Learning Curves – Book Review

Writer - Raph Goldworthy

As most product designers and industrial designers would be aware there is a real shortage of good, high quality books on the topic of design sketching.

For many years designers were relying on the classic Presentation Techniques by Dick Powell. Presentation Techniques was certainly a great book for it’s time (and still is), however most copies were out of date for many years until a re-release was done around 2000. Then after many years of waiting for something new on the design sketching book front, in 2005 Design Sketching by Klara Sj olén and Erik Olofsson was released, an inspirational product design sketching book featuring twenty-four talented students from the Umeå Institute of Design. Hot on the heels of that came Sketching – Drawing Techniques For Product Designers by Koos Eissen and Roselin Steur and Analog Dreams by Michael DiTullo. While all of the above books are superb and provide various tips, tricks and techniques for improving your product design sketching, there was always a nagging feeling in the back of my mind there was something missing from them – what it is, I cannot specifically say.

When I received Learning Curves – An Inspiring Guide to Improve Your Design Sketching Skills by Allan Macdonald and Klara Sj olén I was elated to discover that this book has that “IT” which the others mentioned above are missing in some way. After several reading sessions, many flick throughs admiring the stunning sketches and pondering the great tips, and in between thinking ‘my god I need to polish my sketching skills’, I have come to believe that Learning Curves is probably the best design sketching book released in 20 years.

Learning Curves covers all the standard tips, tricks and techniques you would expect to find in a book dedicated to showing you how to improve your sketching skills. But where it is significantly different from most sketching books is that it actually assumes you have some level of sketching ability or at least that you are currently trying to develop a base level. Instead of focusing on starting completely from scratch, which many other sketching books do and Instead of belting you over the head with the basics, the book covers them quickly and succinctly, then moves through to medium and advanced skill areas.

Every page in Learning Curves is filled with beautiful sketches which sit along side paragraphs full of tips and tricks that are highly useful, informative and in most cases clearly answer some of those sketching questions many designers have argued over forever. Although what really makes the book great is that is doesn’t just force one persons point of view onto the reader, in fact it often presents various designers views, opposing points or ways of doing so readers can choose what works for them or the project they might be working on.

To achieve such an broad and, at the same time, deep exploration of design sketching, over 40 designers and sketching professionals contributed to the book. This means that everyone, whether a raw beginner or a seasoned professional can pick up Learning Curves and gain something from it. What is also really fantastic about the book is that instead of directly competing with the other design sketching books available it actually compliments them.Learning Curves is an extremely well written and informative design sketching book that will assist product designers or industrial designers of any level to build and develop their design sketching skills.