Blogs / Form - A Place for Design / Spring 2010 / Old School Sketching

FORM

A Place for Design

Old School Sketching

“We basically came up with the plan on the back of a napkin.”

How many times have you heard this phrase? Perhaps some of you even have your own cherished and crumpled cocktail napkins hiding in the back of some drawer, hiding brilliant ideas from on a night of spirited brainstorming.

Napkin drawings or impromptu pen and paper drawings are fast, easy and effective because the tools needed are readily available and reliable, especially if you’re working late-night at a café or bar. They work almost as well as chunks of charcoal and smooth limestone cave walls.

But I can’t help wonder, given the pulse of recent technological innovation, what will happen to the humble napkin sketch? Will there be a digital solution for even this quick tactile tool? When can we expect the i-Napkin, a device similar to the Kindle?

Perhaps we have already reached that point. Last year I purchased a digital tablet from Wacom for drawing and sketching on the road. The tablet works so well that the output looks just like something that I would have drawn in the past on a piece of paper. Sure it is kind of an annoying hassle to carry around, but it’s super-useful if you have time and space and you need to share work remotely. The other plus to this tablet is that the output to the digital world is instant–no scanning necessary.


So what’s next? Lots. We have the full tablet PC (featured prominently in the April edition of WIRED), one where the writing surface is the computer, much like the Apple iPad. It all reminds me of the classic “Etch a Sketch.” I bet there’s an app for that…Yep.


Still other iPhone apps allow for some pretty advanced drawing. Check out this New Yorker blog, and make sure to watch the video, about the artist who completed a New Yorker cover illustration entirely on an iPhone. Really cool. As I write this I am sure that there is yet another product about to be launched that will make even these tools and applications look as mundane as, well, a pen and paper.

All these advances are well and good, but digital sketching is not a relational experience, it is a personal one that can be easily shared later. For all its value, it’s not as participatory as creating and sharing a napkin sketch in a lively moment. I'm sure one day we will all be able to sketch in air with a virtual pen, and for the cost of less than a monthly paycheck. But right now, I can’t think of anything as social, tactile and fun as the lowly napkin sketch. (This Pixel Pad comes close—no wonder it's sold out). For now, I’ll be sticking with my trusty Uniball Vision Fine for $1.49 (no wait, $2.49 here in Sun Valley) and all the free napkins in the world.