Things I Learned on Designing Products from Cartoons

I recently started drawing cartoon figures for my daughter, after years of not drawing. It occurred to me that the drawing skills I learned back in the day help in mocking-up user interfaces.

It’s about perspective and outline

Drawing a cartoon figure is simple, really. The trick is to find a distinctive outline (the shape Mickey-Mouse’s head, the curve of a horse’s body) and drawing it first. Then you lineup every other detail in relation to the outline while keeping perspective in mind. I do the same thing when drawing a mockup of a web page or dashboard. I start off by what should draw the user’s attention (usually in the top center of page) and then layout elements around it.

Use the least amount of material to convey a message

Cartoon figures are made from just a few lines. These few lines make up a shape (a dog, a bird) and also convey a character. Tweety’s beak is curved to suggest a smile, Road-Runner’s limbs tell us the Road-Runner is in motion. Picasso’s one line drawings are a famous example of how a living object can be abstracted down to just one line. In web design, just like in comics, minimalism improves usability. Google is famous for this approach. When I build forms, for example, I spend time to reduce many permutations and complex possibilities to as few fields as possible.

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