Machine-based Design

I love the fact that Pedrita, the design team from Portugal quoted here on Monday, are young, energetic, leading-edge designers who eschew computer design tools in favor of pencils and sketch pads.

It's not difficult to find older designers who cling to their drafting tables and can whip up any concept with their favorite Faber-Castell in in a flash. It's clearly the most effective way to communicate an idea when heads are together in a room.

It's inspiring to hear young designers say that "... hand drawing is [their] preferential tool when exploring ideas." It means the glamour of spinning 3D models and Photoshopping backgrounds has been seen for what it is, and the real work of making Ideas into Art and Product is front and center. Good Design is about making it happen, and the rapid deployment of one idea after another, side by side on the sketch pad, is the way to go, not just for the heads gathered in a room, but for the lone designer capturing lightning in their own quiet bottle, getting the inspiration of the moment down while it's fresh and can inspire it's brethren and offspring.

I do better sketches in my solitary office than I do in front of clients. Without the need to communicate to others, with the sole target of capturing a good design idea, it's easy to focus and let the flow happen. If you have to wait for the software to boot up, and start a new document, and pull down a menu or two, well more than likely by then the muse has drifted away.

As far as the computer-based solutions becoming overly complex, we'll talk more about that, another important topic.