Some say the design sketch has died

From the academy, we can understand the design sketch as an exploration of the main axes of a possible solution to the problem that allows us to build the relationships of shaping an idea (Ortega & Ceballos, 2015). But being a disciplinary technique that has been inherited from previous generations, it is made up of particular features that historically have only responded to the needs of a conventional type of industrial civilization, characteristics that have been determined by the technical requirements regarding the form how a piece is machined or turned in material subtraction processes, or how a mold is created for foundry processes.

It is against this backdrop that some design professionals and students who are native inhabitants of the design programs, which allow them to directly draw a high-quality rendered visual sketch in 3D without having to draw previous schematic alternatives (Briede, 2008), consider concern about the obsolescence of the sketch as an initial stage of ideation, and they feel that it can become a duplication of processes in the creative exercise when they work in an environment of new industries 4.0.

As teachers, we value the importance of maintaining a space of thought that can be translated into actions of the design, with which ideas materialize. But we must be in tune with the constructive requirements of the new prospective scenarios of additive manufacturing and industry 4.0 technologies. (Dorta et al, 2014), (Mahecha, 2019). While we sketch, it is time to think about the possibilities of building more complex shapes that traditionally a mold does not allow, also in customized products of low quantities and especially in the optimization of mechanical forces and areas of resistance that is optimized in additive manufacturing.

So the design sketch is really not dying, it is moving to a new life as a 4.0 sketch for remote and immersive work environments, where novel drawing concepts such as the one developed by the Hybridlab of a post-perspective appear (Dorta et al, 2014), (Angulo, 2019), which was achieved through a projector the direct translation to the third dimension of sketch that is drawn on a tablet that is represented on a large 120-degree surround screen.

Referents:

Angulo, C. (2019). El boceto para pensar, conversar y convencer en diseño industrial: una evolución comprendida desde cuatro dimensiones de estudio[The sketch to think, speak, and persuade in industrial design. A comprehensible evolution studied from four dimensions]. Tesis doctoral en Diseño y Creación. Universidad de Caldas, Colombia.

Briede, J. (2008). La metodología sistémica y el rol del boceto en el diseño conceptual de productos industriales[The systemic methodology and the role of the sketch in the conceptual design of industrial products].Tesis Doctoral. Universidad Politécnica de Valencia. Valencia, España.

Dorta T. Kinayoglu G. and Hoffmann M. (2014). A New Embodied Interface for Immersive Collaborative 3D Sketching, SIGGRAPH ’14 Studio: Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference, Studio Proceedings, Article No. 37, Vancouver, p. 37.

Mahecha, S. (2019). La fabricación aditiva. Su relación con el pensamiento espacial y pensamiento técnico para el desarrollo de producto[Additive manufacturing Its relationship with spatial thinking and technical thinking for product development].Tesis de Maestría. Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano.

Ortega, M., & Ceballos, P. (2015). Design thinking: Lidera el presente. Crea el futuro.[Design thinking: Lead the present. Create the future].ESIC Editorial.

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