Curious how the magic happens? I have always been mesmerized watching master marker renderers and sketch artists at work... While visiting Toyota Calty Design Research, i had a chance to see Project Chief Designer, Ian Cartabiano, show us how it's really done on a huge apple monitor and wacom tablet (he's old school, and likes having the tablet while seeing the screen, versus those who love the Cintiqs).

So you can see one of my little home videos (one of these days with some combination of time, energy, extra pair of hands, etc i will make proper videos with real editing and maybe even music?) ~ giving you a quick skip through the presentation ~ from initial stages, to some highlights, to a flip back and forth between finished and initial sketches, and the crucial signature!

But honestly, if you want to learn how to sketch cars properly, you should probably go take Ian's class at Art Center ~ after graduating Art Center, he got pulled right into Toyota and has been there for 11 years... while simultaneously teaching... keep an eye out for his latest exterior design, the 2009 Venza!

TO PAGE 2 of "Toyota Calty Design: Sketch Demo"! ----->

Tags: cars - sketching - toyota - video

Regardless of whether you did or did not attend TED this year, the TED BIG VIZ pdf book is a MUST download for anyone visually oriented looking for a burst of inspiration. What is it?

The BIGVIZ is an exploration in visualizing the Big Ideas presented on the TED mainstage. Two visual cartographers, David Sibbet and Kevin Richards, created over 700 spontaneous sketches of the presenters' ideas using Autodesk Sketchbook Pro software running on Wacom Cintiq tablets and rendered on a Perceptive Pixel multi-touch display. These tools illustrate the power of interactive visualization to present the big picture to foster insight and communicate ideas visually, central principles of design innovation.

I just went through all 200 pages (i even picked out a few of my favorites for you after the jump)... and its incredible, to see their sketches of the "big ideas" and things that grabbed their attention throughout the talks... seriously, the 700 "spontaneous sketches" are breathtaking. When you have a sec, the BIGVIZ movie is pretty sweet as well. Discovered this through the wonderful Information Aesthetics!

TO PAGE 2 of "TED BIG VIZ"! ----->

Tags: art - books - events - sketching - TED - video