Effective Layout for Illustration

Product Design Sketching

Characteristics of Product Presentation

Not very stylistic when compared to other design disciplines

Allowance of certain level of vagueness and uncertainties during earlier stages of the product design process

Increasing level of realistic sense towards the later stage of the projects, especially at the pitching stage

Use of limited graphical instruments, which only serve to organize but seldom dominate the presentation

Great focus on how the product is used

Major Considerations

Focus of Interest Prominence of an object (due to size, tone or color) may

attract first attention and thereby determine how the viewer looks at an illustration

Common Conventions and Notations There may be certain common conventions that guide

the viewer in reading the illustration

Reading Sequence Sufficient visual hints should be given to suggest a visual

path, and thereby prompt the viewer your intended reading sequence

Guiding Principles

Visuals in a verbal design presentation should Support your communication objective Enhance your verbal message, not distract from

it Set tone and emotional contents of verbal

message with the use of colors and images Be succinct but adequate to convey the

necessary information

Use of Text

Avoid too much textual informationUse different font sizes to suggest

hierarchy of importanceHeadings or title texts should be legible

from a distanceCheck you spelling before outputting your

boards!

Universal Convention:From the Upper Left Where no explicit hint is given, it is natural for a viewer to start

reading a series of illustrations from the upper left But then, it would become uncertain as to which direction to proceed

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Gestalt Principle:Proximity One way to make the reading sequence obvious is to

apply the proximity principle

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Gestalt Principle:Proximity

Another example of applying the proximity principle

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Human Intuition:Clockwise Notation When drawings are organized in a circular manner, it is

by intuition that the viewer will look at them in a clockwise direction starting from the 12 o’clock position

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Beyond Intuition

If however it is intended to be read with a different starting point or in different direction, visual hint(s) may be added to prompt the viewer

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Instructions

Human Intuition: From Big to Small Sometimes a larger drawing is used to portrait the overall outlook of

the product (e.g. an exploded rendered view). Its larger size may have dominating effect on the reading sequence

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Cultural Factor

Some language systems adopt a right to left and top to bottom reading convention

Special attention should be given to using such layout for international readers, who may find this sequence confusing

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Equivocal Layout

As a rule-of-thumb, avoid using layout that lacks visual hint or that is against human intuition for graphical illustration of event sequence

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Two-board Presentation