Quality of idea vs. Quality of image
For me, the best thing about rough sketches is this:
The quality of an idea can be separate from the quality of the drawing.
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| Is the sketch enough for you to recognize this? |
I’m a big fan of a blog called “Math with Bad Drawings” by Ben Orlin. He’s written many great posts on things ranging from specific mathematical concepts to issues in education. His posts are fun and engaging, which is always good. But his sketches are critical to his writing because they often convey an idea better than several paragraphs of words would.
Another example of this is caricature. Even though a rough drawing of someone's face contains far less information than a photograph, it's often easier for humans to recognize a person's caricature than an actual photo of the person. The sketch, as rough as it is, gives you exactly what you need, and nothing to distract you.
That's a powerful concept, and one of the driving forces behind Limnu.
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| Can you recognize it now? (Photo by Rosino, used under Creative Commons license) |
When you're brainstorming with other people, you need to get your idea across and you need to do it fast. A rough sketch is the best way to do that. Draw something so everyone in the room sees what's in your head, listen to their feedback, change the sketch accordingly. That's brainstorming, that's where great ideas come from, and that's what Limnu makes possible for teams that can't be in the same physical room together.