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Drawing is the most enduring skill

Oct 2

I love drawing. Though I’m not great at it, it’s an activity I’ve enjoyed since my early childhood. My fondest memories growing up was taking paper from my dad's dot matrix printer and draw all day. I created an abundance of terrible Spider-Man comic frames and my magnum opus was trying to draw frame-by-frame of the Maximum Carnage event. I still love drawing today. Whether I'm at home, at a coffee shop, or traveling on a plane, I always have a sketchbook to noodle and doodle.

Making a drawing, let alone sharing it, is a vulnerable act many people aren't comfortable with. It exposes all the imperfections to everyone, but that what makes it so powerful. As technologies advance in how images and software is generated, drawing is a skill that will endure the test the time like a Twinkie surviving a nuclear holocaust. Let's talk about what makes drawing so powerful and ways you can improve your own drawing skills.

“All the visible world is only light on form.” – Andrew Loomis

Improving your drawing

I want to share a few practical ways to practice improving your drawing skills before getting too conceptual. Like anything in life, if you want to get better at drawing, you have to do it...a lot. There is no other way around practice. Destroy the perfectionism in your head and start making shitty drawings.

Draw what you observe

Is my grand advice really “look at stuff?” Yes. Practice seeing the natural contours of the world and learn to draw them. You'll be able to break down things quickly to draw them. The same way I look at software applications and can tell when they were using UITableViewCell, you'll see this in your natural environment. Practice drawing how things are presented in a natural space and you'll be able to draw more naturalistic objects that feel bound in a space.

Use reference photos

It’s okay to use reference photos. Contrary to popular belief, artists use reference photos all the time and do not draw from memory. If it seems like they do, it's because they have the muscle memory of creating objects that have come from much observation and practice. Reference photos help you check your work to compare for accuracy. Until you have more repetitions before drawing from memory, you may not see the points you can refine.

Practice the formal elements

The formal elements are: Line, Shape, Form, Color, Space, Texture, Value. Learn the properties of each of these and how you can emphasize each one. What would a drawing look like if you could only draw one line? I did a quick still life this morning at the coffee shop to emphasize different formal elements.

From top-left to bottom-right: Drawing with one line, fill, point dots for texture, crosshatching

Creating emphasis in one particular area helps you improve isolated mechanics.

"Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone." —Rule 11 in Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling

Drawing is conveying

When I taught design at General Assembly, we did a lesson on sketching and storyboarding. I would always show director Rian Johnson's sketch from The Last Jedi.

When the students see this drawing, they think I’m joking. This looks like the same child that drew the design of Tesla’s Cybertruck. If Rian Johnson can use this to convey an iconic moment in a film, you can convey the idea for your app. The ability to convey allows you to advance your ideas.

Learn to draw the basic shapes to visually communicate your idea. The primary criteria for low fidelity are:

Are the elements in the drawing recognizable enough for people to fill in the rest?
Does it require cues on the symbols to have someone looking at it understand? (Ex: Rectangles, arrows, simple human figures, iconography)

"A storyboard is the first look at the film" —Sir Ridley Scott

Drawing is kinetic

Being able to convey in a simple image is a strong foundation for using drawing as a skill. Drawing can set things in motion, whether it's actioning a next step or showing a sequence and structure of a storyboard. Drawing shows how you go from A to B, eventually to Z. Motion design is built on keyframes of moments that are important that you fill in. When you start drawing a series of frames, the work comes to life, helping those who look at your work fill in the blanks based on the points you give them.

"I prefer drawing to talking. Drawing is faster, and leaves less room for lies." —Le Corbusier

Drawing is expression

I believe the most practical and functional products have a strong expression to them. My classic example is the Brooklyn Bridge, which serves a purpose but has an iconic design language that can distinguish itself and tell a story. you could see this in Loren Brichter's work in software, whether it was pull-to-refresh in Tweetie or the tactile feel of Letterpress. This occurs in your drawing style. Instead of trying to detach from it, embrace it.

A style I developed over the years of drawing was creating a sense of depth on lines to create visual hierarchy. No, I did not invent this, but it's a part of my non-finito drawing style can helps me immediately create high fidelity emphasis.

Alexander Vilinskyy 🇺🇦 @vilinskyy

Today I learned @davidhoang's way of drawing arrows with perspective shadows underneath. Such a nice touch! Also love to draw imaginary maps. Jules Verne nostalgia.

Based on your skill and experience, a natural style will form. Embrace it and use it to your advantage.

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau

Drawing is world building

The ability to convey, put it in motion, and express it allows you to build worlds in ways nobody could possibly imagine. Whether guided or un-guided, the basis of any software that allows you to create interfaces lies on the foundation of drawing. This gives you the ability to world build on a professional and personal level. For me, drawing is building my own world to make sense of my thoughts and such a therapudic act.

Bringing it all to life conveying, being kinetic, and world building

In a world of AI/ML, generative work, and automation, imagination and originality will be more important than ever. Though it lives in a 2D surface, drawing break the boundaries to show what's possible. There will be no resource more important than human imagination.

I recommend Ana Vila's newsletter The Sketch Club to get started and inspired! Happy drawing.