing your own style.

Designers, product managers, trainers, and entrepreneurs will learn better ways to explore problems, explain concepts, and come up with well-defined ideas - and have fun doing it.

Genres: Design, Business, Art, Nonfiction

370 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2017

Reviews

[Toni Tassani · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s difficult to evaluate this book because, in my opinion, the intention is not clear and it’s more than one book. It explains visual note-taking, a.k.a. Sketchnoting, but he tries to give it a new name “Presto Sketching”. But he tries to focus the notes to product design (or service design), in some cases to clear references to UX. He also introduces facilitation, certain group activities and collaboration techniques. Too much for a single book. It’s not just about sketching.
But the graphic style, the examples, the tips and all the exercises suggested by the author are great.
And the chapter about visual metaphor is exceptional.
I will re-read doing the exercises.

[Dorothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really had fun with this book. Easy simple ways to draw common everyday things. I hope I can remember the simple techniques the book taught me.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The idea is great *and* the book actually supports it! I felt ready to try the techniques he presents and now I'm adding sketches in presentations and conversations all over the place. Really opened a new door for me when it comes to communication

[Zumrud Huseynova · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m certainly not qualified to shell out business advice, but there’s one thing I do know for sure: if we can visualize our options better, we can make better decisions

[Jeevan Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Except for the mind mapping advice, a lot of the expectations seem to be unattainable for someone like me who can't sketch to save my life