A sketch a day keeps the dullness away

I’ve been carrying a sketch book around with me ever since our talk from Peter Sheehan. It is possibly the best piece of design advice I’ve gotten to date. Be it a café, a walk, a bus, carrying a sketchbook makes you aware of all the things worth sketching. More importantly, using these sketches and scenes to inspire further designs. One of the greatest things about a sketchbook is that it’s very unique to the designer. It’s basically their visual diary and the more they put their sketching to practice, the better we get at communicating through pen and paper. This is essential for design industry.

We were lucky enough to spend four hours with this insightful designer. To say this man was interesting is an understatement. I found it intriguing how he adopts design to his everyday life. He gave us a presentation on design and his approach to it and I really liked how most the presentation was very visual rather than a lot of text. This immediately grabbed my attention.

I also really liked the emphasis he put on sketching. Sketching is my favourite aspect of design and even watching him sketch made me want to go out, purchase all the stationary in the world and sketch for days. I already keep a box of bits and bobs at home with stationary, materials and other random accessories.

I asked Peter what happens to a design consultant if their clients do not like their designs. He basically said that if they don't like the design, you could potentially be fired from that project. I don't know If this was dramatized or if it is a harsh world in design. I think design is so subjective that sometimes the client might not see what you see. I think if you really believe in your design you should try have the right balance of taking feedback but also the willingness to always improve. Its important to know that there is always things to improve. We must identify this and that's what makes it an exciting challenge.

He did a quick workshop with us and gave us 40 minutes to sketch up a keyboard holder which doubled as a laptop case and we had to make this out of card sheets. It threw us on the spot which is actually a great thing for designers. To think that I sketched and made something in the space of forty minutes really gave perspective on what can be done in a day. It’s all about pushing yourself really. I definitely took a lot from the workshop and if you can take anything from this blog it is to buy a sketchbook.