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Explaining the world
one sketch at a time

Have great conversations about ideas through simple and insightful sketches. Visual explanations that are fast to read, fun to share, and hard to forget.

This is such
a cool book.
— Bill Gates

In a Book: Big Ideas Little Pictures

5-star rated on Amazon!

Absorb big ideas with crystal-clear understanding through this collection of 135 visual explanations. Including 24 exclusive new sketches and enhanced versions of classic favourites, each page shares life-improving ideas through beautifully simple illustrations.

Perfect for curious minds and visual learners alike.

See inside the book

Hi, I'm Jono 👋

I'm an author and illustrator creating one of the world's largest libraries of hand-drawn sketches explaining the world—sketch-by-sketch.

Sketchplanations have been shared millions of times and used in books, articles, classrooms, and more. Learn more about the project, search for a sketch you like, or see recent sketches below.

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Recent sketches

Apples and Ideas

"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." This quote, commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw, though probably not from him, highlights one of the lovely things about ideas. They behave differently from physical things. They're not exclusive; they're additive and abundant. Ideas Don't Behave the Same as Apples Though we talk about intellectual property, ideas don't behave like property in the usual sense. One of the simplest ways to see the difference between ideas and objects is to look at what happens when we share them. I can give you an idea, and we both have the idea, but if I give you my apple, then I no longer have one. This also makes ideas very hard to take back once they are out. Ideas are harder to control than objects. Because ideas are abstract—they don't exist in a physical form—we use conceptual metaphor to talk and reason about them. What follows are some of my favourite examples of how we think about ideas, drawn primarily from Philosophy in the Flesh and the very readable Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The Ideas Are Objects Metaphor Metaphors are how we talk about abstract concepts, like an idea. And the Ideas Are Objects metaphor is one of the most common ways we understand them. This means that a lot of how we talk about apples and ideas overlap. So I can: give you an idea (or an apple), and maybe you'll grasp it, or perhaps it might go over your head Ideas can be: solid or weak shared or hoarded fragile or bulletproof cheap or gold Thinking Is Object Manipulation Because you can examine objects and manipulate them, we have the metaphor Thinking Is Object Manipulation. When you think about an idea, you might: play with it toss it around see if it sticks share it with others try to break it When you communicate with someone, you exchange ideas. you can give an idea get an idea across Together with the Mind Is a Body metaphor (mental exercise), a teacher might try to: put an idea into students' minds fill them up during the term see how much they've retained And I've certainly employed cramming before a test. Because Understanding Is Grasping—having an idea under control—when you don't understand something, it might: be slippery resist definition—has no shape be beyond your grasp As Thinking Is Object Manipulation, you can work on an idea: reshape it craft it fashion it analyse it by taking it apart deconstruct it Together with Knowing Is Seeing, we can: Turn an idea over to see both sides of it hold it up to scrutiny shine a light on it put it under the microscope Ideas Are Food and Acquiring Ideas Is Eating Another fun and common metaphor for ideas is rather more like apples. If the Mind Is a Body, then we need to feed it healthy, nutritious food. I like to think readers of Sketchplanations have an insatiable curiosity. In much of our reasoning, then, ideas are a special kind of object—they are our food for thought. Unhelpful ideas are unhealthy, and helpful ideas are healthy, so they might be: raw fresh half-baked sweet Or an idea might be: rotten disgusting or unsavory unpalatable hard to digest Or they might: smell fishy leave a bad taste in your mouth Or perhaps they need to be: put on the back burner chewed on for a while sugar-coated Significant ideas are: meaty something to chew on let stew for a while So What Are Ideas Really Like? So, given all this talk about Ideas As Objects, it's easy to assume that ideas should behave like them. But before they take on a physical form — say, as a building or product — they don't behave the same as objects. Hopefully, this sketch conveys this idea to you while keeping it with me, too. I think a more suitable conceptualisation is the magical powers of software with its infinite copy/paste. As software becomes more of our daily experience, we might gradually adopt more accurate metaphors for how ideas actually behave. These are not the only metaphors we use across languages for understanding and reasoning about ideas and thinking, Ideas Are Locations, and Thinking Is Moving in particular ("I don't follow you"). There are many. Do check out Metaphors We Live By if you're curious for more (or Philosophy in the Flesh if you really want to get stuck in). Thanks to Franc M for suggesting this one. Related Ideas and Metaphor Sketches Also see: Primary metaphor A Teacher