About Sketchplanations

Learn about the inspiration behind Sketchplanations, what's in the archive, how to follow Sketchplanations, the process of creating weekly sketches, and how you can support the project (me).

Sketchplanations is now a book! I think you'll love Big Ideas Little Pictures (and you can now get some nice prints of the Sketchplanations Wave from the cover)

It's also a podcast. Prefer to listen to the ideas on your commute or while doing chores? I don't blame you. And now you can: Listen to the podcast

Looking to use a Sketchplanation? Please do! See the licence page for details.

Supporting Sketchplanations

Get each new weekly sketchplanation by subscribing for free.

You can also support me and the project with a paid subscription.

Paid subscribers get:

Behind-the-scenes posts and reflections
The full archive of high-res sketches, named and sorted for personal use
Full access to the newsletter archives
At the top tier: access to the unique, handmade Sketchplanations font

Going paid helps me keep the project going—and it means a lot.

👉 Explore paid options or support the project

5% of contributions go towards Stripe Climate projects

Follow

The best way to follow is by signing up to the weekly newsletter. But if you'd like to share or repost on a platform that you use, I try to share (albeit with less commentary) on:

Explore the archive

The sketches cover all sorts of topics. Try a search or start from some common themes below to find what interests you:

🔍 Explore more themes

Sketchplanations the Podcast

I've learned that Sketchplanations helps you have great conversations about ideas. In 2023, we started doing just that with the Sketchplanations podcast.

Together with Rob Bell (TV presenter) and Tom Pellereau (inventor and former Apprentice UK winner), we take a sketch or several and dive into it.

It sounded a little crazy to have a podcast about a sketch, but, somewhat to my surprise, it works brilliantly. I hope you enjoy it!

🎧 Listen to the podcast

The backstory

In 2012 my sister bought me a book with a page every day for a year for a sketch. I used it to practise my drawing.

When I finished it I needed a new challenge. So I set myself the challenge of explaining something with a sketch—as explaining is a handy skill. Over 2013–14 I posted one sketchplanation a day. Since then I switched to one per week, and the quality improved.

I draw them using Sketchbook Pro on an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil. It took me a long time to go all fancy and digital, and I still kind of miss the analogue touch of the originals.

The original ones are drawn in Moleskine storyboard sketchbooks (quite hard to find in stores). I used three Uniball Vision Elites and a Copic marker for the grey. I think it is the best combination of pens there is.

Curious to see how I make them now? Watch me draw sketchplanations on Youtube

If you have ideas for new sketchplanations or other ideas, do get in touch: jono.hey@gmail.com

Using sketchplanations

If you would like to use a sketchplanation in a blog post or for non-commercial purposes, please go ahead. If you have a moment to email me where you used one, it makes me very happy. Check out the licence page for details.

Translating sketchplanations

I'd love to make sketchplanations available in more languages! If you want to submit a translated sketchplanation, I've started to add them to a translations folder and plan to add them to the site.

Have you translated a sketch or seen one around? Email translations to me at jono.hey@gmail.com.

For licensing details and translation guidelines, see the licence page.

About me

👋 I'm Jono Hey. (Find me on LinkedIn)

I'm a father of two living in London. For many years, I've worked in startups, product design, and software engineering. I do some advising and mentoring if that's of interest to you.

I led product at Zen Educate, UX and design at Nutmeg, and was an associate at Jump Associates. I got a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in the San Francisco Bay Area on "Framing in Design". However, I mostly like drawing and playing the piano.

Other bits

I don't do anything with your data except your email address is stored by Substack if you subscribe. See more: sketchplanations.com/privacy

If you buy something using links from the sketches—for example, buying a book I've referenced from Amazon that explains a topic in depth—I may earn a commission as an Amazon affiliate. This helps me keep making them, but feel free to buy elsewhere.

Do you accept guest posts?

No, I don't accept guest posts.

You can probably see that unless you are planning to draw a sketch explaining something in Sketchplanations style with a topic that's not overly commercial while also being interesting and relevant to my audience, I'm not interested in publishing a guest post promoting your site. Sorry.

Want to learn to sketch?

A lot of people ask me about learning to sketch. The truth is I 100% think it's possible for everyone to learn. Nobody starts an expert. Like most things, it requires caring, work, and practice. If you'd be interested in lessons or a short course from me, please let me know: jono.hey@gmail.com

Here are a few resources that you could start with. They're not for a classical art education — more about drawing to think and communicate better.

Books

Back of the Napkin, Dan Roam — he has several newer books also
Rapid Viz, Kurt Hanks and Larry Belliston
Experiences in Visual Thinking, Robert McKim
Do the Sketch a Day for a year yourself
Envisaging Information, Edward Tufte — full of beautiful examples, critiques and principle to help you present information clearly

Sketchnoting — taking visual notes of talks, for example — is also popular and a great way to practise:

The Sketchnote handbook, Mike Rohde — and video course, and Sketchnote Army podcast
Eva-Lotta Lamm — lots of sketchnoting resources and great examples, also a course

Other inspiration

xkcd — proof that your sketching really doesn't have to be great to get the point across, though some of Randall Munroe's drawings these days are highly accomplished
@semi_rad

And the real master is Bill Watterson 🤩

Some Principles

Copy, copy, copy

Before writing your own music it's typical to learn to play other music. The same is true of drawing. Whenever you see a drawing you like try and copy it. Look closely to see how they did it. See if you can do it just as well.

Practice

Get a postcard sketchbook and send old-fashioned postcards. Bonus: you'll appreciate your surroundings a lot more on holiday if you take the time to sit, observe and draw
Try practising with some of the drawing sketchplanations
Do the Sketch a Day for a year yourself

Draw to think

Be the first on the whiteboard — physical or virtual. Need to figure something out? Start by putting some lines on paper. There's nothing wrong with boxes and arrows to start.

Persevere in the middle

Sketches often look bad in the middle (see the learning pit). It's a process. Don't give up because something looks rubbish. Keep working on it. See how you can correct it. You may learn more from figuring out why a sketch looks wrong than if you happen to get it right.