On Drawing by Hand

I begin every project with a pencil and a piece of tracing paper. Not a tablet, not a screen. The reason is partly habitual — I was trained that way at CMU — but the more I practice, the more I think the habit contains an argument.

Drawing by hand is slow. And slowness, in design, is not inefficiency. It is a discipline. When I draw by hand, I cannot outpace my understanding. The pencil moves at the speed of thought, which means the line is always a thinking line, not a rendering of a conclusion already reached.

There is also the question of imprecision. A hand drawing is never exact. The line wavers; corners don’t quite meet; proportions shift. These imprecisions are not errors — they are invitations. A drawing that is too precise too early forecloses possibilities that a looser drawing keeps open.

I watched classmates reach for the computer before they had thought. The screen gives the impression of certainty that the pencil never pretends to. A beautiful rendering of a bad idea is still a bad idea, but it takes longer to see that it is bad.

None of this is an argument against digital tools. I use them constantly, and they do things that no hand drawing ever could. But I try to make sure that when I arrive at the screen, I already know what I am trying to say.