is a DJ for Learning Since I cover a lot of abstract concepts, many of my sketches share and make use of metaphors. Here are some: Rivers and Buckets Muddy Puddles and Leaky Ceilings Pace Layers The Trust Battery The Spectrum Policy The Overton Window The Johari Window Don't Think of an Elephant Lateral Thinking Compliments Are Gifts Looking Under the Lamppost The Learning Pit The Frog Boil Metaphor Sharpen the Saw (poor trees) Eat the Frog (poor frogs) Chickens and Pigs (poor pigs) Metaphors for Ideas Here's a print of the apples and ideas quote by itself"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." This quote, commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw, though probably not from him, highlights one of the lovely things about ideas. They behave differently from physical things. They're not exclusive; they're additive and abundant. Ideas Don't Behave the Same as Apples Though we talk about intellectual property, ideas don't behave like property in the usual sense. One of the simplest ways to see the difference between ideas and objects is to look at what happens when we share them. I can give you an idea, and we both have the idea, but if I give you my apple, then I no longer have one. This also makes ideas very hard to take back once they are out. Ideas are harder to control than objects. Because ideas are abstract—they don't exist in a physical form—we use conceptual metaphor to talk and reason about them. What follows are some of my favourite examples of how we think about ideas, drawn primarily from Philosophy in the Flesh and the very readable Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. The Ideas Are Objects Metaphor Metaphors are how we talk about abstract concepts, like an idea. And the Ideas Are Objects metaphor is one of the most common ways we understand them. This means that a lot of how we talk about apples and ideas overlap. So I can: give you an idea (or an apple), and maybe you'll grasp it, or perhaps it might go over your head Ideas can be: solid or weak shared or hoarded fragile or bulletproof cheap or gold Thinking Is Object Manipulation Because you can examine objects and manipulate them, we have the metaphor Thinking Is Object Manipulation. When you think about an idea, you might: play with it toss it around see if it sticks share it with others try to break it When you communicate with someone, you exchange ideas. you can give an idea get an idea across Together with the Mind Is a Body metaphor (mental exercise), a teacher might try to: put an idea into students' minds fill them up during the term see how much they've retained And I've certainly employed cramming before a test. Because Understanding Is Grasping—having an idea under control—when you don't understand something, it might: be slippery resist definition—has no shape be beyond your grasp As Thinking Is Object Manipulation, you can work on an idea: reshape it craft it fashion it analyse it by taking it apart deconstruct it Together with Knowing Is Seeing, we can: Turn an idea over to see both sides of it hold it up to scrutiny shine a light on it put it under the microscope Ideas Are Food and Acquiring Ideas Is Eating Another fun and common metaphor for ideas is rather more like apples. If the Mind Is a Body, then we need to feed it healthy, nutritious food. I like to think readers of Sketchplanations have an insatiable curiosity. In much of our reasoning, then, ideas are a special kind of object—they are our food for thought. Unhelpful ideas are unhealthy, and helpful ideas are healthy, so they might be: raw fresh half-baked sweet Or an idea might be: rotten disgusting or unsavory unpalatable hard to digest Or they might: smell fishy leave a bad taste in your mouth Or perhaps they need to be: put on the back burner chewed on for a while sugar-coated Significant ideas are: meaty something to chew on let stew for a while So What Are Ideas Really Like? So, given all this talk about Ideas As Objects, it's easy to assume that ideas should behave like them. But before they take on a physical form — say, as a building or product — they don't behave the same as objects. Hopefully, this sketch conveys this idea to you while keeping it with me, too. I think a more suitable conceptualisation is the magical powers of software with its infinite copy/paste. As software becomes more of our daily experience, we might gradually adopt more accurate metaphors for how ideas actually behave. These are not the only metaphors we use across languages for understanding and reasoning about ideas and thinking, Ideas Are Locations, and Thinking Is Moving in particular ("I don't follow you"). There are many. Do check out Metaphors We Live By if you're curious for more (or Philosophy in the Flesh if you really want to get stuck in). Thanks to Franc M for suggesting this one. Related Ideas and Metaphor Sketches Also see: Primary metaphor A Teacher is a DJ for Learning Since I cover a lot of abstract concepts, many of my sketches share and make use of metaphors. Here are some: Rivers and Buckets Muddy Puddles and Leaky Ceilings Pace Layers The Trust Battery The Spectrum Policy The Overton Window The Johari Window Don't Think of an Elephant Lateral Thinking Compliments Are Gifts Looking Under the Lamppost The Learning Pit The Frog Boil Metaphor Sharpen the Saw (poor trees) Eat the Frog (poor frogs) Chickens and Pigs (poor pigs) Metaphors for Ideas Here's a print of the apples and ideas quote by itself

