Design and skill in drawing

Abstract

Drawing is surely the designer’s most important working tool. Riedler, in his book on machine drawing¹, begins with the trenchant comment ‘All drawing must serve a definite purpose and the way the drawing is done must match that purpose. There is no such thing as drawing without a set purpose in view’. For the designer the purpose of a drawing is twofold. Although it may eventually convey information to others, it is first of all an aid to thought and to arriving at shapes and dimensions, and in this context it is the immediate expression of the creative process as it evolves. As the mind gropes and explores possibilities and forms, the hand adds one feature to another; the lines are vague and tentative, and everything is fluid until its final form is decided on. Drawing instruments are used very little at this stage—occasionally the compasses, a rule even less often. The designer’s attention is directed inwards, so that the hand does what is required of it entirely at an incidental level. The drawing that results is of a very special kind, with more of the artist’s sketch about it than of the painstakingly precise products taught in technical-drawing classes.