Visual Thinking: Drawing Makes You Really Look

Visual thinking is most often associated with commercial, fine, or industrial arts. But visual thinking plays a big role in science, too. Before cameras and computers, scientists would draw whatever they were studying because, in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Many go through the meadow, but few see the flowers in it."

Drawing forces you to really look at whatever you're drawing. The more closely you look, the more likely you are to see things you or others may have missed. To become a better visual thinker, draw something!

The whisk above is another page from my high school sketchbook.

Visual Thinking & Lettering Practice: Letter Design - Lowercase F

Another 2 minute visual thinking and lettering design practice, this time with lowercase f. Just choose a letter and if it will be upper or lower case. Get whatever you're going to draw on and with all ready. Set the timer for 2 minutes and draw that letter as many different ways as you can until the timer goes off. That's it! Whatever you draw stays there - no erasing, no scribbling out. The ideas you don't like this time around may be just what you're looking for later on.

My 2 minute practice above was done on a whiteboard.

Visual Thinking Practice — Patterns from Repetition

The brain loves patterns! Drawing simple patterns actually helps you become a better visual thinker and pattern finder, even when things are more abstract. And it helps you to more quickly find the simple patterns in more complex ones.

Try this:

Duplicate a black and white pattern design four times. Choose four colors, plus tints or shades if needed. Color the background the same on all four images. Then use the other three colors to color the main parts of the design, making each of the four copies different. Then put them all together and see how your original simple pattern suddenly becomes much more complex.

I did this one in Photoshop and flipped some of them horizontally to make things even more complicated, yet the original design is still quite simple.

See this previous blog post to see how to make this pattern and this for an exercise with color.

Visual Thinking Practice: See it clearly

Ideas can be abstract or invisible and that makes them harder to work with. Visuals help make them concrete and (obviously!) visible. Then they're much easier to work with and evaluate.

Try this easy exercise:

Take a black and white design you drew a while ago.* Imagine the entire image fully colored in at least 4 different colors. Try to see the entire image with as much detail and as vividly as possible. Take your time and wait to get a really clear picture in your head before moving on. Then, color the image in as you pictured it. Odds are, you'll probably change your plan a bit as you go along. When things become visible and tangible, it becomes much clearer what works and what doesn't.

*Check out the previous post on Visual Thinking Practice: Thick & Thin Lines and Concentric Shapes to see how to make a design like this one.

Visual Thinking Practice: Thick & Thin Lines and Concentric Shapes

The brain loves patterns! Drawing concrete, visual patterns like this actually helps you get better at discovering more abstract, non-visual patterns.

Here's one to try: 

Pick a starting place on whatever you're drawing on. Draw four round shapes, with each line starting at that central point. You should have a clover shape or something like the letter x. Then go around the shapes you just drew, again starting at the same central point for each line drawn. Alternate thick and thin lines for each set of lines draw around that central point. Continue until the entire page is filled (going off the page for some) or stop and embelish the background, like I did above.

That's it! Now you have a simple, symmetrical, geometric design that's helped your brain become a better pattern detector and visual thinker!

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*Concentric is a math term that describes shapes with a common center.

Seven Simple Skulls

Another great way to practice your visual thinking and creative thinking skills it to experiment with drawing something a number of different ways. The key word here is EXPERIMENT because you probably won't end up liking everything you come up with. Like in my skull experiment above - the one in the middle kinda has an alien thing going on!

31 Spunky Pumpkins!

If you want to think more visually, you've gotta practice! One great way to is to take a few minutes everyday to think how you might represent something visually. If you're super organized, you might make a list of things and tackle one every day. Or, you could just choose something that catches your attention or whatever random things pop into your head.

Last October, I worked on traits of creative people - a different trait for each day in October. At the end of the month, I ended up with 31 Spunky Pumpkins! You can check out the whole set in this Flickr Album.

Visual Thinking Practice: Overlapping Letters

Another simple visual thinking exercise anyone who can write can do. It also makes a great ice-breaker or energizer during longer meeting, workshops, etc.

All you do is choose a word and write the letters of that word really big. Be sure to overlap them some and rotate as needed to make things interesting. It's also fun to switch up upper and lowercase letters. Leave it as is or color in the closed shapes, like I did above. Then give it to someone and see if they can figure out the word.

What word did I write? Post it in the comments if you can figure it out.

(Hint: It's seven letters.)

Quick Visual Thinking Practice

Here's a super quick and simple visual thinking exercise anyone can do: Fold a piece of regular printer paper in half, twice both ways. When you open it up, you will have a total of 16 boxes, 4 columns and 4 rows of 4 boxes. Write a letter in one box, then write the mirror reverse in the box to the right. Continue until all 16 boxes are filled. What word did I use?

Be More Visual: Free Downloads!

Just added the Freebies! page...check it out! Each file features super simple ways anyone can be more visual. Print them out or download and save for later. No fancy drawing skills or supplies required!