01_9780470908532-ffirs.

indd II 9/15/11 2:55 PM

 VISUAL NOTES
for Architects and Designers
SECOND EDITION

01_9780470908532-ffirs.indd I 9/21/11 11:21 AM

01_9780470908532-ffirs.indd II 9/15/11 2:55 PM
 VISUAL NOTES
for Architects and Designers
SECOND EDITION

Norman Crowe
Professor Emeritus, School of Architecture
University of Notre Dame

Paul Laseau
Professor Emeritus, Department of Architecture
Ball State University

01_9780470908532-ffirs.indd III 9/21/11 11:21 AM

 This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright © 2012 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as
permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior
written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee
to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-
646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be
addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030,
201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in
preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or com-
pleteness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability
or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or
written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situa-
tion. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall
be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special,
incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services, or technical support, please contact our
Customer Care Department within the United States at 800-762-2974, outside the United States at 317-
572-3993 or fax 317-572-4002.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material in-
cluded with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand.
If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you
may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley prod-
ucts, visit www.wiley.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Crowe, Norman.
Visual notes for architects and designers / Norman Crowe, Paul Laseau. -- 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-90853-2 (pbk.); 978-1-118-12295-2 (ebk); 978-1-118-12297-6 (ebk); 978-1-118-12932-6 (ebk); 978-1-118-
12933-3 (ebk); 978-1-118-12934-0 (ebk)
1. Communication in architectural design. 2. Visual perception. I. Laseau, Paul, 1937- II. Title.
NA2750.C76 2012
720.28--dc22
2011016228

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

IV

01_9780470908532-ffirs.indd IV 9/15/11 2:55 PM

 Contents
Preface vii
1. Introduction 1
The Uses of Visual Notes 2
Visual Literacy 6
The Notebook 10
Using This Book 14
Getting Started 15
2. A Guide to Note-Taking 17
Recording 19
Analysis 26
Design 30
3. A Journal 35
Exploring a Place 38
Understanding Order and Disorder 50
Solutions to Common Problems 64
Focusing on Details 72
Design Study: International Center 86
4. A Collection of Visual Notes 99
Thinking and Creativity 99
Visual Note-Taking 101
Examples 102
5. Transitions to Design 141
Visual Notation and Design Process 141
Impact of Digital Technology 142
Digital Design Media 142
Examples 144
Conclusion 178
Appendix— Tools and Techniques 181
Equipment 182
Basic Drawings 184
Drawing Conventions 202
Analytical Drawings 214
Symbolic Drawings 220

