Industrial design sketching

The assignment
At Design School Kolding the students from the bachelor degree programme get a sketching and drawing assignment each semester. The assignment shifts character every year, and it’s a way to help us sketch and get better at it - while having fun.

For me the fun part often seems to go out the window, and I feel like it’s more of a duty for my exam. But this year, a new initiative was made!

Drawing objects and shoes
Instead of sitting at home drawing on your own with an assignment we did a sketching course with our teacher. He made us make a new drawing each 30 seconds. Boy you can get stressed while sketching objects that fast! I had so much fun, and you know what? My drawings were actually more alive than they usually are.

This course has really made me see the fun in sketching, which was the purpose from the start! Another thing which is new at the school is that the sketching and drawing classes now are suposed to relate to your specific line of design. And as an industrial designer it is really nice to be able to draw products and industrial details which will help you in the future.

This past Tuesday we began by sketching different objects as a warm up. We ended up drawing shoes, since we have a course with ECCO later this Fall and must be brilliant illustraters for shoes. It really was great to have someone teach you and learn techniques. This way you're forced to try new ways of sketching.

My own thoughts
Ok, so I’m not the best sketcher, but that doesn’t matter, because I had fun, and I started to draw more this week. My sketches might not be the greatest, but sometimes I think that’s the problem with us designers. We get too perfectionistic about our creations. Instead of trying out different angles and new ways of designing, we get stuck. In the end the important thing is that you are able to show other people what you are thinking visually and express your design properly.