Sketching in Seattle's coffee shops

I think what you are doing is great. Feet are not that pretty, but shoes are. I think it is important to understand the form beneath the form. From here you can start adding material thicknesses and pattern lines.

Just as a basis knowing what is bone, what is tendon, fascia, muscle, skin, where the subcutaneous land marks are…all of those elements help relate a form to the anatomy beneath it. Don’t need to know every toe bone :smiley:

Ok, so they feel pretty clumsy, but here’s a first shot at sketching trainers! I also wonder whether I should have gone all or nothing with the colour, maybe concentrate on the sketch first? It just felt super flat in black and white.

All feedback very welcome!!


Sophie,

A couple of points on footwear. Proportion and silhouette count for a lot. I took your red and white sketch and re-proprtioned it as an example. Also watch your negative space. The shoes that are iconic control this really well. Every line is carefully shaped.

Michael

Sophie,

I find your style very graffiti inspired and fun. The fit would be great for a toy/juvenile products company. However, it can also be a bit distracting within certain concepts. I think your sketches would be better without the call out bubbles completely and your lettering 50% smaller.

Thanks so much for the feedback.

Michael, that overlay is great, thank you, really useful, and makes it really obvious where I’ve gone wrong. It’s great to have something to work off. I’ll sketch out some more and post them up here when I do. I find it funny with trainers; being able to see that they’re not right, but not knowing quite how to fix them, so the overlay is brilliant!

@Jboogie941, thanks for the tip. I’m finding it quite difficult to move away from my standard style, so your tips are really helpful. I’ll go back to a ballpoint for a bit to strip it back, and remove the call outs and lettering. Thanks!

Couldn’t help but do a very quick sketch in Procreate, but will hit the Bic / Sharpie again ASAP!!

So I feel like I lost the flow of this thread a bit, and turned more to doodling and posting in that thread instead, I think maybe because I got a bit stumped by different styles, mediums or topics to try… so… any suggestions?! What should I sketch, is there a type of material, style, topic or anything that you really enjoy that I should experiment with? Is there an exercise that you think really benefitted you or taught you something? Is there a style that you’ve replicated that changed your whole outlook on sketching?

Hey Sophie, I’ve been enjoying your thread and sketches, keep it up!

Fairly early on, pjbowers hit me with a great suggestion of sketching with a blue indigo prismacolor premier pencil. Before then, I had only been sketching with a black felt tip pen and the different values you could get with the pencil really taught me a lot about shading, shadows and highlights.

I’d also recommend this as a fun exercise to try because you’re limited to one color and one tool to create all the values and line weight. I think there’s something to using blue pencil because I think the lack of huge contrast that you’d get from a black pencil forced me to look more critically at the form, perspective, and detail of the object I was sketching instead of tricking my eyes to be satisfied by using other colors and contrast to make the sketch pop. You’ll always have those tools for a sketch you’d show to others so this is more for practice!

Thanks Gerry, sounds like a great plan, I’ve only really used blue pencil when figuring out designs myself, I’ve never really used one for anything more final, or anything I’d share with anyone, so sounds like a really great exercise. I’ll dig out my blue pencil and get sketching! Watch this space! :slight_smile:

I realised I’ve never really drawn furniture before either… so had a shot at sketching some Eero Aarnio:

I love your sketch style - but as mentioned it fits far more with the toy industry or baby products. This sketch is a good variant and fits a style more related to the product. Keeping in mind that once you add the consistent and thick “sharpie” to the sketch along with your “abundant highlights” this will immediately fall back into the toy sketch style.

Now keeping in mind this is not bad but there are some potential down falls. a story to build off of.

I had a intern when i was managing a housewares focused design office - the intern had a very similar sketch style but did not see the value in following my advice to try and switch it up based on what he was trying to achieve. his first project was for a design that would communicate sophistication and elegance. Now if you where able to see past the sketch style and evison what the designs would look like he nailed it. Unfortunately when presenting to Marketing / Sales / Engineering / President all they could see and say is that the designs looked “toyish” and did communicate what we where trying to do with the brand.

During the meeting i told everyone that we would take do another round of form studies - after everyone left the intern looked at me and said “you want me to re-sketch these in a different style”" second presentation same concepts different sketch style and they where loved.

Now one does not need to change their style but one should be aware how that style reads to other and if it is visually communicating the desired intent.

@ceatkinson, exactly! Having spent years in the toy industry I figured it was time to diversify my style a little. It’s served me really well over the years, but, as you described, a range of sketch styles can be so useful for different products. I’ve tried a couple that are not too far away from my usual style (which I’ve posted in the doodles page, like below), but will keep pushing away from the large annotations and thick borders.

Any styles / products that you find particularly useful? What product did the intern go away and sketch again?


Sophie, I have a challenge for you. Try doing a sketch with no line work and no call outs.

Challenge accepted! (No line work actually sounds quite terrifying!!)

So… first sketch without line work (probably ever!)

@Yo, what do you think? I thought I should start out with something relatively simple, but still really struggled with the orange section.

All feedback very very welcome!!


Also… when I upload images from an iPad it seems to drop the resolution… any tips?!

okay now i am really impressed! way to take the challenge and nail it.

So you have proven you have the ability to execute different sketch tech. Now practice and fully understand the science between the style you want to use and the audience you are presenting to as well as the emotions you want to invoke from the design you are creating. this will help you to determine what style to use and when. they ability is extremely helpful for a consultant who wants to have clients with extremely different product and market segments.

Also ----- add orange handle touch points and you have nailed it :wink:

Wow, thanks! :slight_smile: will keep playing and posting.

I should note that I didn’t design these, was using them to practice the sketch style :slight_smile:

Sophie, this turned out very well. You really ran with it. It completely removed the toy like style. OK, next suggestion, lets see a bauhaus inspired smart phone design in that style. :slight_smile:

and then a blue duck, because i have never seen a blue duck before.

Looking at your sketching page on your website, i would also challenge you to do some quick ideations sketches

10 on 1 page - thumbnails - no more the 1 minute per thumbnail.
subject matter - what ever you want, but should be the same topic.