Endnotes 226
Illustration and Photo Credits 227
Bibliography 229
Index 231

02_9780470908532-ftoc.indd V 9/21/11 11:59 AM

 VI

02_9780470908532-ftoc.indd VI 9/15/11 2:55 PM

 Preface to the Second Edition
When we completed Visual Notes for publication
in 1984, hand drawing with drafting instruments
was still the customary practice at the drawing
board for most designers. Cameras, however,
had virtually replaced field sketches for gather-
ing information in the field. We recognized that
something was missing and so we wrote Visual
Notes for designers—especially architects, land-
scape architects, planners, and engineers—to
reassert the value of visual notation. The book
proved to be remarkably successful, indicating
that many agreed with our assessment. Since
that time, digital cameras, computer aided de-
sign software (CAD), hand-held digital sketch-
pads, the Internet, smart phones, fax machines,
and scanners have become just about ubiqui-
tous. While the aim of this edition is to continue
to demonstrate the effectiveness of gathering
visual information by means of freehand nota-
tional sketches, ways of incorporating today’s
available technologies, we believe, have become
too important and effective to exclude. Thus,
the objective of the current edition is two-fold:
to provide further instruction on visual notation,
and demonstrate how new graphic-oriented
technologies may expand the efficacy of gather-
ing visual information.
We noted in the first edition that sketching
and keeping notes was once the mainstay of
a traveler’s skills. Recording visual information
alongside verbal notes—in forms that are dia-
grammatic, abstract, pictorial, and realistic—was
simply a part of how one “took in” the important
qualities of a place, as well as to reinforce the
memory of that place for a later time. But there
is more to sketching in the field than meets the
eye, so to speak. While we engage in sketching
for purposes of capturing information, we tend
to forget that an important effect has to do with
truly seeing things in their deeper complexity,
thereby heightening a fuller and at the same
time more subtle understanding of our environ-
ment. And this effect increases, becoming more
efficient and useful as one’s habit of sketching
stretches over time.
03_9780470908532-fpref.indd VII
We are told that sketching engages a different
part of the brain than, for instance, taking pho-
tographs. Comparable research in 2003 by neu-
roscientist Eleanor Maguire of University College
London, though not focused directly on sketch-
ing, seems to emphasize the point. She discov-
ered that spatial understanding is enhanced by
direct and intense experience with something
in its true three-dimensionality, versus viewing
it in two dimensions as a photograph or other
abstract representation. In particular, her re-
search involved London cabdrivers, who it turns
out have a larger posterior hippocampus—the
region of the brain that files spatial memories—
than the average Londoner. Of course today,
one could negotiate London’s complex street
network with a GPS navigational aid, but be-
cause it does not engage spatial organization in
the same way as a series of related, consecutive
active spatial experiences, the brain is deprived
of developing more subtle and refined spatial
understanding. It would follow that operating
computer graphics, for instance, like negotiating
the streets with a GPS device, short circuits the
fuller neuronal involvement of drawing by hand.
Since the first publication of Visual Notes, an
inadvertent discovery involving the applica-
tion of computer graphics versus hand drawing
emerged in response to a decision made by the
professional degree architectural program at the
University of Notre Dame. After considerable
evaluation, it was decided that students would
be prohibited from using computer graphics
in the design process until they had reached
their fourth year of architectural studies. The
reason had to do with the observation that hand
drawing required a much greater conscious
understanding of how things go together—in
constructional, architectural, and general spatial
terms—than simply selecting a detail or element
from a digitized plan file in a CAD program,
then modifying it to suit a particular applica-
tion. What happened, in addition to ensuring
a greater understanding of architectural form,
was that when architecture students who began
VII
9/15/11 2:55 PM
 with hand drawing finally transitioned to the use
of computer graphics, their computer drawings
were noticeably superior to others who began
with computer graphics in the first place. That
was a surprise. It turns out that the use of line
weight, perspective devises, color, and the like to
clarify formal-spatial understanding were more
fully and effectively employed by those who
began with the development of hand draw-
ing skills before they learned to use computer
graphics. It would seem that the abstract under-
standing of spatial form gained from computer
graphics, as in the situation of photography
versus sketching or negotiating London streets
with a GPS device, something is gained while
something else is lost. But if both are brought
to the fore, each in its appropriate place in the
larger scope of effective communication, the
result is greater breadth of useful understanding.
We believe that encouragement to use hand
drawing in its many forms is more important
now than ever. The temptation to bypass
engaging our environment in all its richness and
complexity has become greater than ever. To
truly see, as opposed to merely record, enriches
our understanding and enhances our ability to
remember and to use our knowledge to better
facilitate the act of designing.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank those who so generously
contributed their sketches to this edition. We
believed from the onset that expanding those
sections of the book that feature a broad array of
drawings by people from different fields was of
particular importance. New contributors to this
edition are Mohammed Bilbesi, Lauren Deeg,
Wayne Estopinal, Susan Fox, Harry Eggink,
Andrew Hesterman, Susan Fox, John Hoover,
Cathi and Steven House, Nancy Kreger, Leon
Krier, Jim Leggitt, Scott Lockard, Efthimios
Maniatis, William Morrish, Michel Mounayar,
Bruce Race, and Kevin Sloan. We wish we could
have included all the sketches they sent us, but
editing from such a wonderful preponderance
of drawings, we believe, provided us with the
best combination overall.
VIII
03_9780470908532-fpref.indd VIII
The act of drawing, like writing, is an integral
part of developing thought. William Mor-
rish, whose drawings appear in this addition,
demonstrate that point. As he sketches unseen
relationships—for instance a landscape of
distant features that cannot all be seen at the
same time from a given place—he discovers
meaningful associations between things that
become integral to a broader understanding
that cannot be revealed by the eye on its own.
Or the drawings by Leon Krier in this edition,
which develop a link between the memory of
an object or place and its role as an idea that
can inform design. These tangible connections
