INTRODUCTION
Pens before pixels is a guide to recording, exploring, and explaining with hand-drawn sketching Here you will learn the basic skills and techniques needed to create compelling, communicative, and engaging design sketches
KEEPING A SKETCHBOOK
Sketchbooks are the best place to practice your sketching. You want to get a sketchbook large enough to give you adequate space to sketch. We recommend a 8.5” Moleskin to get started, from there, you will learn more about your personal sketchbook prefrences.
TOOLS YOU NEED
Your sketching tools are your portal into design sketching. In order to create great design sketches, you should find a pen you love to use. If you are a novice, we suggest you use a pen as they aren’t erasable. Which means you learn from every stroke, instead of erasing and starting over. Here are a few of our favorite pens
SKETCHING FOR QUALITY COMMUNICATION
Sketching is about communication and believability, not perfection. When you sketch, think about how you can intelligably tell the viewer a message.
For example, you can communicate to the viewer the idea of a square by over drawing your lines at the corner. By doing this, you are saying "this sketch is meant to be a square", which the viewer can believe. If you draw a square and connect all four corners, you are saying "this is a perfect square". Perfect squares are physically impossible to draw, therefore, your drawing is not believable.
