Ugly sketches make more sense
- Outi Ojala
- Nov 1, 2025
- 2 min read
I watched a TED Talk about how the best
presentations use ugly sketches.
It made me smile, because I think when illustrating power point slides I've lived that idea many times without naming it. Ugly sketches it is.
I put here this "painting" that started one happy evening. I didn't plan it much, just started drawing my little red figures on three blue lines. That blue lines is, by the way, 2,5 euros painting from flea market. No big problem to ruin or make into something. Part of my weird hobby.
It was fun, it worked, it said what came to my mind. Well, even though the ink didn't last when erasing visible pencil marks. What a failure, I had to learn what colour lasts on painted wood. Now I know and have that kind of markers. Failing is learning indeed. :)
But in quality work and art it is the same. Clarity grows when we stop polishing and start showing and telling stories. We draw to understand. We share to make things move.
I took maby a year ago a web course about drawing stick dudes. :D Ok, it was much more than those, but that you really don't need to be perfect to create illustrations to presentations.
Visual thinking is free for everyone. It needs curiosity and a bit of trust that others will see meaning even in rough lines. It works, perhaps. And what would be more valuable to get the thought clear to some more persons.
So maybe the most practical quality tool isn't a template or a form. It's a pen, some trust and bit of courage.
I remember the first time I tried to sketch out a user flow for a small app I was building, and the result looked like a toddler’s doodle—boxes overlapping, arrows pointing everywhere, labels half‑written. I was embarrassed to show it to anyone, assuming it would look unprofessional. But when I shared it with a colleague, they laughed and said it actually helped them see the big picture far better than a polished wireframe ever could https://iabaustralia.com.au/ That moment stuck with me, and reading this post reminded me how those “ugly” sketches can cut through the noise and force us to focus on the core logic instead of getting lost in aesthetics. It’s funny how something that feels messy at first…