3 Reasons Why Every Designer Should Sketch

People regularly ask me if I am a good illustrator, and they’re always surprised to hear me say that I’m not good at drawing. Designing, for some reason, typically gets equated to being a good illustrator. And yes, drawing is a part of design — but not in the way that most people think it is.

Whenever designers have a great idea, they are automatically inclined to hop into Adobe Illustrator and make their dreams a reality. I am guilty of doing this myself. However, doing this causes designers to skip a very important part of the creative process: sketching.

Sketching Provides Clarity

According to an article by designer Marjorie Broudieu for UX Collective, “Visuals are the best to make sense of complex, ambiguous situations to build stories and spark ideas.” That’s exactly why it’s helpful in the design process — sketching provides clarity. It provides an opportunity for realization that opening Illustrator and designing at the top of your head won’t. 

I wish I knew this sooner. Designers are tasked with solving problems, and this means that we have a responsibility to consider all the options. When we skip the step of sketching, we reduce our level of clarity in solving the problem at hand.

I recently started a new job as a graphic designer at an agency, and made an investment into a new Moleskine sketchbook. It has been a tremendous help, because the ability to sketch out ideas before designing allows me to consider my options.

Sketching Reduces Perfectionism

My Moleskine sketchbook was a little costly, which apparently breaks an unwritten rule when buying a sketchbook. When I was doing notebook shopping, I read a lot of things on the internet saying not to buy an expensive sketchbook because you’ll feel pressured to make sure your sketches are good.

Thankfully, I haven’t felt this way, because I understand that sketching – especially when it comes to design – doesn’t result in works of art. In a blog post for Approval Studio titled “5 Keys Reasons Why Sketching is Important in Graphic Design,” Matthew Roberts writes on how sketching removes “limits” on ourselves. “There are literally no boundaries, and the only limit is how far your imagination can go following the concept you’ve created.” In other words, sketching is supposed to break this idea of perfectionism. You aren’t expected to hit the nail on the head, but you are required to consider all your options, whether they seem plausible or not.

When you sketch, you have the opportunity to think about ideas that ultimately inform your final design decision. This has been very invaluable to me when doing UX related work – sketching allows me to visualize all the possible (and impossible) ideas, and allows me to make a more informed choice. The sketches themselves may not be perfect, but the end result of the process will be spectacular.

Sketching Saves Time and Effort

Sketching also saves time, enabling designers to quickly see what could work before spending time designing something that ultimately doesn’t.

According to the Interactive Design Foundation, sketching in itself is an ideation method. In “Learn How To Use Sketching as an Ideation Method,” Jose Rojas writes that sketching “first in the exploratory stages of a design to propose, refine, communicate and critique your ideas in a ‘tangible’ format.” This alleviates putting effort into a prototype that takes away time and effort, and “Because prototypes demand a larger investment, we can’t and shouldn’t produce as many prototypes as sketches.” 

When you sketch, you have the clarity to ideate and create a vast array of design solutions. Some may work and many won’t — and that’s fine! The important part is that you save yourself the stress from designing a prototype that’s ultimately a flop. Good designers consider all of their potential solutions when sketching, and after consideration, go with the best options.

Sketching: It’s What You Should Do

The reality is that most designers know they should sketch, but they don’t do it. Regardless of your level of experience in the industry, sketching is the indispensable secret to a great design process. Without it, designers overlook ideas that could have potentially worked and have been more effective then their initial “straight to Illustrator” option.

It is the duty of designers to do what we should do to achieve the best possible results for our clientele, and like it or not, that’s sketching.