Computer Screen is to Sketchbook as Mouse is to Pencil
I love my sketchbook. I love the graph paper, the feel of it, it’s the perfect size. It has the perfect floppy to rigid ratio. I keep notes in it. Work ideas out in it. I write out thoughts I hope will one day matter. But I don’t truly use my sketchbook for sketching. Dare I say, I don’t use my sketchbook to work through designs.
In our computer based world where my designs are destined for computer screens, iphone screens, et al. I work my designs out on the screen. The screen is now our main medium. As designers, it should be where we exist. The medium of previous generations was paper and accordingly, those designers worked things out in their paper sketchbooks.
If you look around my artboard in Illustrator, it’s littered with iterations, possibilities, trials, errors, crap and solutions. With a click of the mouse I can create a perfectly straight line. No need for a ruler and steady hand. I can calculate and be precise. I can apply uniform modifications. Being able to be more exact in my trial iterations means I can have a better idea of the ultimate design. And that helps…a lot.
And, it’s just so much faster to play with a mouse and computer screen than pencil, paper and ruler (and compass and protractor and eraser and french curve and additional lead and all my pens and pencils and scissors…well, you get the point).
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, after this sentence, I’ll be done writing and let the scan of my sketchbook and screenshot of my Illustrator file for the same project speak for themselves.
