Picking Up the Pencil and Paper

Picking Up the Pencil and Paper

Although there are obvious advantages to using computers which make them indispensable design tools, there are also ample benefits to reverting to older, more-tactile design tools which may be less obvious. At PSDA, we try to use these methods regularly to appreciate our work in new light (literally) or inspire different kinds of creativity.

Simply printing a design project in order to see it represented on paper often provides a dramatically-different perspective that can accentuate problems or suggest solutions that never would have emerged while merely staring at a computer screen. Since a monitor uses additive light to display its imagery, it can cause a sort of visual fatigue over time, while an image on a piece of paper is visible due to subtractive light, since it absorbs the light in the room.

The permanence of working directly on paper—without the ability to simply press “undo” after making a mistake—can lead us to results we never would have reached otherwise since it forces us to improvise. It also preserves work that would have been undone but which may prove useful later or in a different context.