Reflective Blog – Part 1

‘Are designers defined by their drawing and sketching skills?’

I truly believe from what we have been doing over the past month and from the different excerpt we have had to read that at least the success of a designer is certainly defined by their drawing and sketching skills. I have learnt through this group of modules the profound effect that good sketching and the ability to learn and convey ideas visually can have.

Pictures really can tell 1000 words and in the case of the design process being able to quickly bring people to the same level in understanding an idea or concept. For me personally sketching helps me envision and understand the practical limitations of making or fabricating the designs I have been dreaming up.
Sketching current ideas also helps me think of improvements and additions to existing thoughts and designs as I develop my own understanding of the things I’m drawing.

Recently I have been working on  the extension our family has been building with my father, he’s a really practical man and has been a tradesman for 30 years, but he struggles with concepts and envisioning the finished idea. The amount of times I have resorted to sketching things for him to give him something visual to interpret and feel confident in knowing what we were trying to achieve is innumerable. These sketches can be of anything from constructing doors to the positioning of the roof trusses on the wall head.

So if the ability to learn visually using sketching and drawing is so important then it must be conceivable that a designer’s ability to sketch and draw will at least effect their success in portraying effectively their designs and work.

Two of the images I have included are by two of my favourite designers and architects, Frank Gehry and Elon Musk. While Gehry’s sketch is rough and abstract it probably helped more in his own thought process as he was developing what he was envisioning. On the other hand Musk’s sketch is much more detailed and refined, it would be more use conveying specific information on the concept of the given idea, in this case the hyper loop. Both sketches help define the success of the designers just in different ways, there’s no doubt both would still be successful as they are talented but it sure helps.