between thought, memory, experience, and
design, further develop the original theme of
Visual Notes.
We believe that engaging hand drawing in its
many forms is more important today than it ever
was. The temptation to bypass engaging our
environment in all its richness, meaning, and
complexity has become greater than ever. To
actively see, as opposed to merely record inert
data, enriches our understanding and enhances
our ability to remember and to use our knowl-
edge to more effectively and responsively
facilitate the act of designing. NC/PL
We would also like to thank Holly M. Johnson
for her generous time and expertise in gather-
ing photographs for us in Philadelphia, Kenneth
Johnson for technical consultation, and Michele
Laseau for her design advice. Special thanks go
to our editors, Margaret Cummins and Lauren
Poplawski, for their encouragement and helping
us through the process of putting the book
together. Finally, we would like to thank all those
who expressed their enthusiasm for Visual Notes
over the years and whose interest in visual nota-
tion encouraged us to expand and revise the
original edition.
9/15/11 2:55 PM
 Introduction
1-1 Charles Darwin’s tree diagrams, representing
traceable evolution in biological species.
Visual notes are simply the graphic equivalent
of written notes. “Taking visual notes” refers to
recording information which is primarily visual
and, therefore, could not be recorded as effec-
tively with words.
Keeping notes has always been an effective
hedge against an imperfect memory. Moreover,
the act of taking notes, selecting and sifting
through them, is an important tool for creativ-
ity. Keeping a notebook of observations and
experiences is a very old custom. Once visual
notes were seen by architects to be nearly as
important as verbal ones. Sketching was a com-
mon part of travel and education for the young
architect.
Since the availability of easy, inexpensive
photography, however, visual note-taking has
declined. With this decline has come a decline in
visual literacy in general. We have come to rely
upon a camera to do all that notational sketches
once did. Of course, a camera can do much of
what sketching once did and it can perform cer-
tain tasks much faster and better. But a camera
cannot record concepts, underlying structure,
schematic organization, or anything else that
the eye cannot see all at once. Although the
camera can be used creatively, it does not require
any more than a superficial level of interaction
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 1
1
between the observer and the view. It can be-
come a comparatively neutral instrument which
neither demands a high degree of selectivity nor
promotes out of necessity a very high level of
understanding. Le Corbusier said that cameras
“get in the way of seeing.” Because visual notes
do not accompany verbal ones as frequently as
they once did, we believe that something valu-
able has been lost. It is our purpose to encour-
age the development and use of visual skills,
especially in the form of simple, rapid, effective
visual notation. We contend that the stigma
against the use of graphic skills by those other
than artists is based upon a false assumption
that one must be an artist, heavily endowed
with artistic aptitudes, in order to draw. Al-
though a certain kind of drawing is the province
of artists, that should not discourage others from
using drawings to communicate information any
more than one might refuse to ever write any-
thing down because one is not an accomplished
journalist or author. Making visual notes can be
useful and effective and it can also be a particu-
larly enjoyable endeavor. Once one has gotten
beyond the notion that one’s drawings have to
be works of art, the activity of drawing gains a
momentum of its own and inevitably provides a
certain satisfaction of its own.
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-2 Botonist’s sketches.
THE USES OF VISUAL NOTES
Who would have need for making visual notes?
It might be: an engineer inspecting machinery,
a scientist or laboratory technician recording a
particular arrangement of apparatus, a land-
scape architect noting an exemplary design, an
architect recording important details of a build-
ing which he intends to remodel or expand,
a traveler wishing to record what lies beyond
myriad impressions as he explores a new place,
or a student simply taking notes during a slide
lecture in biology, botany, anthropology, archi-
tectural or art history or other subject where
visual form is a concern.
Visual notation has an additional important use.
It records that which cannot be seen directly by
the eye or by a camera. A laboratory technician
draws a diagram of the assembly of various ap-
paratus; it would not be useful for him to draw a
picture of the laboratory. The architect’s drawing
demonstrates how the building he is studying is
organized, a plan of how the circulation system
works, or how and where the structural ele-
ments relate to the other parts of the building.
A botanist draws an exploded view of a portion
of a plant, showing how sustenance is carried
through the veining to distant parts of the plant
and how the flower’s reproductive parts fit
together. Visual notes record information which
has been selected to be stored, studied, and
communicated. Such drawings are often analyti-
cal; they take apart and describe rather than
simply represent as in a picture. Compared to an
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 2
artist’s drawings, like a sketch of a scene, visual
notes require a lot of thought and comparably
less skill because they are intended to disclose
selective information, while the sketch of a scene
requires little forethought but considerable skill
to become an accurate depiction.
There is, however, still another important
dimension to visual notation. We may be left
with the impression that this form of graphic
communication is only of concern to technolo-
gists and other professionals who require it for
the conduct of their work, and that it is simply a
useful, marketable skill. The effect, however, runs
deeper. Consider an analogous situation: the
effect of written language upon thoughts and
actions. Not only does written language, with its
commonly accepted vocabulary and grammar,
communicate ideas, but it actually conditions
the way we think. Moreover, it communicates
our own thoughts, concepts, and ideas back to
us. We use it to organize our thoughts as one
does when one assembles what he has learned
about a particular topic, records his thoughts
and, finally, “gets it all down” in writing. It is in the
act of “getting it all down” that new associations
and understanding emerge as a result of giving
order to what would otherwise be merely ran-
dom thoughts and inert, factual circumstances.
It is not surprising, therefore, that societies which
had not developed a written language are not
comparable with literate societies in terms of the
quality of their accomplishments.
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-3 Arcade of the Villa Guilia in Rome, based on a drawing by Letarouilly.

