Isometric

Isometric takes me straight back to the drawing board. Before computer modelling took over, this was how we learned to make three dimensions readable on paper.

The rules were wonderfully strict. Thirty degrees one way, thirty degrees the other, with the vertical holding everything together. Follow them properly and a flat drawing suddenly had depth.

What always interested me was the slight unreality of it. Isometric drawing describes an object clearly, yet it never quite shows how we actually see. Parallel lines remain parallel, with none of the convergence expected from perspective.

That artificial viewpoint gives isometric geometry its particular character. It sits somewhere between a technical drawing and an optical illusion. The eye accepts the depth while knowing the surface remains completely flat.

Those hours spent working across an isometric grid probably left a deeper impression than I realised. The geometry became instinctive, along with that curious ability to suggest volume using only angles.

Isometric returns to that familiar drawing language. The set square may have disappeared from the desk, but those rigorous 60 and 30 degree rules have proved harder to leave behind.