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I would recommend to anyone wanting to do any kind of visual design to learn to draw observationally. You don't have to become Leonardo or John Singer Sargent,

I would recommend to anyone wanting to do any kind of visual design to learn to draw observationally. You don't have to become Leonardo or John Singer Sargent, but learning to draw is learning to see. The same goes for photography. Everyone has a camera phone. Learn to use it. As a side benefit, you become less dependent on clip art and photo stock ... I also recommend studying color theory as used by painters and illustrators. You have hundreds of years of practice and theory to work with. James Gurney's books as a good, modern place to start. And don't be afraid to get technical. Old Kodak and paint manufacturers have tons of really good scientific studies on how color perception and the brain work. Far too many designers learn a few basic recipes for color and this can be very limiting.

biot 10y ago
Any thoughts on expanding your "mind's eye"? I can often picture something, but when I go to sketch it it's as if I have tunnel vision and can only focus on a very narrow part at a time, and I lose sight of the whole. I feel that if I could somehow expand this -- perhaps through specific exercises? -- I'd be able to draw much better. Or maybe there aren't specific exercises and it just requires a lot of time putting pencil to paper.
- lawn 10y ago
  I think that's exactly what "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" claims to teach. I've started it several times but I never stuck with it so I can't say if it works or not.
- grey-area 10y ago
  The big problem people hit when drawing (esp. as adults) is that they have a well-established picture of the world, built of archetypes and symbols which they impose on what they see. This pattern recognition works very well when you need to navigate the world, but gets in the way when you want to observe it as it is, rather than as you think it should be. In learning to draw you're actually trying to exclude your mind's eye completely (at least at first). So specific exercises you can try (this is the sort of thing students do in art school): Draw negative space - instead of drawing a thing, draw the shapes around it. Draw without lifting the pen - put the pen on paper, look at the object, and draw without lifting or looking at your pen. Draw textures, curves, colours - forget the class of thing you're drawing (a face, an eye) and try to truly see the specific thing in front of you. Draw unfamiliar objects - things you don't have ready-made symbols of in your mind's eye. Copy pictures you admire, and you'll notice how much artifice and craft is involved. For visual design work, another skill which is very useful and often overlooked is to learn about typographic and typesetting concepts - a lot of those ideas about balance, repetition, rhythm, are very important in visual design.

biot 10y ago

Any thoughts on expanding your "mind's eye"? I can often picture something, but when I go to sketch it it's as if I have tunnel vision and can only focus on a very narrow part at a time, and I lose sight of the whole. I feel that if I could somehow expand this -- perhaps through specific exercises? -- I'd be able to draw much better. Or maybe there aren't specific exercises and it just requires a lot of time putting pencil to paper.

lawn 10y ago
I think that's exactly what "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" claims to teach. I've started it several times but I never stuck with it so I can't say if it works or not.
grey-area 10y ago
The big problem people hit when drawing (esp. as adults) is that they have a well-established picture of the world, built of archetypes and symbols which they impose on what they see. This pattern recognition works very well when you need to navigate the world, but gets in the way when you want to observe it as it is, rather than as you think it should be. In learning to draw you're actually trying to exclude your mind's eye completely (at least at first). So specific exercises you can try (this is the sort of thing students do in art school): Draw negative space - instead of drawing a thing, draw the shapes around it. Draw without lifting the pen - put the pen on paper, look at the object, and draw without lifting or looking at your pen. Draw textures, curves, colours - forget the class of thing you're drawing (a face, an eye) and try to truly see the specific thing in front of you. Draw unfamiliar objects - things you don't have ready-made symbols of in your mind's eye. Copy pictures you admire, and you'll notice how much artifice and craft is involved. For visual design work, another skill which is very useful and often overlooked is to learn about typographic and typesetting concepts - a lot of those ideas about balance, repetition, rhythm, are very important in visual design.