pencils polymer & pixels

I haven’t had a chance to play around with this sketching tool yet but it looks interesting.  You can see a demo at atebits.com

Incredibly easy-to-use drawing tool

Advanced stroke rendering make sketches look natural

Intuitive 3D layer interface

Save to most popular graphics formats

Drawing tablet supported (but not required)

1-click sharing

Freely publish to the Scribbles Gallery

“Infinite canvas” groundbreaking core technology that allows the artist to break free of the restrictions of typical drawing apps. You never have to pre-define the size of your canvas. You can zoom into your drawings with unparalleled precision and Scribbles will magically re-render your art so you never encounter a jaggy edge or blocky pixel.

High-resolution output

Free to download and try for as long as you want

Cristoph Niemann posted a beautifully simple pictoral expression of NYC in Lego. What I love about this is the level of abstraction that lego mandates. There is always that moment where abstraction and imagination join to form meaning from a set of basic shapes. When we communicate our ideas early in a design this activation of imagination is essential in encouraging participation and interpretation.

At the end of these images you want your own bin of Legos to add your own, the coffee cart, gum spots, water towers, anything you can imagine is in that bin.

See the series by Christoph.

About the Artist

Christoph Niemann’s illustrations have appeared on the covers of The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Magazine and American Illustration. His work has won numerous awards from the American Institute of Graphic Arts, the Art Directors Club and American Illustration. He is the author of two children’s books, “The Pet Dragon,” which teaches Chinese characters to young readers, and “The Police Cloud.” After 11 years in New York, he moved to Berlin with his wife, Lisa, and their sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz. His Web site is christophniemann.com.

*NY Times

This looks like a really interesting tool but there is little information outside of this demo

“A 3D curve sketching system that captures some of the affordances of pen and paper for professional designers, allowing them to iterate directly on concept 3D curve models. The system coherently integrates existing techniques of sketch-based interaction with a number of novel and enhanced features. Novel contributions of the system include automatic view rotation to improve curve sketchability, an axis widget for sketch surface selection, and implicitly inferred changes between sketching techniques. We also improve on a number of existing ideas such as a virtual sketchbook, simplified 2D and 3D view navigation, multi-stroke NURBS curve creation, and a cohesive gesture vocabulary.”

http://www.ilovesketch.com/

An excellent example of how prototyping works from idea to production.  Observation > Sketching > Modeling > Testing > Revising > Specification > Production.  One of the interesting things to watch for here is the level of fidelity in the methods.  Sketches, models and prototypes all advance the concept and feed back into its refinement.

Strida

Bill Buxton, Author of Sketching User Experiences, takes time out in a chapter called Anatomy of Sketching to capture the attributes as sketching.  Across design, you can see how these apply, architecture, fashion, industrial, etc.

• They are quick to make and timely to talk about the idea
• They are inexpensive and easy to dispose of (making designers less “wedded” to a particular idea because of investment)
• They are plentiful (designers should bring many different ideas-as-sketches to the table, not just one)
• They have a clear vocabulary (such as drawing through the endpoints to show the “unfinishedness” of the idea)
• They use no higher resolution than necessary (so they don’t waste designer’s time and effort in preparation)
• Their resolution does not suggest they are further along than they really are (to avoid giving the impression of being more done than reality)
• They suggest and explore instead of confirming (to support ideation, instead of forcing decisions)

Do these have a place in interaction design? When we practice these, are we sketching or are we prototyping?  Is there a difference?