Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers

by Koos Eissen, Steur Roselien

A must have for product design students!

Are designers still making drawings by hand? Isn't it more advanced to use a computer in this computer era? Some may think sketching is a disappearing skill, but if you ever enter a design studio, you will find out differently. Studios still make sketches and drawings by hand and in most cases, quite a lot of them. They are an integral part of the decision-making process, used in the early stages of design, in brainstorming sessions, in the phase of research and concept exploration, and in presentation.

Drawing has proved to be, next to verbal explanation, a powerful tool for communicating not only with fellow designers, engineers or model makers but also with clients, contractors and public offices.

This book can be regarded as a standard book on design sketching, useful for students in product design.

Genres: Design, Art, Drawing, Reference, Nonfiction, Art Design

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Hanu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers is more of a valuable reference guide than learning material itself. The concepts provided by Eissen define a comprehensive overview of product sketching principles, but only offer limited explanations as to how to achieve them. The case studies and images display ideal outputs for each technique, which is useful when comparing practice sketches. However, the methods to get there are lacking and better explained by YouTube tuts or other online resources.

I would recommend this book for the beautiful examples provided, but:

For those starting out sketching, read this book after either "Sketching: The Basics" by Eissen or "How to Draw" by Robertson. All three are free and provided through the Internet Archive. Use this book to see good examples of product sketching. Don't get stuck on the details and focus on digesting the case studies and applications. Keep in mind that visualization techniques have changed a lot throughout the years. If you take notes (recommended in general for any sketching book), save any images that give you an 'aha' feeling. Try out each technique instead of just reading about it, and research online if you're not satisfied by an explanation.

[Serhiy Petelin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very exciting book/ I would recommend it to ny class

[John Gates · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book for pictures, but explanations are lacking, though much of this may be gathered by images.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books on industrial design illustration techniques. Start with his newest "Sketching: The Basics", which is like a prequel, with more explanations of foundational drawing. Since this book has been published, there are two books by Scott Robertson that also cover foundational rendering. (Drawing, and Rendering by Scott Robertson). This book is full of beautiful renderings and illustrations, and the print quality and binding quality is top-notch. When visiting a friend at Purdue, I found out this was one of the reference books used in their industrial design rendering classes..so that attests to it's quality.

[Marco Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book lays out beautiful sketches and techniques of learning how to produce these. Information is conveyed mainly in images, there is not much explanation to accompany these. Simple techniques include breaking complex forms down into more basic ones and constructing the end result from there.

The main application is in product and industrial design, but these techniques are equally valuable for other areas of visualisation. It serves more as a case study reference for beautifully rendered images than helping beginners develop these techniques from scratch.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good reference book that glosses over the mechanics of sketching often taught in similar books, instead focusing on providing examples. Not my style personally since I prefer to know the technical details. Good overall but left me unsatisfied as a beginner. I would recommend Drawing for Product Designers by Kevin Henry over this.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

don't those toasters look great. This book will teach you the various hacks to draw like an industrial designer.

[Khash · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the greatest books I've ever seen. Love it . so interesting.

[Amir · Rating 3 out of 5]

good for being familiar with concepts
its not a bible of Sketching

[Evgenia Pradel · Rating 5 out of 5]

very interesting and useful book with a lot of great tips

[Mohammad Shaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for sketching a product design. Though, don't know why it doesn't have any form of methodology, or why it focuses so much on some areas and overlook others completely.