✨ Latest

Spectrum of Abstraction

A fundamental act of art is choosing what to leave in and what to leave out. These choices express a point of view and what you communicate. I’ve long been intrigued by iconography for exactly this reason. Icons strip things back to their essence so the message comes across without all the distraction. Choosing What to Leave In and What to Leave Out A pencil icon, like this emoji ✏️, ignores the scratches, the wood grain, the worn eraser, the pencil shavings, all the colour variations. It concentrates on the two ends and the colours, and the intent comes across more clearly. Whenever you draw a scene, you get to choose what to include and what to omit. And in photography, I’ve often framed a shot to leave out the road, the power line, the signpost or the rooftop that would otherwise detract from what I was trying to show. It happens in storytelling, too. You see a bottle of whisky and an ashtray for the grizzled detective in a film or novel. They also have cleaning spray in the cupboard and junk mail on the floor. But some of these add, and some detract. Christoph Niemann on Abstraction One of my favourite explanations of this comes from the Netflix documentary, Abstract: The Art of Design, in the episode with the brilliant Christoph Niemann. Here's how he describes abstraction: "I would say that abstraction probably is, for me, the most important concept of art. ...I start with a thousand different thoughts and then I, one by one, throw them all out, until, at the end, I have the one or two or three that are essential to the whole question. But the abstraction, for me, is this idea of getting rid of everything that's not essential to making a point. ...each idea requires a very specific amount of information. Sometimes it's a lot: a lot of details, a lot of realism. Sometimes it's really just this one line. The one pixel. But each idea has one moment on that scale. So, let's say you want to illustrate the idea of a heart as a symbol for love. When you illustrate it as, just, like, a red square, which is the ultimate abstraction of a heart, nobody knows what you're talking about, so it totally falls flat. When you go all the way realistic and draw an actual heart made out of flesh and blood and pumping, it's just so disgusting that the last thing anybody would ever think about is love. And somewhere between that abstract red square, and the real kind of butcher heart, is the graphic shape that kind of looks like that, and kind of looks like that, and it's just right to transport this idea of a symbol for love." The episode includes a brilliant Abstract-o-meter with the example of the heart and the scale: too realistic --- just right --- too abstract Just the Right Information It's stuck with me. In each sketch, with any icon or scene, there's a choice to be made about how much detail to include. What adds to the message? And what distracts from it? Are there things you can leave out to make your message stronger? Or are there things that are missing? Related Ideas to A Spectrum of Abstraction Also see: The Pyramid Principle - organise ideas to communicate clearly Skeuomorph - design that mimics earlier ones Design for: A Glance, A Look, A Read Word spectrum Mapping: "If your design needs labels, consider another design" Rich Pictures for making sense of complex problems The Golden Ratio The Rule of Thirds Design by CommitteeA fundamental act of art is choosing what to leave in and what to leave out. These choices express a point of view and what you communicate. I’ve long been intrigued by iconography for exactly this reason. Icons strip things back to their essence so the message comes across without all the distraction. Choosing What to Leave In and What to Leave Out A pencil icon, like this emoji ✏️, ignores the scratches, the wood grain, the worn eraser, the pencil shavings, all the colour variations. It concentrates on the two ends and the colours, and the intent comes across more clearly. Whenever you draw a scene, you get to choose what to include and what to omit. And in photography, I’ve often framed a shot to leave out the road, the power line, the signpost or the rooftop that would otherwise detract from what I was trying to show. It happens in storytelling, too. You see a bottle of whisky and an ashtray for the grizzled detective in a film or novel. They also have cleaning spray in the cupboard and junk mail on the floor. But some of these add, and some detract. Christoph Niemann on Abstraction One of my favourite explanations of this comes from the Netflix documentary, Abstract: The Art of Design, in the episode with the brilliant Christoph Niemann. Here's how he describes abstraction: "I would say that abstraction probably is, for me, the most important concept of art. ...I start with a thousand different thoughts and then I, one by one, throw them all out, until, at the end, I have the one or two or three that are essential to the whole question. But the abstraction, for me, is this idea of getting rid of everything that's not essential to making a point. ...each idea requires a very specific amount of information. Sometimes it's a lot: a lot of details, a lot of realism. Sometimes it's really just this one line. The one pixel. But each idea has one moment on that scale. So, let's say you want to illustrate the idea of a heart as a symbol for love. When you illustrate it as, just, like, a red square, which is the ultimate abstraction of a heart, nobody knows what you're talking about, so it totally falls flat. When you go all the way realistic and draw an actual heart made out of flesh and blood and pumping, it's just so disgusting that the last thing anybody would ever think about is love. And somewhere between that abstract red square, and the real kind of butcher heart, is the graphic shape that kind of looks like that, and kind of looks like that, and it's just right to transport this idea of a symbol for love." The episode includes a brilliant Abstract-o-meter with the example of the heart and the scale: too realistic --- just right --- too abstract Just the Right Information It's stuck with me. In each sketch, with any icon or scene, there's a choice to be made about how much detail to include. What adds to the message? And what distracts from it? Are there things you can leave out to make your message stronger? Or are there things that are missing? Related Ideas to A Spectrum of Abstraction Also see: The Pyramid Principle - organise ideas to communicate clearly Skeuomorph - design that mimics earlier ones Design for: A Glance, A Look, A Read Word spectrum Mapping: "If your design needs labels, consider another design" Rich Pictures for making sense of complex problems The Golden Ratio The Rule of Thirds Design by Committee