1-4 Visual notes of the same building, conveying a different kind of information
than the pictorial drawing above.
3

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 3 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-5 Egyptian hieroglyphics: Words were formed by picture-symbols. Although a clumsy form of writing,
the verbal and visual world were integrated in many early forms of writing.
Written language does have its limitations. Visual
information is not as easily conveyed by the writ-
ten word. Skillful writers have given us a special
literary richness by describing something they
wish us to see and feel, such as Balzac’s descrip-
tion of the interior of an apartment on the Place
des Vosges, or the Roman naturalist and writer
Pliny’s description of his villas in Italy in letters
to his friends. But literature cannot convey all
that seeing can provide. As in literature, the
two drawings on the right represent a fanciful
transformation from factual reality into a fantasy
at the level of good fiction writing. The ritual
mask was indeed inspired by a lion, but now
it is a thing of the imagination. Perhaps the
ancient artist first drew a lion from life to grasp
the essential characteristics of “lion-ness,” then
transformed those same characteristics into
something intentionally different though faithful
nonetheless to the factual lion. Visual media in
the form of drawing is capable of playing with
the imagination in the same way as in literature.
It follows that just as verbal description is a
source for a rich and profound level of under-
standing, visual literacy can provide its own
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 4
access to a level of richness and understanding
which would otherwise be unreachable. In our
earlier description of the engineer, technician,
scientist, and others making visual notes in order
to facilitate their work, the impression might
be that such notation is simply a means for the
transfer of information. Certainly notes might
serve only as information transfer and they
might only be perceived as such. Although basic
factual information is inert and without an intrin-
sic value, the very act of gathering the material,
selecting, sorting, and “getting it down” can
disclose new associations and promote a deeper
understanding than any superficial observation
could provide.
Communication, whether it is through literature,
mathematics, music, or graphics, is at the very
heart of creativity which thrives upon relation-
ships drawn between symbols and ideas. The
extent of one’s creativity is related to the depth
of one’s experience of the world in which one
lives. Imagination is built upon the richness of
perceptions gleaned from an active and con-
scious participation in that world of thoughts
and substance.
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-6 A lion drawn from life by Albrecht Durer.

1-7 Tribal ritual Lion Mask. It is intended that the mask be recognizable as a
lion, but this lion is of the spirit world, not an ordinary beast but a power-
ful, mystical, extraordinary one. A transformation has taken place through
the media of art and imagination.

