A Sketchy Experiment (ft. Zander + Izzy)

During an interesting conversation with a couple of my good friends, Zander and Izzy, the idea was floated of conducting an experiment of sorts. A sketching experiment.

For context, Zander and Izzy are both my coursemates; we're in our final year of design studies here at Loughborough University. Despite studying the same course, attending the same lectures, and completing the same coursework, it is apparent our minds work in very different ways.

I am sure if you've made it this deep into my website, then you've gotten a feel for my style of working: I am quite technical and detail-oriented. I'd rather take a bit longer on some work and get it "correct" (if there is such a thing in our field). In my own words, Izzy is the design-antidote to my style. That's not to say she lacks in technical proficiency or attention to detail; what I actually mean is she is far more capable than I am at appreciating the beauty in abstract forms and hearing the music in more artistically-designed pieces.

Zander is our do-it-all friend who knows absolutely everyone on campus (not a joke - ask anyone and they'll tell you about that time they hung out with this man!). As a designer, he's the best of both Izzy and I, mixed with a healthy dose of human empathy (a key skill in user-centred design).

Something worth mentioning is that both Zander and Izzy can sketch a good sight better than I can. They're not just acquaintances with the pen - they're dance partners with it and have produced many a spontaneous masterpiece with nothing more than a sheet of paper and their ideas.

With this context, I am sure you can understand why I was so excited to embark on this sketching experiment with these two. It was originally Izzy's proposal and after spitballing ideas, we settled on a kind of sketching challenge that aligned with the sketching methodology we'd been trained on. Ian Storer taught us to be loose and free with our sketches from day one - a feat easier said than done when the modern designer is inundated with perfect-looking sketch renders everytime they open Instagram.

Izzy's proposal was this: we each start a sketch and after five minutes, rotate the sketches around so that the next person is continuing a different sketch than their own. After another five minutes, rotate again such that each of us are now finishing a new sketch. If you've seen some of the short form videos where two people start a painting each and swap halfway through, this is pretty much the same concept with a different brief.

The five-minute time limit is important: forcing us to be quick and loose with our linework rather than being precious and overly-deliberate. As Storer said, it can seem counterintuitive, but deliberating hard on each stroke usually leads to a far less professional-looking and tied-together sketch.

We settled on the product: a clothes iron. "Hey siri, start a timer for five minutes."

Here's how the sketches looked at the first rotation:

And how they ended up:

In my opinion, though, the learnings from this excercise are far more important than the sketched outcomes. As a self-considered novice in sketching, I think my insights are most useful for other beginners. Here's what I learned from the experiment:

- Don't overthink. Sure, lay out guide lines and run a couple of mock strokes back-and-forth with your pen lifted before making your mark. But don't spend long in setting up for a line. As mentioned above, as counterintuitive as it seems: to a point, quantity over quality actually leads to a higher-quality sketch.

- There's value in not being so literal with your forms. This is something I learned from looking at how Izzy started her sketch. She didn't use a reference image and the form of her clothes iron is the least 'iron-looking'. While this may not be useful for showing to clients or to inform technical decision-making, I think for early-stage ideation, abstract forms are a must-have.

- Linework is everything. Thick and thin, guides, contour lines, and shading - these are all needed in balance. They're what separate an artistic drawing from a functional design sketch. One is pretty to look at and takes considerable effort to make; the other is a tool to communicate a 3D idea: from the designer's brain into yours via paper (or iPad).

If you're still reading, thank you for your patience through what has been a decidely chaotic blog post. Till the next one ;)

- Yuvraj