23 Nov

The Newsletter Paradox: Your newsletter grows when you do nothing

Here's a curious and unsettling paradox that you might experience if you choose to write a newsletter: When you do nothing, people join, and your list grows. When you send an email to your list, your list shrinks and people leave. It can seem that people like it when you do nothing, and people don't like it when you publish. There's a fair chance this newsletter would reach more people if I hadn't published anything for a year. The Sawtooth Shape of Subscriber Growth The chart of my subscribers over time looks like a sawtooth. Every growth period is me doing nothing. Every dip—people unsubscribing—is me sending out my work 😅 It can seem like working hard and sending out your best work actually drives people away. A Familiar Pattern for Marketers If you're an email marketer, you're likely familiar with this phenomenon. Your website works hard to drive sign-ups. And when you send out mail, some people buy, but others unsubscribe. Every communication on a list or newsletter is a filtering moment—another chance for a reader to decide, "This is not for me," or "Yes, I still like this." It's also the only practical time to leave. I wonder at the sheer number of lists I must be on, but that aren't sending, and I actually can't unsubscribe because they haven't sent me anything with a link to do it. It's a little like my sampling bias sketch in reverse—if people can't easily unsubscribe without receiving a mail, you'll only see unsubscribes when you send. Much like when you ask people to enter an email address on a business site, a goal is to be clear enough about what people will get, so that when you deliver it matches expectations and people stay. Promise vs Selection Signing up is the Promise of receiving something interesting in the future. Every time you receive something, there's another Selection moment—Do I want this? Hope vs Reality. Each send is like a test to see if you and they are still a good fit. If you're writing a newsletter, the longer people stay, in principle, the better the fit. And, as in business, I learned not to take it personally. When people leave, it doesn't mean what you are doing is bad. It's not personal, it's just not for them. And other times, more prosaically, circumstances change, and what was a good fit just isn't needed anymore. So it’s not really a paradox, but it can certainly feel like one. Don't lose heart. A Note on Substack Sending emails feels very different from posting on social media (I also post new sketches on various social platforms). On social platforms, you literally can't ignore engagement metrics: likes, reposts, shares, comments—and most people don't want to (sort of). They can be either very motivating—"Wow, people loved that one!"—or demotivating—"I thought that one was great. Why did nobody like it??" Either way, you get a rough and skewed measure of interest in what you're doing. But don't take it as truth. For example, something I post that received no likes or interactions is then posted by someone else and takes off. Social media gives you a very distorted, if not downright misleading, view of what's valuable. Contrast that with sending an email newsletter. While a post on social might rack up likes and shares, with email, you often get nothing. I would send an email to 20,000 people and get tumbleweeds (apart from, inevitably, unsubscribes). Did people like it? Did people hate it? But from time to time, instead of likes or thumbs up, with email I receive wonderful, personal, thoughtful replies, notes and stories from individuals—something you will rarely, if ever, receive through social platforms. Substack (the platform I used to send this when I first published it) goes some way to bridging email and social. I can send an email like this one and receive personal replies straight to me. And I can also get a vague and imperfect idea of what people think about it through likes and comments. By the way, if you ever want to click the "like" button on an email, I appreciate it and it probably helps more people find this newsletter, but no obligation. Substack feels different from both traditional email and social platforms. A Personal Note on This Project I've wondered about this curious paradox for years. On a personal note, this project didn't start as a business venture. I’ve always seen it as a way to reach people who might share my interests. Nobody is one-dimensional, so I know that you won’t care about or like everything I send. You’re not me, and I’m not you. I’ve been “building an email list” slowly for over ten years. But that’s a very impersonal way to say it. This project has connected me with so many wonderful, generous, and fascinating people through this journey of putting work out in the world. It’s nice to find others who do share some of my interests about the world. I know that some people have been reading these for the whole journey—wow, thank you. And for others, this might be your first, and you might be about to throw the letter in the bin like the person in the sketch, or dig into the archive, or wait for the next one. All of these are fine with me. And if you're writing a newsletter or growing a list yourself, I'm partly sharing this to show that this is an entirely normal, if not required, part of reaching people who want what you're offering. Keep at it! Related Ideas to the Newsletter Paradox Also see The Subscription Trap The Business Flywheel Discovering truth and beauty and sharing it with others The Irresistible Power of Variable Rewards To Scale, First Do Things That Don't Scale The Shirky Principle Goodhart's Law - social media likes? You Get What You Measure Enough