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 5 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-8
VISUAL LITERACY
Verbal literacy is considered an essential skill in
an industrialized, technologically-based society.
Most of us have learned how to take verbal or
written notes. We learn to understand others
and express ourselves in a written language
usually by the completion of high school. But
understanding and expressing visual messages
is a skill that remains poorly developed.
Visual literacy includes two skills: visual acuity
and visual expression. Visual acuity is an intense
ability to see information or multiple messages
in one’s environment with clarity and accuracy.
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 6
When most people look at a house, they see a
roof, windows, doors, or the colors of the walls.
An artist also sees the lightness or darkness of
the colors, the way the sun casts shadows, and
the reflections in the windows. The architect
also sees the types of materials used, the details
of a window frame or eaves, and the acces-
sories such as gutters, downspouts, and lights.
The sociologist may see which windows have
curtains drawn, what symbols are presented in
the style of the house, or how well the house
is maintained. Visual expression is the ability
to initiate visual messages. It is most strongly
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-9 Varied perceptions of a house.
exhibited by people such as artists, designers,
choreographers, photographers, or architects;
but it is important to everyone. While visual
acuity is concerned with the visual messages we
receive, visual expression is concerned with the
visual messages we send. Just as listening and
speaking are related but distinct skills, seeing
and expressing are interdependent but separate.
Seeing is a necessary prelude to visual expres-
sion. But to achieve visual literacy both must be
consciously developed. Since most readers will
not start with these skills, they represent both a
goal and a benefit of visual note-taking.
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 7
In A Primer of Visual Literacy D. A. Dondis has iden-
tified three levels of visual messages.1 They are
representation, abstraction, and symbolism. Rep-
resentation seeks to accurately record what we
can actually see or experience. Representative
sketches function much as do photographs, but
they are, of necessity, more selective. The photo-
graph accurately duplicates all that can be seen
from a specific vantage point; the representative
sketch describes those parts of a view which are
of special interest to the person sketching. While
a photograph is a reproduction of what is vis-
ible, the sketch is a record of how one sees that
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 which is visible. Producing sketches and “read-
ing” other people’s sketches provide both a view
of the subject and an education about a variety
of ways of seeing.
In visual communication, abstraction can be
seen as a “simplification toward a more intense
and distilled meaning.”2 We are literally bom-
barded with visual information at any given mo-
ment; in order to function in the world we must
create some order and meaning out of what we
see. This is basically the process of abstraction
called perception. If we visit someone’s house,
the whole facade may be visible but we notice 1-10A Representative sketches.
the front walk and front door because they are
important to our intention to enter the house.
While perception usually operates on a subcon-
scious, reflex level, abstraction can be brought to
a conscious, purposeful level when incorporated
in a visual message. Abstractions may place
emphasis on certain parts of a representational
sketch such as the pattern of windows in a
house; or they may be illustrations of that which
cannot be seen such as the probable structural
system of the house.
Symbolism is also a form of simplification of vi-
sual messages but it employs a surrogate or sub-
stitute image for what can actually be seen. In
place of a representational drawing of a specific
house we can use a symbol which most people
accept as standing for the general concept
“house.” The advantage of using such a symbol 1-11A Abstract sketches.
is that it can be quickly drawn and miniaturized
so that many symbols can be shown in the same
space it takes to draw one house. These symbols
can be arranged in an abstract “environment”
in which the sequence, position, or grouping of
the symbols conveys additional information.
A variety of examples of representational, ab-
stract, and symbolic drawings can be found in
other books. A partial list of sources is included
in the Bibliography for this book; and specific
examples of drawing techniques are included in
the Appendix.

1-12A Symbolic sketches.

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 8 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-10B
1-10C

1-11B 1-11C

1-12B 1-12C

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 9 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-13 Child’s drawing.
THE NOTEBOOK
In keeping a notebook we use combinations of
representational, abstract, and symbolic mes-
sages. This requires our understanding of the
basic approach to creating each type of drawing
and the ways in which they can be combined.
When children draw a person, they draw sym-
bols for all the parts they know must be there
to make a human figure. The head is a circle and
the body a larger circle below the head. Eyes
are represented by two dots; nose, mouth, and
hair by appropriately placed lines; arms and legs
by single lines emanating from the body circle.
Likewise, a house is depicted as a rectangle with
a triangle on top of it and a symbolic window
with a single crossed division on it resides on the
facade. Our training in school in mathematics
and written language reinforces our tendency
toward symbolic drawings.
10
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 10
In her book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,
Dr. Edwards describes the transition from sym-
bolic drawings to producing nonsymbolic draw-
ings as a process of limiting the involvement of
the portion of our brain which deals primarily
with verbal information.3 Then that portion of
our brain which processes visual information
can take over. Rather than the drawing being
comprised of symbolic elements, it becomes
a composition of shapes which represent the
visual likeness of that which we are recording.
If one wishes to produce a true likeness, like
an accurate photograph of something, it is
important to draw the shape accurately, just
as it is seen, and not to permit preconceived
form or symbolic gestures to intercede. Dr.
Edwards describes this as “locking out the left
side of the brain” and she proposes exercises
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-14 Based on a drawing by Betty Edwards. Research reveals that the two sides of the brain
function in relative independence, with different functional “assignments” which, on
occasion, can conflict with one another.

intended to facilitate this locking-out process.

