Jackson Fox, inspired by Leah Buhey’s AP newsletter article, posted about the sketching tools he uses and I’m following suit. I encourage all sketchers to do this. Let’s create a daisy chain of permalinks for our pen and paper recommendations.
Ink, etc.
I carry a pencil bag with a set of 005, 01, 02, 05 black Micron pens, a rainbow set of 01 Microns, a few Sharpies, a mechanical pencil, a #1 ex-soft leaded pencil, and a set of colored pencils.
Tip: #1 pencils are far better for sketching than #2. They write with little resistence and erase easily. They’re used in many libraries because they do not damage paper.
Paper
I am a relentless advocate of the 11×17 graph paper sold by Edward Tufte (purchase here, scroll down). There is a certain gestalt to high quality, oversized paper with subtle grid lines that I cannot accurately convey in words, but I have learned to take advantage of it and have, as a result, created some of my most inspired work on these reasonably priced pads.
Portability, however, is not the strong suit of 11×17 paper, so I carry with me an ink-friendly 5.5″x8.5″ sketch book by Strathmore.
Tip: The first thing I do in a sketchbook is go through each page and number it w/ a soft pencil. This helps me reference and later find a specific sketch and also gives me a nice sense of progression as I sketch my way through a book.
4 Comments
Thanks for posting! I actually didn’t think about sketchbooks, but my current favorite is the Behance Dot Grid notebook. I’ve also got an EcoJot sketchbook I got free at a conference. While the EcoJot is nice, they’re hard to find, and the Strathmore is just as good.
I totally forgot about my love for the Dot Grid. Agreed.
I’m a little late to the party, but want to confess I spied Jackson sketching in the Behance Dot Grid at IDEA 2008 and immediately purchased two.
Also, one for the sketching wishlist: a UI stencil from Design Commission. Not certain how much I would actually use it, but there is something undeniably satisfying about pushing a no.2 pencil against the edges of a stencil. #pixelvacation
I’m curious what other sort of drafting tools you use. Are you an exclusive drafter on graph paper? Do you ever employ larger spaces like a white board? And what about computer mock up tools?
Is this something you just have an affinity for or something that you provides you distinct advantages over other options?