Molehills Make a Mountain More paradoxesHere's a curious and unsettling paradox that you might experience if you choose to write a newsletter: When you do nothing, people join, and your list grows. When you send an email to your list, your list shrinks and people leave. It can seem that people like it when you do nothing, and people don't like it when you publish. There's a fair chance this newsletter would reach more people if I hadn't published anything for a year. The Sawtooth Shape of Subscriber Growth The chart of my subscribers over time looks like a sawtooth. Every growth period is me doing nothing. Every dip—people unsubscribing—is me sending out my work 😅 It can seem like working hard and sending out your best work actually drives people away. A Familiar Pattern for Marketers If you're an email marketer, you're likely familiar with this phenomenon. Your website works hard to drive sign-ups. And when you send out mail, some people buy, but others unsubscribe. Every communication on a list or newsletter is a filtering moment—another chance for a reader to decide, "This is not for me," or "Yes, I still like this." It's also the only practical time to leave. I wonder at the sheer number of lists I must be on, but that aren't sending, and I actually can't unsubscribe because they haven't sent me anything with a link to do it. It's a little like my sampling bias sketch in reverse—if people can't easily unsubscribe without receiving a mail, you'll only see unsubscribes when you send. Much like when you ask people to enter an email address on a business site, a goal is to be clear enough about what people will get, so that when you deliver it matches expectations and people stay. Promise vs Selection Signing up is the Promise of receiving something interesting in the future. Every time you receive something, there's another Selection moment—Do I want this? Hope vs Reality. Each send is like a test to see if you and they are still a good fit. If you're writing a newsletter, the longer people stay, in principle, the better the fit. And, as in business, I learned not to take it personally. When people leave, it doesn't mean what you are doing is bad. It's not personal, it's just not for them. And other times, more prosaically, circumstances change, and what was a good fit just isn't needed anymore. So it’s not really a paradox, but it can certainly feel like one. Don't lose heart. A Note on Substack Sending emails feels very different from posting on social media (I also post new sketches on various social platforms). On social platforms, you literally can't ignore engagement metrics: likes, reposts, shares, comments—and most people don't want to (sort of). They can be either very motivating—"Wow, people loved that one!"—or demotivating—"I thought that one was great. Why did nobody like it??" Either way, you get a rough and skewed measure of interest in what you're doing. But don't take it as truth. For example, something I post that received no likes or interactions is then posted by someone else and takes off. Social media gives you a very distorted, if not downright misleading, view of what's valuable. Contrast that with sending an email newsletter. While a post on social might rack up likes and shares, with email, you often get nothing. I would send an email to 20,000 people and get tumbleweeds (apart from, inevitably, unsubscribes). Did people like it? Did people hate it? But from time to time, instead of likes or thumbs up, with email I receive wonderful, personal, thoughtful replies, notes and stories from individuals—something you will rarely, if ever, receive through social platforms. Substack (the platform I used to send this when I first published it) goes some way to bridging email and social. I can send an email like this one and receive personal replies straight to me. And I can also get a vague and imperfect idea of what people think about it through likes and comments. By the way, if you ever want to click the "like" button on an email, I appreciate it and it probably helps more people find this newsletter, but no obligation. Substack feels different from both traditional email and social platforms. A Personal Note on This Project I've wondered about this curious paradox for years. On a personal note, this project didn't start as a business venture. I’ve always seen it as a way to reach people who might share my interests. Nobody is one-dimensional, so I know that you won’t care about or like everything I send. You’re not me, and I’m not you. I’ve been “building an email list” slowly for over ten years. But that’s a very impersonal way to say it. This project has connected me with so many wonderful, generous, and fascinating people through this journey of putting work out in the world. It’s nice to find others who do share some of my interests about the world. I know that some people have been reading these for the whole journey—wow, thank you. And for others, this might be your first, and you might be about to throw the letter in the bin like the person in the sketch, or dig into the archive, or wait for the next one. All of these are fine with me. And if you're writing a newsletter or growing a list yourself, I'm partly sharing this to show that this is an entirely normal, if not required, part of reaching people who want what you're offering. Keep at it! Related Ideas to the Newsletter Paradox Also see The Subscription Trap The Business Flywheel Discovering truth and beauty and sharing it with others The Irresistible Power of Variable Rewards To Scale, First Do Things That Don't Scale The Shirky Principle Goodhart's Law - social media likes? You Get What You Measure Enough Molehills Make a Mountain More paradoxes

