Let me disclose an insider secret about how I create my models … I always start with the geometry first!

Now, you might be saying “Well, of course you start with geometry!” but let me explain.

I pick a shape to work with BEFORE I put a single word down. A great model ALWAYS starts with geometry. The geometry creates the dimensions and dynamics of the model.

For example, a circle is a softer, continuous shape that can become interrupted without compromise, whilst a triangle has three main dimensions and is structurally dependent on all three sides to work – lose one side and you lose the model.

Every line of geometry in a model has meaning and tells a story – every arrow, every space, every angle or apex.

Once you uncover the deep geometry in a model, everyone viewing the model can see it and it immediately makes sense – then people can’t NOT see it. However, YOU have to uncover the hidden geometry first.

It’s this geometry that makes a model a model.

Four boxes with words in them is just a list. It’s the geometric interplay between the boxes and the two axis that form the boxes that makes them a model.

The geometry makes the models, the words in the model create the concept and the very deliberate choreography of how you deliver it, creates the connection.

I’d love to know, when you build a model, how much attention do you pay to the geometry?