The other day in Design — and I forget the actual context for this, which is really eating at me– I seem to remember hearing/seeing some mention of isometric perspective, or a certain style of representing 3D space in 2D design.
Isometric Perspective
In isometric (meaning “equal measure,” according to Merriam Webster Dictionary) perspective, there is no foreshortening, so things do not get smaller as they move away from the ‘viewer’: instead, all lines on each axis of 3D space – length, width, and height – are parallel to each other and have 120-degree angles from each other. Isometry is often utilized in technical and engineering designs because it is speedy and convenient while allowing for great detail.
High School: Introduction to Drawing, 2018
The high school I went to, Lyme-Old Lyme High School (comprising the townships of Lyme and Old Lyme, abbreviated as LOLHS, embarrassingly) had a good art program for a public school. We had a four-year drawing program, and as a freshman who really liked art, I took Introduction to Drawing, the required starter course, in spring of 2018.
Damn, that was a long time ago. I was quite small.
The first unit of the class was using isometric perspective to represent 3D objects. We started off small, drawing little wooden shapes my teacher had in the back closet; we used these printed-out laminated isometric grids to help us. It was kind of cute, and also a little bit mind-numbing, since I felt like I already knew how to draw shapes and things, can’t we get to the fun stuff already? But our final project of the unit was a drawing of a room done in isometric perspective. It was actually really fun for me, because I challenged myself to add as much detail as possible into this drawing that could otherwise be quite basic. After the project, we moved on to one-point perspective, and then to skulls and faces; isometry was a fun little warmup for me, not something to consider deeply.
Hay Day, the Supercell Mobile Farming Game
I hadn’t thought much about isometry since freshman year of high school, but after design the other day, I suppose my brain was primed to notice it in my life. I was playing my favorite silly little video game on my iPad that is meant for school purposes only, and while doing so, I realized that the perspective used in the game seemed similar to isometry!
I realized I’d seen other games designed like this, and a quick google search of “isometric game design” yielded thousands of results, many of which were beautifully rendered and charming overall! I spent nearly an hour scrolling and searching, looking at all these different renderings of worlds and buildings and streets and this and that and the other thing, fascinated. What I thought was a simplistic way of drawing was really a tool, one that enables artists like video game designers to create in a detailed, beautiful, captivating way. (I haven’t put in a gallery of graphics I found, because I want you to go and google search it too, so maybe you can be a little bit overwhelmed by the depth of content!)
Concluding Thoughts
Even though I’m still not exactly sure if Hay Day is truly isometric, or if it utilizes an axonometric perspective that might not rely on 120-degree angles, I was glad to think more deeply about ways to create 2D work that I haven’t explored to the fullest, as well as ways that people choose to create digital work and build digital environments. And I was especially lucky to reflect on the things I’ve learned in the past and how they connect to my present, my everyday, and perhaps my future as well.
