Author’s preface
‘In this book, I have tried something which feel is new in the teaching of technical drawing, by taking everyday things and basing drawing examples on them. Most manufactured objects start their life on the drawing-board, whether as a simple design for an emblem or as the plans for Concorde. have tried to show how there is a direct link between the drawing-board and things we see and use every day.
The book is designed to give the child a broad, basic course in technical drawing which will lead him into an examination course. In many of the examples, I have given scope for personal investigation and ideas leading on to designs made and drawn by the child. Here he has to start thinking for himself, and is therefore fixing the work at his own level.
Today, graphical communication is becoming more and more important; it is not so much the producing of a drawing that the child needs to know, but the thought that goes into it, and the ability to be able to understand a drawing that either he or someone else has produced. If the child is able to see that T.D. is not just a subject for people who hope to become draughtsmen, but one that has a lot to do with everyday living, then I feel he will get a lot more from the subject than just a few basic drawing skills, which he may never use once he leaves school. This is what I have tried to do with this book: to get the child to think of T.D. as being part of his surroundings, and not just a subject confined to the four walls of a drawing-office.’
John Rolfe