Top Ten Things You Absolutely Should Do With Your Sketchbook

Right, in collaboration with Steve and my own head I’ve come up with 10 definitive things you should be doing with your sketchbook. At the moment, this reads like a list of things I don’t do, but that will soon change. Follow these simple 10 steps and you’ll realise how dispensable that book really is.

Oh no, I sound like a Delia Smith on design.

1. Order it. There's nothing worse than a messy office - and your sketchbook is no different. I simply number the pages and put a colour on the corner so I know what the content is.

2. Use colour. I don't know about you, but I find black boring. When it comes to important things like writing to-do lists and the like, I use lots
of colour and colour keys.

3. Write your thoughts and feelings. When something bad happens, stick it in your sketchbook with a date. Ditto when something good happens. It makes your blog easier to write, and it bumps your sketchbook grade up.

4. Stick in inspirational work! When you see something you like, cut it out and stick it into your sketchbook. Don't forget to write a bit about why you like it too. As long as it's not a billboard or something similarly large there should be enough room in there. I suggest organising this in some way separate of your sketchbook - use a colour on the corner of pages, stick in sticky notes or something like that.

5. USE IT! It's not just there to write notes in and final designs, its there for YOU too. Use it to keep a record of to-do lists, use it to write out what needs to be done for the week, any thumbnail designs you use, and ideas for content you have, somewhere to stick research, ideas for designs - the whole works. When you realise that it really is 100% indispensable, you're half way there.

6. When doing designs, don’t forget to use as much colour as you can. Colour is about as important as the design you’re creating – just changing one colour on a design can give the whole thing a different tone or mood.

7. When you’re doing designs, you don’t have to stick to any conventions. Go wild. Any design that pops into your head can be put onto paper, so show it. Be as diverse as your mind will let you. It’s the exploration of the design ideas that’s important at the design stage. Don’t forget that colour.

8. Make your communication clear. On a design situation level, you need to be able to communicate your ideas to other people. If a colleague can’t read your handwriting when you’re showing him a new design you’ve came up with, he isn’t going to understand it. On a cynical level, it needs to be marked. If the writing can’t be understood, it can’t be marked. I suggest getting someone else to have a peek at your writing. If they can’t read it, change it.

9. Don’t forget – the way the text is shown in a design is important too. Don’t neglect typography, it’s just as important as colour and completes a design. Explore these too. Stick in bits you like, bits you don’t like, and tell people why you don’t or do like them. In writing, of course.

10. Be DIFFERENT. Nobody ever became good at anything because they copied people before them. Keep an eye out everywhere for design you like. It’s everywhere you look – on the sides of buses, crisp packets, those floor markings, those signs, on the side of that coffee you just bought, and a million other places. If you can’t take it, photograph it and stick it in your sketchbook. Explore different ideas that nobody else (included you) dare even try.

Design is everywhere.

Ideas are infinite.