Explaining the world one sketch at a time

Sketchplanations makes complex ideas simple with clear, insightful sketches. Explore topics from science, creativity, psychology, and beyond explained in pictures.

New sketches by email

Learn something new in a sketch each Sunday

Recent sketches

Lateral thinking: You don't have to be right at every step

Lateral thinking: 3. You don’t have to be right at every step

I love the principle behind this — that you can get to something that works without having things that are possible and would work along the way. A stickier way of saying a similar thing is: "There is nothing more dangerous than to leap a chasm in two jumps" — David Lloyd George…

3 Dec 2013

Lateral thinking: 2. Labels are not collectors but signposts. They are not fixed

During lateral thinking labels don’t have to clearly be one thing or another, they can be flexible. The phablet is a reasonable recent example of how existing terms and definitions can constrain on your thinking.…

2 Dec 2013

Lateral thinking: 1. Lateral thinking is about increasing the breadth of options

There’s a lot of mention of lateral thinking without a whole lot of knowledge about the what and the why of it. Very often it seems that it’s just brainstorming. Here’s a short set of some of the fundamentals of lateral thinking. In this one the point really is that lateral thinking doesn’t solve things by itself, but you need both lateral and vertical thinking at different times. And they are very hard to do together because they are quite different mindsets. As I understand it, Lateral thinking is from Edward de Bono.…There’s a lot of mention of lateral thinking without a whole lot of knowledge about the what and the why of it. Very often it seems that it’s just brainstorming. Here’s a short set of some of the fundamentals of lateral thinking. In this one the point really is that lateral thinking doesn’t solve things by itself, but you need both lateral and vertical thinking at different times. And they are very hard to do together because they are quite different mindsets. As I understand it, Lateral thinking is from Edward de Bono.

1 Dec 2013

Set an anchor

Pulling along the bottom forces the flukes on the anchor to dig in. I think anchors are quite clever really.…

30 Nov 2013

Express - Test - Cycle

A rapid design approach based on doing the minimum you can to create a testable prototype fast. Testing. Learning. Iterating. Rather than, say, taking longer and trying to design it all right first time.…

29 Nov 2013

Use crushed garlic and ginger in most of your cooking

And save a little more time for life. We switched 8 years or so ago and haven’t looked back.…

28 Nov 2013

Search·Categories·Archive·List