R
JOSE BERENGUERES
ketchS Thinking

Sketching
skills
Group IQ
What happens when you sketch better?

What is the best sketching tool?

Why felt pen is better than ball pen?
Because felt pen trace is more predictable (lateral friction)

How to sketch people?
Stick man
Tooth man
Star man
(good for drawing crowds)

Star man versatility
balletpointingneutral

1 2 3
How to draw star man
To draw the star-man always start by the shoulders. Then
the head. Then the limbs. Play with the curvature of the
limbs to express: balance, direction, intention and other
human attitudes.

Why do you need a sketching vocabulary?
Vocabulary
Impact
Symbols
Commas
Flow
Punctuation
Storify
Words

Use space for commas
Frames, containers, space and negative space
are the commas and paragraphs of the
sketching language.

Creating flow
A
use arrows to make flow
B

Containers for ideas
use containers for paragraphs

Head elevation vs. age
young old older

Exercise: Draw the largest
crowd you can (30 sec).

Sketching moods using the eyes
happy resignation
O
crossed

Drawing age using of eye & mouth
adulttoddler

Use eye-mouth separation to express age
kid adulttoddler
In general, age increases with eye-mouth dispersion…

Toddler vs. granma
toddler granma*
…except for the granma case, where proportions
become again those of a toddler* - Akira Toriyama

Use the lips to express a range of feelings
happy (not so happy) sad

Exercise: Building a graphic vocabulary
Try to sketch these
keywords (in less than
10 seconds each)
love, robot, key
collaboration
communication
flower, house, time
summer, cold, hot
hope, athletic
hungry

Teach to steal by forcing people to share...
Getting used to steal
People are weary of stealing. But stealing is
OK. As long as you give credit. A way to make
participants getting comfortable with stealing is
by using guided mastery. (See Bandura’s guided
mastery, see also #gamification). Exercise: Give
each participant four A4 papers. Fill each A4
respectively with: Lines. Triangles. Circles.
Squares. Be creative. At each A4 make
participants incorporate one interesting
‘element’ from their peers’ previous A4 into
theirs.

Test your storyfication skills…
1 Watch Paolo Cardini's talk Forget multitasking, try monotasking
2 Summarise the talk in a A4 paper with sticky notes

3 Share (in pairs)
4 Incorporate at least one ‘element’ from peer
5 Iterate three times
Share & steal from your peers...

Photo by Alli McKee. d.School. Aug 2015

Sketch “Cold”
When possible visualize “feelings”
boring
impersonal
typical

Sketch “music”
be human-centered
use support icons
focus on the outcome
of the experience
use
cotidian
object

Use body language to express feelings
use unbalanced
head to show
distress

Sketch “defeat”
total
lossneutral

Yeah!neutral
Yeah!
Sketch “Victory!”

Exercise: How-to gain confidence?
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9123456789
When we arrived in the Valley we didn’t know
anyone outside our comfort zone. Me and
Cesar decided that we would try to make an
effort to socialize more with strangers. So
every Saturday noon we would go to a random
Starbucks. We meet self-taught illustrator Juan
Villa at such a Starbucks near Edgewood. He
taught me this hack: Write numbers from 1 to
9. The left hand writes the mirror image of the
right hand. Both hands write at the same speed.
Most people are surprisingly good at left-hand
mirror sketching. Gain confidence by
discovering hidden abilities.

4891417813299
ISBN 978-1-329-48914-1
90000
About the author
Jose Berengueres received a Masters in Electrical Engineering in
Barcelona and a PhD in bio-inspired robots from Tokyo Institute of
Technology. He has taught Design Thinking and Business Models
Innovation in Dubai, California, Germany and Mexico. He also consults
on UX and biomimetics. In 2014 he was mentor at StartupWeekend
Dubai. He currently is assistant professor at UAE University where he
developed The Brown Book of Design Thinking.