16 Nov

Mirage explained: what causes a mirage and why it looks like water, showing hot air bending light from the sky so it appears as a reflection on the ground.

Mirage: why do we see a pool of water?

Walking through a baking desert, you see a distant pool of water towards the horizon. An oasis to save the day, perhaps? No—just a mirage. But what causes it, and why does it look like a pool of water? I remember the satisfying Aha! moment I experienced when I learned that the apparent pool of water is simply a reflection of the sky above appearing on the ground. Because it looks like a reflection of whatever’s above, our brains go for the most likely explanation: it must be water. What causes a mirage? A few things come together to trick us. First, on a hot day in a hot place—such as a tarmac road in a desert—the ground heats up strongly. This warms the air just above it, creating a temperature gradient: the air nearest the ground is much hotter than the air above. Second, light refracts, or bends, as it passes through mediums of different densities. When you see a straw appear to bend in a glass of water, it’s because light travels at different speeds in air and water, and the change in speed makes it change direction. On our hot road with a temperature gradient in the air above, the hotter air near the surface is less dense than the cooler air above. As light passes through these layers, it bends smoothly. Under the right conditions, light from the sky may bend so much that it curves back upward before reaching the ground, eventually entering your eyes. Lastly, when we see sky-coloured light coming from the ground, our brains interpret it as a reflection—so we perceive a shimmering pool of water. Perhaps it's easier with a picture... Types of mirages: inferior and superior Strictly speaking, a mirage like this one—the most common to experience—is an inferior mirage, where the image appears below the real object. For example, a car driving on a hot road can look as though it’s reflected in a pool beneath it. There's also a rarer but striking superior mirage, where the mirage appears above the real object. This happens with the opposite temperature gradient—when colder air lies below warmer air—such as in winter or over polar ice. The results can be startling, such as ships that seem to hover above the sea. Related Ideas to Mirage Atmospheric Perspective Redshift The Doppler Effect Sonic Boom Parallax The moon illusion Looking back in time Estimating the distance of a storm: the Flash-to-bang methodWalking through a baking desert, you see a distant pool of water towards the horizon. An oasis to save the day, perhaps? No—just a mirage. But what causes it, and why does it look like a pool of water? I remember the satisfying Aha! moment I experienced when I learned that the apparent pool of water is simply a reflection of the sky above appearing on the ground. Because it looks like a reflection of whatever’s above, our brains go for the most likely explanation: it must be water. What causes a mirage? A few things come together to trick us. First, on a hot day in a hot place—such as a tarmac road in a desert—the ground heats up strongly. This warms the air just above it, creating a temperature gradient: the air nearest the ground is much hotter than the air above. Second, light refracts, or bends, as it passes through mediums of different densities. When you see a straw appear to bend in a glass of water, it’s because light travels at different speeds in air and water, and the change in speed makes it change direction. On our hot road with a temperature gradient in the air above, the hotter air near the surface is less dense than the cooler air above. As light passes through these layers, it bends smoothly. Under the right conditions, light from the sky may bend so much that it curves back upward before reaching the ground, eventually entering your eyes. Lastly, when we see sky-coloured light coming from the ground, our brains interpret it as a reflection—so we perceive a shimmering pool of water. Perhaps it's easier with a picture... Types of mirages: inferior and superior Strictly speaking, a mirage like this one—the most common to experience—is an inferior mirage, where the image appears below the real object. For example, a car driving on a hot road can look as though it’s reflected in a pool beneath it. There's also a rarer but striking superior mirage, where the mirage appears above the real object. This happens with the opposite temperature gradient—when colder air lies below warmer air—such as in winter or over polar ice. The results can be startling, such as ships that seem to hover above the sea. Related Ideas to Mirage Atmospheric Perspective Redshift The Doppler Effect Sonic Boom Parallax The moon illusion Looking back in time Estimating the distance of a storm: the Flash-to-bang method

9 Nov

What are collective nouns for animals? Illustration of African animals showing examples of collective nouns: a tower of giraffes, a crash of rhinos, a pride of lions, a dazzle of zebra, a murder of crows, a bask of crocodiles, and others.

