Pencils Before Pixels
A Primer in Hand-Generated Sketching
Mark Baskinger
Carnegie Mellon University | mbasking@andrew.cmu.edu
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processes with hand drawing:
pencils before pixels. This article
will touch upon some of the
methods used in the School of
Design to present a primer for
practicing interaction designers
to become better visual thinkers
and communicators by employing hand-generated techniques
to enrich their creative design
processes.
Drawings and sketches can be
powerful and persuasive representations of ideas, events,
sequences, systems, and objects.
As part of a larger collaborative
design process, hand drawing
can serve as a key method for
thinking, reasoning, and exploring opportunities, yet it inherently differs from wire frames
and conceptual models. Innately,
interaction designers employ a
variety of methods for representing ideas and information, both
internally in a cognitive sense,
and externally in the devices
we employ to record, share, and
reflect. However, competency in
sketching and drawing by hand
seems to be diminishing across
design disciplines, making it a
more highly desired skill in contemporary design practice. In
addition, there seems to be an
apparent phenomenon of fear
when it comes to drawing ideas.
For many practicing designers,
they have convinced themselves
that they can’t draw and thus
position themselves on the
periphery of concept generation.
The fact is that we all can draw,
and there is a misperception that
one has to be the Michelangelo
of design drawing to be able
to communicate visually. As
young children, we had no fear
of drawing and putting our work
out in the public domain, but as
adults, we’ve grown extremely
self-conscious of our abilities
and inabilities and now fear
being judged. Gaining competence in drawing is similar to
becoming a marathon runner;
it can’t happen overnight. But,
like running, most of us can
already somewhat do it—we
just need to devote the time
and energy toward building this
skill to become truly versed in
it. As a drawing instructor in
the School of Design at Carnegie
Mellon University, my role is to
shape students to become better visual communicators and
therefore, better visual thinkers.
We always start our creative
Envisioning, Recording,
Sharing, and Reflecting
As designers, we enjoy the
journey of discovery, in mak-
ing relationships between
intangible ideas/data and the
formal elements that make an
idea accessible. Initiating the
creative process with hand-
generated sketches to think
through abstract or intangible
ideas in various permutations
can provide a stronger basis
to refine these ideas with
digital images, words, pixels,
and vectors. By starting with
hand-generated “analog” media