Later in this book, we describe her technique in
greater detail and we propose some exercises
in response to some of the discoveries her book
discusses. Among the exercises she proposes is
one whereby you reproduce a drawing upside
down. The drawing which you are to reproduce
is, preferably, one which is unintelligible to you
until it is finally righted; you are therefore forced
to draw the form as it is seen, without regard to
what is actually depicted in the original drawing.
The lines, proportions, and tones are seen and
copied simply as lines, proportions, and tones
and nothing more. This keeps the verbal part of
our brain from dominating these processes and
short-circuiting them with symbolic elements
and memories of simplified versions of the sub-
ject being drawn.

11

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 11 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-15 Analytical studies of Durham Cathedral.
Visual notation is not always the same as the
realistic drawing mode described above, but it
shares certain characteristics with lifelike draw-
ing skills such as those Dr. Edwards’ techniques
seek to teach. As you will see in the ensuing ex-
amples, an accurate representation of shape and
proportion is frequently important, even though
reproduction of optical accuracy is not always
the goal in visual notation. In optically accurate
drawings, lines are drawn onto a flat piece of
paper as an abstraction of the depicted object
or scene. Seen in light of a child’s propensity to
draw symbolic objects rather than the actual
subject being depicted we assert the impor-
tance of recognizing optical qualities of perspec-
tive and visual recognition of form, shape, and
proportion. Visual notation will not necessarily
depict objects as seen, but rather they might be
shown from above or below, with portions re-
moved or rotated to show what cannot be seen
12
04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 12
in a single view. The shape and proportions of
the object must still be reasonably accurate with
respect to the unrealistic view; therefore some
basic drawing skills are a prerequisite to making
visual notes. Basic drawing skills arise out of the
note-taking process. The sketchy and often skel-
etal or abstract character of visual note-taking, as
depicted above, is usually a consequence of in-
tentionally drawing quickly, while still capturing
shape and proportions accurately. However, if
after several attempts at visual note-taking, you
cannot grasp the means for recording shape and
proportion with reasonable accuracy, we sug-
gest that you refer to the Appendix or you might
spend some time with Dr. Edwards’ book. Then
you may return to your visual notebook, having
gained more confidence in your ability to make
your pen or pencil record shape and proportion
with acceptable accuracy.
9/15/11 2:56 PM
 1-16 Based on an illustration by Albrecht Durer explaining the mechanics of optical perspective.

1-17 Representation of three-dimensional space, following the optics of the human

eye. The figure in the above drawing sees lines, like those shown in this drawing, as
though they were projected onto the screen before him.

13

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 13 9/15/11 2:56 PM

 1-18 A scene in Venice by the architect, Louis I. Kahn, recorded in his notebook when he was a young man.

USING THIS BOOK

This book consists largely of examples of the to the reader at first, might be seen in a different
use of visual notes. They have been arranged light as needs, skills, and interests develop.
in order of relative complexity and present
Chapter 2 describes the basic processes of
issues which tend to build upon one another.
note-taking. Then Chapter 3 provides an idea
However, these examples need not be studied
of the effect of accumulated visual notes in the
in the order in which they are presented. This
form of a journal. In Chapter 4 we have collected
book can be seen as a reference source, permit-
examples of visual notes from several people
ting the reader to thumb through to find an
representing a wide range of skills, style, and
example which parallels a problem at hand. The
subjects; we hope by this means to stretch your
examples demonstrate techniques for recording
recognition of the potential of visual notation.
visual information, varying from one another in
Finally, the Appendix presents several practical
style, graphic skill, complexity, or simplicity of
suggestions for keeping a visual notebook.
technique. We have provided a potpourri of ex-
amples so that there will be something for many
needs, interests, and levels of skill. Furthermore,
certain examples which might convey very little

14

04_9780470908532-ch01.indd 14 9/15/11 2:56 PM