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If you've never learned to draw, why would you conclude that? To be honest, nearly all the people I know that are good at observational drawing are crackerjack

If you've never learned to draw, why would you conclude that? To be honest, nearly all the people I know that are good at observational drawing are crackerjack designers. And they are not limited to popular fads and patterns. When you can see, and _know_ what you see, inspiration and information rains from the sky. Everything you look at becomes a source of ideas. And similarly, if you want to be good at color styling, learn to mix paint to match observation. Oh, it doesn't have to be _actual_ paint. Mixing pixels in Photoshop will work, the point is to try and match colors by observation and manipulation, rather than simply "eyedropping" it. Good photographers often pick up good color skills simply by doing a lot of color correction and manipulation. If I'm selling anything here, it's the importance of learning see and observe. Drawing, and painting, are simply an immediate and practical method for testing and improving your observational skills. (Plus it does come in handy when you need to whip up an illustration ...) And don't conclude that design skills has _anything_ to do with learning the current set of tools, digital or otherwise. Far too much design that I see these days falls into the category of "what's easy to do with, or automatically baked into, the tools I currently use." Similarly, don't confuse design skills with production skills, which can be heavily tool oriented. (Not knocking production artists and designers here. Theres a great deal of satisfaction that can come from designing a workflow and production pipeline. And a good designer _is_ concerned with production because it can have a great impact on how their designs are eventually realized.)

chestnut-tree 13y ago
Great thoughts. Do you think someone can learn to "see" well without learning how to draw? I ask because I know there are Graphic Designers who do not know how to draw and many Graphic Design courses don't require drawing skills as a prerequisite (although I know courses encourage students to keep a sketchbook and to sketch ideas as much a spossible). I agree with you that drawing is a key foundation skill for anyone who wants to learn design. But then there's also layout, colour, typography: can someone excel at these latter skills without good drawing skills?
- sgdesign 13y ago
  Drawing is certainly NOT a key foundation skill for learning design (at least if we're talking about designing websites and user interfaces). Certainly not on the same level as typography, for example. I think a good equivalent would be math and programming. Being good at math can certainly help with some things, but if someone asked me how to become a Rails developer I would not suggest they start by learning math.
  - commieneko 13y ago
    Learning to observe critically certainly _is_ a foundational skill in any kind of visual design. Observational drawing is probably the best way to develop that skill. Do it or don't, the choice is yours. Anyone wanting to learn programming should know algebra, set theory and a bit (!) of logic. You can pick these up as you go along, it's not magic, and often that's the way the world works. But I wouldn't recommend that as a preferred choice. When you just pick it up, there are holes in your toolset, holes that you might not even know about. And worse, holes that make you defensive about your skills. And not strictly apropos to this branch of the conversation, I would recommend anyone interested in any kind of visual design should study geometry. Good old high school plane geometry is a good place to start. I can also recommend descriptive geometry, particularly the courses aimed at engineers and architects. Anyone that gets into designing type, and with type, who lacks this knowledge has a very real handicap. The advantages these disciplines offer the designer or visual artists are indescribable to those who lack them. Either take my word for that or ignore it. Certainly people have done well without them. But that's a limitation that has been overcome rather than advantage. And of course a true genius in any field can do what ever works for them. I never managed to arrange to be a genius so I have always had to limp along with what I could learn.
- commieneko 13y ago
  I'm sure you probably can. People are very flexible and determination is more important than nearly anything. Why anyone would _choose_ to do it this way is a mystery to me. But a lot of people stumble into graphic design from other disciplines. You can certainly learn graphic design by studying patterns and previous work. But that's a very limiting way to learn it. When the styles change, or worse, when the technology changes, you will have a harder time adapting than someone who has a more foundational knowledge. One of the side effects of being an old fart, whose been in the business for too many years, is that I've seen the world change many, many times. And I've seen people get seriously left behind by change. But if you love the designing, and not the tools and the previous patterns, then the change is much smoother. And the change is generally led by those artists. I've also seen potential artists and designers become frustrated with observational drawing; and it _can_ be a frustrating process. You are basically reprogramming your visual system. Sometimes these artists think that going into graphic design is a path of lessor resistance. It's not. It's a demanding discipline to do well. It's not something you can pick up by following a few simple design patterns.

chestnut-tree 13y ago

Great thoughts. Do you think someone can learn to "see" well without learning how to draw? I ask because I know there are Graphic Designers who do not know how to draw and many Graphic Design courses don't require drawing skills as a prerequisite (although I know courses encourage students to keep a sketchbook and to sketch ideas as much a spossible). I agree with you that drawing is a key foundation skill for anyone who wants to learn design. But then there's also layout, colour, typography: can someone excel at these latter skills without good drawing skills?

sgdesign 13y ago
Drawing is certainly NOT a key foundation skill for learning design (at least if we're talking about designing websites and user interfaces). Certainly not on the same level as typography, for example. I think a good equivalent would be math and programming. Being good at math can certainly help with some things, but if someone asked me how to become a Rails developer I would not suggest they start by learning math.
- commieneko 13y ago
  Learning to observe critically certainly _is_ a foundational skill in any kind of visual design. Observational drawing is probably the best way to develop that skill. Do it or don't, the choice is yours. Anyone wanting to learn programming should know algebra, set theory and a bit (!) of logic. You can pick these up as you go along, it's not magic, and often that's the way the world works. But I wouldn't recommend that as a preferred choice. When you just pick it up, there are holes in your toolset, holes that you might not even know about. And worse, holes that make you defensive about your skills. And not strictly apropos to this branch of the conversation, I would recommend anyone interested in any kind of visual design should study geometry. Good old high school plane geometry is a good place to start. I can also recommend descriptive geometry, particularly the courses aimed at engineers and architects. Anyone that gets into designing type, and with type, who lacks this knowledge has a very real handicap. The advantages these disciplines offer the designer or visual artists are indescribable to those who lack them. Either take my word for that or ignore it. Certainly people have done well without them. But that's a limitation that has been overcome rather than advantage. And of course a true genius in any field can do what ever works for them. I never managed to arrange to be a genius so I have always had to limp along with what I could learn.
commieneko 13y ago
I'm sure you probably can. People are very flexible and determination is more important than nearly anything. Why anyone would _choose_ to do it this way is a mystery to me. But a lot of people stumble into graphic design from other disciplines. You can certainly learn graphic design by studying patterns and previous work. But that's a very limiting way to learn it. When the styles change, or worse, when the technology changes, you will have a harder time adapting than someone who has a more foundational knowledge. One of the side effects of being an old fart, whose been in the business for too many years, is that I've seen the world change many, many times. And I've seen people get seriously left behind by change. But if you love the designing, and not the tools and the previous patterns, then the change is much smoother. And the change is generally led by those artists. I've also seen potential artists and designers become frustrated with observational drawing; and it _can_ be a frustrating process. You are basically reprogramming your visual system. Sometimes these artists think that going into graphic design is a path of lessor resistance. It's not. It's a demanding discipline to do well. It's not something you can pick up by following a few simple design patterns.