Finished: The Back of the Napkin

Finished reading "The Back of the Napkin" by Dan Roam. This book dealt with thinking visually and telling/selling through images, specifically sketches and charts drawn on Napkins.


Roam presents a series of thought experiments that takes the reader through his perspective on drawing. He asks, How come in Kindergarten everybody can draw, and by 12th Grade nobody thinks they can draw? His Visual Codex provides generic examples of the type of pictures you might use in different situations, determined by the interrogatives (when where who what how why) and by a selection of five dimensions that he identifies.

Roam recommends Vanity Fair Everyday napkins for drawing, but says that most any will do.

Where Edward Tufte is a minimalist and a purist, Roam is more of a generalist, more concerned with generously communicating an idea than the efficiency of how many dots are required to display meaning.

This was a very good book that I'll make use of whenever I think about how to make a conceptual presentation.