Customer Reviews

Rapid Viz : A New Method for the Rapid Visualization of Ideas

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have always enjoyed reading - and playing around with the ideas from - Kurt Hank's books. I have all his books, which include Draw!, Design Yourself, The Change Navigator, Wake Up Your Creative Genius, Up Your Productivity.

Like his other books, this book is very well illustrated, conceptually & graphically. It's primary focus is introduction of a Rapid Visualisation Process, which one can learn easily & then use readily to capture thoughts in visual forms on paper. It is packed with ideas, games, puzzles & exercises to guide the reader.

It is written for the novice in mind. It provides a step by step approach to the practical strategies of seeing, thinking, & drawing.

I must say: It is really great stuff to get you moving with visual thinking!

...maybe 3-1/2 Stars. The basic principles in this book are pretty solid; it's the basic presentation here that leaves a bit to be desired.
This is one of several books that I have with this great, sideways physical format & dimensions: Drawing: A Creative Process, and Basic Perspective Drawing: A Visual Guide being 2 others easily worth mentioning. In any case, Rapid Viz helps creative people with getting their ideas onto paper: quickly, clearly, and in a systematic fashion. Quick & accurate sketching in any medium can be the foundation for finished, professional work. In fact, as this book explains, using a systematic process in developing our ideas can save us a great deal of time in the long run. This book details this systematic process. The ideas here aren't completely new: it's the gathering of these ideas into a single book *for the 1st time* that makes this 'a new method' in its presentation. It's split almost evenly into 2 halves: the first explaining the basics of perspective; the second detailing the specific steps in this quick visualization process. Perspective is clearly the foundation here, which leads me to my biggest criticism: if half this book gives us watered-down perspective, why not just get a full-blown perspective book? And some would say the 2nd half of this book is simply common sense. Of course the answer here is equally simple: common sense isn't always that common(!). It really *can* help to have this process clearly stated in a book. But the entire thing has this sort of watered-down, unfinished look, making it seem like maybe a better version could be just around the corner. As it turns out, there *is* a newer, 3rd edition of this book, and it's actually available today. Since I haven't yet bought this newer version I thought I'd detail my current thoughts in this 2nd edition's review. I actually like to think of Rapid Viz and Ching's Drawing: A Creative Process together as being 2 sides of the same coin. Whereas Ching's book isn't clear & concise but has visual detail & depth, Rapid Viz *is* clear & concise but *lacks* visual detail & depth. If these two could be combined, it might make for a really great single book on rapidly visualizing the creative process. Both have their benefits and, in my opinion, are basically worth getting. Yet I'm not exactly confident others will agree. Maybe the new Rapid Viz 3rd Edition has improved on these ideas...

*UPDATE*- I just bought the new 3rd edition, and I'm very sorry I did- it's a smaller-sized version, a completely unnecessary downgrade, and for me a total & complete waste of money- at best. This here 2nd edition is easily the one I recommend!

I was expecting a book weighted toward doodling; idea-generation; capturing thoughts on paper. I was disappointed to find it more oriented toward graphic artists or illustrators. Lots of topics like composition, perspective, etc. And the sample sketches and examples are way, way more professional than I could ever hope to be.

Read carefully the book description in the Editorial Reviews: "This book helps people to quickly master the fundamental techniques of graphic art and design using felt-tip pens and plain paper." If you're looking for technical tips to improve your drawing, by all means, buy this book.

Bottom-line, I found it more oriented toward illustrators or artists than toward thinkers who want to doodle.

If you are seriously interested in tackling the tougher aspects of drawing: ie, drawing from your imagination, perspective, visualization--this book may be what you are looking for.

I have almost every conceivable how-to drawing book, and while this book seems deceptively simple, it's exercises are profound. He has you learn a visual recognition and intuitive understanding of perspective, and applies it to later studies on form, shading, perspective plans, etc..

DO THE EXERCISES, DON'T JUST READ IT.

He tries, in essence, to teach you to apply 3-dimensional thinking to simple shapes at first, and builds on that.

I can't recommend this book more heartily.

For those who love practical and concise books on visual thinking, Rapid-Viz is a must-read book to improve your whole-brain thinking skill.

I would always use Mr. Hanks' suggestion in visualizing ideas when taking lecture notes- even the most boring university lectures become the funniest.

Every page is filled with humorously illustrated cartoons that brilliantly capture the essence of each thought. The ideas themselves are concisely presented as well- quick to the point.

Thanks Mr. Hanks, for sharing your creative ideas to the world. I surely can't wait to read your future new books.

If you have been sketching for years then read someone else's review for a more accurate portrayal of this book. 3D, Perspective, Techniques, Depth, Light, Shadows: Previously, these were all completely beyond me. Practice is the key; the ability to sketch does not lie in a book, but rather in the pencil you are holding. This book gives you a starting point for practice. I've gone from appalling to amateur in a couple of months.

It's almost forgivable that, as the Reader on May 23, 2004 pointed out, there are errors in the exercises, as the goal of the book is to get over the little errors and express one's self quickly. However, the exercise the above mentioned reader is referring to is based on a distorted cube - not all of the parallels share the same vanishing point... Oops.

Besides a few technical flaws, I think this book covers one crucial aspect of design I see lacking in many new designers I see coming out of schools these days - the ability to visualize with a pencil.

I suggest to any designer who is not comfortable with drawing freehand, however, it's no replacement for life drawing

More than 20 years ago I got this book as a present from my mother and it was the start of my journey to my future career. A large bulk of the book is dedicated to a style of sketching used by product and industrial designers. I fell in love with the technique and the concept of thinking on paper. Today, I am an industrial designer. I have worked for Honda, Boeing, Activision, John Deere, Hasbro and other clients as a designer of new products. Though some of the illustrations are done in a dated style, the basic thinking is essentially unchanged today. A great text for students of industrial design- product design, car design (styling), environmental design, and entertainment design.

Yes- this is the version to get- not the new one.

I have been a design student for about two years and I purchased this book soley through word of mouth. I approached this book as if I was a beginner, knowing that the book was intended for such readers. However, as I read through the pages and completed most of the exercises, I realized that if I had been a true novice, that this book would have been extremely difficult to understand and very frustrating. In sections such as dividing a square, the author unclearly explains how to find the center of a square by drawing its diagonals, but fails to explain how to find the midpoints of the sides, and instead, assumes that you already know how to do so. The exercises are the worst part of this book. Like a beginner, I performed each exercise according to the author's instructions. However, I always ended up with distorted images. An example is when the author asks you to duplicate a cube in each direction. Unless you are a machine, your cube will not be perfect and your duplicated cubes would only come out distorted. But that is why a cube is already provided for you in the book for you to work on. However, it seems that even professionals are imperfect, for when you duplicate the cube which is provided in the book, you still end up with distorted cubes. As a beginner I would have been extremely frustrated. I even asked one of my instructors to see if she could perform the exercise and she ended up with distorted cubes as well. Not only were the exercises frustratingly difficult, but the book's soft covers did not make it a suitable workbook. Most of the time you're asked to work from off the sketces in the book, but the pages are constantly bending as you're sketching in it, and the illustrator's sketches are not very accurate in terms of perspective and scale. I gave this book 2 stars because it does indeed mention good points when it comes to design, such as visual thinking, perspective, the "box method", and lettering. But those points are not thoroughly explained enough and the exercises are terribly presented especially for a novice designer.

RapidViz is an excellent resource for anyone seeking a reference for rapid drawing techniques. Hard to find and worth picking up for that reason alone.