Collective Nouns: Examples, meanings, and the best ones for animals

A tower of giraffes. A murder of crows. A shiver of sharks. Some of the most delightful words in English are collective nouns. A collective noun is a word used to describe a group of individuals or things — most commonly groups of animals. The best capture character and imagination in a single word. Everyone loves a good collective noun. So here's a small collective nouns list with some of the most delightful examples. Fun Examples of Collective Nouns for Animals Some crackers: A tower of giraffes A crash of rhinos A galaxy of starfish A shiver of sharks A destruction of wildcats A bask of crocodiles A pride of lions A bloat of hippopotamus A nest of vipers A confusion of wildebeests A shrewdness of apes A dazzle (or zeal) of zebra A labour of moles A prickle of porcupines An embarrassment of pandas A skulk of foxes A leap of leopards Collective Nouns for Birds We all know a gaggle of geese, thanks to the great alliteration, but these are lovely too: A parliament of owls A murmuration of starlings A charm of goldfinches A pandemonium of parrots An ostentation of peacocks An exaltation of larks A flamboyance of flamingos A murder of crows A deceit of lapwings (poor lapwings) An exaltation of larks A raft of coots Collective nouns for other things Are collective nouns for other things, not just animals? Yes. We say a bunch of bananas, a quiver of arrows, a bouquet of flowers, a fleet of ships, or a squadron of aircraft. Collective nouns for professions or groups of people are some of the more fun. Take, for example: a pack of thieves a coven of witches a haggle of vendors a sentence of judges a flock of tourists a wince of dentists an absence of professors a tangle of coat hangers or a torment of personal trainers Collective nouns are everywhere. Where do collective nouns come from? Many collective nouns still used today were first recorded in a 1486 book by an English noblewoman called The Book of St Albans, or The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms. It includes an appendix in wonderful olde englishe with "The Compaẏnẏs of beestẏs and fowlẏs." It meant that people out hunting could correctly identify their "Besynes of ferettis" (business of ferrets) and "Brace of grehoundis" (brace of greyhounds). But English continues to evolve, and the older zeal of zebra may give way to a dazzle when enough people decide to use that one. As there appears to be no established authority, may the best collective noun win. Wiktionary has a mighty list of collective nouns in case you ever wanted to discover a glitter of generals, an implausibility of gnus, or a helix of geneticists. I can't vouch for their accuracy, though. If you know or find any others you particularly like, please share them with me in a reply or comment. However, the best and most well-researched collection I’ve seen is from James Lipton’s An Exaltation of Larks. What makes a great collective noun? For me, the best collective nouns sum up, often with a touch of humour, poetry, and perhaps a wink, the most salient qualities of their nouns. It’s what makes a shiver of sharks, or a bask of crocodiles, so much more enjoyable than, say, a cloud of sharks, or a litter of crocodiles, or just a bunch of either of them. Perhaps we need a collective noun for a group of sketches? A gallery of sketches An insight of sketches A clarity of sketches A spark of sketches A scribble of sketches A wonder of sketches Favourites? Related Ideas to Collective Nouns Also see: Spoonerism Dialogue, monologue, halfalogue Days of the week Ordering adjectives Sea jelly, sea star Crazy English: fish - ghoti Word spectrum RAS Syndrome Advise vs advice NATO Phonetic alphabet Learn more: A short BBC video, The Strange World of Collective Nouns, gives a lovely overview of their origin and some fun examples. A pedant of Oxford commas? As Susie Dent says, "The only boring thing about collective nouns is their name." Update 10 Nov 2025: I added a few more from suggestions and a link to the excellent book An Exaltation of Larks.A tower of giraffes. A murder of crows. A shiver of sharks. Some of the most delightful words in English are collective nouns. A collective noun is a word used to describe a group of individuals or things — most commonly groups of animals. The best capture character and imagination in a single word. Everyone loves a good collective noun. So here's a small collective nouns list with some of the most delightful examples. Fun Examples of Collective Nouns for Animals Some crackers: A tower of giraffes A crash of rhinos A galaxy of starfish A shiver of sharks A destruction of wildcats A bask of crocodiles A pride of lions A bloat of hippopotamus A nest of vipers A confusion of wildebeests A shrewdness of apes A dazzle (or zeal) of zebra A labour of moles A prickle of porcupines An embarrassment of pandas A skulk of foxes A leap of leopards Collective Nouns for Birds We all know a gaggle of geese, thanks to the great alliteration, but these are lovely too: A parliament of owls A murmuration of starlings A charm of goldfinches A pandemonium of parrots An ostentation of peacocks An exaltation of larks A flamboyance of flamingos A murder of crows A deceit of lapwings (poor lapwings) An exaltation of larks A raft of coots Collective nouns for other things Are collective nouns for other things, not just animals? Yes. We say a bunch of bananas, a quiver of arrows, a bouquet of flowers, a fleet of ships, or a squadron of aircraft. Collective nouns for professions or groups of people are some of the more fun. Take, for example: a pack of thieves a coven of witches a haggle of vendors a sentence of judges a flock of tourists a wince of dentists an absence of professors a tangle of coat hangers or a torment of personal trainers Collective nouns are everywhere. Where do collective nouns come from? Many collective nouns still used today were first recorded in a 1486 book by an English noblewoman called The Book of St Albans, or The Book of Hawking, Hunting and Blasing of Arms. It includes an appendix in wonderful olde englishe with "The Compaẏnẏs of beestẏs and fowlẏs." It meant that people out hunting could correctly identify their "Besynes of ferettis" (business of ferrets) and "Brace of grehoundis" (brace of greyhounds). But English continues to evolve, and the older zeal of zebra may give way to a dazzle when enough people decide to use that one. As there appears to be no established authority, may the best collective noun win. Wiktionary has a mighty list of collective nouns in case you ever wanted to discover a glitter of generals, an implausibility of gnus, or a helix of geneticists. I can't vouch for their accuracy, though. If you know or find any others you particularly like, please share them with me in a reply or comment. However, the best and most well-researched collection I’ve seen is from James Lipton’s An Exaltation of Larks. What makes a great collective noun? For me, the best collective nouns sum up, often with a touch of humour, poetry, and perhaps a wink, the most salient qualities of their nouns. It’s what makes a shiver of sharks, or a bask of crocodiles, so much more enjoyable than, say, a cloud of sharks, or a litter of crocodiles, or just a bunch of either of them. Perhaps we need a collective noun for a group of sketches? A gallery of sketches An insight of sketches A clarity of sketches A spark of sketches A scribble of sketches A wonder of sketches Favourites? Related Ideas to Collective Nouns Also see: Spoonerism Dialogue, monologue, halfalogue Days of the week Ordering adjectives Sea jelly, sea star Crazy English: fish - ghoti Word spectrum RAS Syndrome Advise vs advice NATO Phonetic alphabet Learn more: A short BBC video, The Strange World of Collective Nouns, gives a lovely overview of their origin and some fun examples. A pedant of Oxford commas? As Susie Dent says, "The only boring thing about collective nouns is their name." Update 10 Nov 2025: I added a few more from suggestions and a link to the excellent book An Exaltation of Larks.

