Ideation: Words or images?

'I prefer drawing to talking - drawing is faster and leaves less room for lies', quipped Le Corbusier (1887-1965). Or, Eero Saarinen (1910-61): 'To me, the drawn language is a very revealing language', adding, 'one can see in a few lines whether a man is really an architect'. Although drawing predicates most design disciplines, this is not to say that designers need to be able to draw like an accomplished artist. The freehand sketch, even a scribble or doodle, is often a starting point towards an accomplished design. And when drawing digitally, with a tablet pen, there may be an advantage in that the designer can undo and tweak as much as they like until they are satisfied with a design. However, in the context of ideation, visual or verbal communication are not mutually exclusive. Indeed both visual and verbal modes of idea communication are rhetorical means, that is, ideation belongs to "the art of persuasion". And so what matters in communicating ideas is the relationship between words and images: Words explain, images suggest - or vice versa. Ideation, then, as its most effective, exploits the relationship between words and images.