2 Nov

What is a rich picture diagram — a group of people sketching a rich picture about planning a group holiday, showing connected ideas, icons, and notes on a large whiteboard to visualise a complex situation.

Rich Pictures: Making Sense of Complex Problems

Sometimes, when faced with a new challenge, you just don't know where to start. One good way to get going is with a rich picture. What is a Rich Picture? A rich picture diagram is a systems thinking tool used to make sense of complicated or unclear situations. It helps you visualise everything you know or think about a problem space — without needing a strict method, structure, or artistic skill. I love it because the format is deliberately flexible: you can include people, processes, relationships, emotions, metaphors, and connections. It does not have to look good. In fact, it’s probably better if it doesn’t so you’re more likely to get stuck in and edit it. The act of drawing it out helps you clarify your thinking and see how different parts of the situation connect. It's not just getting what you know onto a page; it's actually thinking and making connections as you go. It makes your thinking visible, allowing you to create and discover more connections. It's part analysis, part reflection, and part creative exploration. Why Use Rich Pictures? Rich picture diagramming is widely used in business analysis, systems design, and problem-solving because it: Reveals hidden assumptions Encourages collaboration and shared understanding Highlights conflicts or misunderstandings early Supports creative and divergent thinking Provides a low-pressure, inclusive way to explore ideas You don’t need a rich picture template — just a large piece of paper (or whiteboard) and the freedom to draw. Rich Pictures in a Group for Shared Understanding Even more powerful than creating one alone is creating a rich picture in a group. The magic of doing an activity like this together is making team members' implicit understanding visible and differences in opinions and assumptions apparent. By making mental models visible, the rich picture helps uncover where people's views differ and where they align — a critical step for building shared understanding in teams. When these implicit understandings and assumptions are in conflict, the team can work together to build a shared understanding or determine what data they need to gather. Shared understanding is critical for high-performing teams to solve problems and create new products or services. Rich Picture Example: Planning a Group Holiday Here's an example: imagine a team designing a product to help people plan group holidays. People arrange group holidays all the time, but if you've been involved, you probably know that it's not straightforward. The team could start by sketching a rich picture that captures everything involved: Initial interest Preferences of types of holidays coordinated between the group Ways of sharing options Filtering and decision-making processes Tools to gather practical options Constraints like budget, dates, baggage limits, length, language, and travel times Coordinating payment Meal planning Logistics Individual preferences in comfort, luxury, food, activities, sleeping arrangements Travel means, distances and time Tools to communicate and plan There's so much! While any team wanting to improve this process should speak with people who have gone on, or want to do, group holidays, drawing a rich picture is a great way to start. You will quickly find out, for example, that different team members have different views of which are the difficult parts, which parts are easy, past experiences that worked or didn't, and more. By mapping these visually, the team can quickly see pain points, hidden complexity, and different perspectives — insights they can later validate through user research. As an aside, a rich picture in this sort of situation is a great example of the framing cycle from my PhD thesis: Effective Framing in Design (pdf). Rich Pictures are the Start A rich picture diagram doesn't solve things by itself. It's a way to get into a problem space, to unblock a team, to give avenues to explore, and to uncover hidden conflicts and assumptions. Once created, a team can start to dive into any aspect of the picture, refine it, or just put it to one side. It can be a starting point for more formal models like process maps, user journeys, or systems diagrams. Advantages of Rich Pictures Rich pictures are great when: You don't know where to start The problem is complex, cross-disciplinary, or wicked People have different views Everyone has lots of thoughts to get out There's some knowledge, but it's incomplete I love them because: they are very low pressure artifacts to create they don't require any special skills everyone can contribute they mix words, and simple visuals they can be structured or unstructured they're useful to look back on it's so releasing to get everything out of your head where it can be interrogated and understood they are inclusive for all thinking styles they spark great conversations A mind map is similar to a rich picture, but, in its traditional forms, has a more prescribed structure. Still, as in a mind map travel journal, it has a lot of similarities. Not sure where to start? Lots going on? Multiple perspectives? Maybe try a rich picture next time. Related Ideas to Rich Pictures Also see: Don't let your thinking be limited by your tools Six Thinking Hats Information Radiator Roger Martin's Knowledge Funnel: Mystery, Heuristic, Algorithm Build a mind map Mind map Travel Journal 6 Simple Sketch People I created this rich picture illustration and example as one of a series of visuals for Kaine Ugwu about Systems Thinking.Sometimes, when faced with a new challenge, you just don't know where to start. One good way to get going is with a rich picture. What is a Rich Picture? A rich picture diagram is a systems thinking tool used to make sense of complicated or unclear situations. It helps you visualise everything you know or think about a problem space — without needing a strict method, structure, or artistic skill. I love it because the format is deliberately flexible: you can include people, processes, relationships, emotions, metaphors, and connections. It does not have to look good. In fact, it’s probably better if it doesn’t so you’re more likely to get stuck in and edit it. The act of drawing it out helps you clarify your thinking and see how different parts of the situation connect. It's not just getting what you know onto a page; it's actually thinking and making connections as you go. It makes your thinking visible, allowing you to create and discover more connections. It's part analysis, part reflection, and part creative exploration. Why Use Rich Pictures? Rich picture diagramming is widely used in business analysis, systems design, and problem-solving because it: Reveals hidden assumptions Encourages collaboration and shared understanding Highlights conflicts or misunderstandings early Supports creative and divergent thinking Provides a low-pressure, inclusive way to explore ideas You don’t need a rich picture template — just a large piece of paper (or whiteboard) and the freedom to draw. Rich Pictures in a Group for Shared Understanding Even more powerful than creating one alone is creating a rich picture in a group. The magic of doing an activity like this together is making team members' implicit understanding visible and differences in opinions and assumptions apparent. By making mental models visible, the rich picture helps uncover where people's views differ and where they align — a critical step for building shared understanding in teams. When these implicit understandings and assumptions are in conflict, the team can work together to build a shared understanding or determine what data they need to gather. Shared understanding is critical for high-performing teams to solve problems and create new products or services. Rich Picture Example: Planning a Group Holiday Here's an example: imagine a team designing a product to help people plan group holidays. People arrange group holidays all the time, but if you've been involved, you probably know that it's not straightforward. The team could start by sketching a rich picture that captures everything involved: Initial interest Preferences of types of holidays coordinated between the group Ways of sharing options Filtering and decision-making processes Tools to gather practical options Constraints like budget, dates, baggage limits, length, language, and travel times Coordinating payment Meal planning Logistics Individual preferences in comfort, luxury, food, activities, sleeping arrangements Travel means, distances and time Tools to communicate and plan There's so much! While any team wanting to improve this process should speak with people who have gone on, or want to do, group holidays, drawing a rich picture is a great way to start. You will quickly find out, for example, that different team members have different views of which are the difficult parts, which parts are easy, past experiences that worked or didn't, and more. By mapping these visually, the team can quickly see pain points, hidden complexity, and different perspectives — insights they can later validate through user research. As an aside, a rich picture in this sort of situation is a great example of the framing cycle from my PhD thesis: Effective Framing in Design (pdf). Rich Pictures are the Start A rich picture diagram doesn't solve things by itself. It's a way to get into a problem space, to unblock a team, to give avenues to explore, and to uncover hidden conflicts and assumptions. Once created, a team can start to dive into any aspect of the picture, refine it, or just put it to one side. It can be a starting point for more formal models like process maps, user journeys, or systems diagrams. Advantages of Rich Pictures Rich pictures are great when: You don't know where to start The problem is complex, cross-disciplinary, or wicked People have different views Everyone has lots of thoughts to get out There's some knowledge, but it's incomplete I love them because: they are very low pressure artifacts to create they don't require any special skills everyone can contribute they mix words, and simple visuals they can be structured or unstructured they're useful to look back on it's so releasing to get everything out of your head where it can be interrogated and understood they are inclusive for all thinking styles they spark great conversations A mind map is similar to a rich picture, but, in its traditional forms, has a more prescribed structure. Still, as in a mind map travel journal, it has a lot of similarities. Not sure where to start? Lots going on? Multiple perspectives? Maybe try a rich picture next time. Related Ideas to Rich Pictures Also see: Don't let your thinking be limited by your tools Six Thinking Hats Information Radiator Roger Martin's Knowledge Funnel: Mystery, Heuristic, Algorithm Build a mind map Mind map Travel Journal 6 Simple Sketch People I created this rich picture illustration and example as one of a series of visuals for Kaine Ugwu about Systems Thinking.

26 Oct

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