A sketch is a sketch is a sketch ...

In the digital age, where keyboards and touchscreens dominate everyday design activity, freehand drawing might seem like "old school". Arguably, however, digital drawing is just a different medium with different capabilities and to draw digitally is performing the same mechanical action as to draw traditionally. That is, the foundations are the same and the aim is the same. Moreover, it could be said that the digital medium affords more control over the design process allowing designers to focus on creativity rather than medium-specific techniques. Also, digital image generators have the advantage of making things look sharp, shiny and pretty, and delivered at speed. However, in the studio, the pencil remains a hands-on tool for generating and communicating ideas. In fact, research shows that hand-drawing is a complex cognitive process that allows for more deliberate thinking as well as greater spontaneity. Also, to draw, and write by hand can offer more time or opportunity to explore and reflect on ideas and express them visually, be it in the format of a sketchbook, creative journal or mind mapping. Furthermore, the physical act of freehand drawing is multi-sensory, feeds imagination and recalls memory while addressing both the rational and emotional sides of the design task. Yet AI-powered image generators are producing wild and unconventional ideas at ease and at speed which are challenging traditional ideation tools, including the freehand sketch. Practise freehand sketching or lose it!

Originality in the age of AI

GenAI has rapidly become a starting point in the ideation process as AI systems are capable of generating novel ideas that surprise even the most creative designer. Yet the generative models used to produce texts, images, videos, or other forms of data, may result in designers producing ideas that seem to lack originality. That is, the assumption that original ideas are manifestations of human thinking. If so, GenAI might challenge or compromise a designer's creative identity leading to digital dissociation with reality. That is, digital technology makes the designer feeling somewhat detached from the traditional material world. What is then originality in the age of AI when knowledge production, which includes creative action becomes increasingly distributed, collaborative and mediated by technology? When collaboration between human and machine heralds a democratic design process where "everything is design"and "everybody is a designer".* Integrating design and AI, then, suggests a rethink of the conception of originality and its relationship to design. Indeed, what makes, or who is a designer in the age of AI? * Already back in the 1960s, designers, such as the Archigram collective were interested in how the consumer could be part of the design process, not just a recipient.

GenAI's impact on ideation

While the workshop raises the awareness of the range of ideation tools available to designers viz. words, sketching, modelling and computing, design, as a practice, is inherently intertwined with technological progress. And so designers necessarily are adjusting to and adopting new ways of generating and communicating ideas - the latest being GenAI technologies such as ChatGPT and Midjourney. As a result designers, both in education and professional practice, find that GenAI is influencing the ways they go about ideation. But more than this; the rapid advancement of GenAI programmed to create new "original" content by learning from vast datasets, is having significant transformational affect on both design thinking and practice. Moreover, adoption of GenAI, as a data rich tool, is likely to help quicken the pace of, and to lower the cost of improvement and innovation in the design industry. It is also likely to challenge traditional studio-based teaching and learning transforming design education.

AI tool as agent for change

Designers are increasingly using AI in their role as agents for change to society*. That is, designers, together with AI have the capacity to influence or act in the world of design (largely defined). The human-AI collaboration, or interactive agency is now an everyday activity, from education to professional practice to an extent that text-to-image generators, for example, have become purposeful, goal-directed agents in themselves or, to borrow terminology for sociology, agents of intentional action. The rise of AI opens up the debate to what extent AI has autonomous agency. What seems certain though is that AI agency is impacting the role of the designer progressively shifting their roles from that of primarily producing a material good or service to that of ideator and facilitator addressing human needs and wants with emphasis of what is unique to human agency, notably equitable, sustainable and ethical concerns.* 41% of British architects are using AI in some way, in RIBA AI Report 2024.

Lines of thought

'Taking a line for a walk' - a quote from the artist Paul Klee suggesting moving freely without hindrance and by which the line is described as 'a dot that went for a walk' - a point shifting its position forward. As such, the line is an evocative metaphor for generating and capturing an idea, such as  'on the back of an envelope'. Or, the metaphor of lassoing, that is, capturing an idea like catching an animal by throwing the ring of a lasso over its head. Or, to quote Henri Matisse: 'drawing is putting a line around an idea'. Such sayings underline the dynamic nature of the line. Or, to quote Klee again, 'a drawing is simply a line going for a walk', where the line becomes a symbol for the imaginary lines of projecting an idea. But what about expressions such as 'draw the line' meaning 'to never do something because you think it's wrong'. This connotation seems quite contradictory to Klee's notion of taking a line for a walk. Or, 'walk the line', a prison term which means 'follow the rules, stay out of trouble'. Again the opposite meaning of a line that represents moving freely. A line, then, can be interpreted figuratively or literally. Lines of thought.

The excitement of discovery

When working on a challenging problem, the solution might seemingly arrive out-of-the-blue, in what is often referred to as the “Aha!” moment. This moment of sudden insight is unpredictable, and a subjective experience but often accompanied by strong positive emotions. As such it might amount to the excitement of discovery. Or, in the words of Bertrand Russell, the philosopher and mathematician (1872-1970): 'Nothing in the world is more exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and many more people are capable of experiencing such moments than is sometimes thought.'.

Learning from reverse engineering

In product design, reverse engineering is to unearth certain components that can be repurposed for different application. Theft occurs in certain cases where the entire set of components that make up a product is appropriated and for which reason patents and copyright were created . More often, however, reverse engineering, both literally and figuratively is a legitimate way to establish what is going on in a specific field, practice or occupation. In these cases, reversed engineering is a form of dependent creation as evidenced in how original and valuable creations were built on the knowledge, experience, and copying of elements of what came before. Indeed, it is how we learn as humans, from an early age - we copy, then extend. That is, there is always some level of copying in accumulating knowledge directed to discovery and learning. Learning from reverse engineering, "reverse ideation" would mean keeping track of one's own ideation process, say, through sketches - what the architect Michael Graves would call "the referential sketch", or through a record of "swiped ideas" or inspirations from the the web. The recorded ideation process could then be reflected upon, and analysed for links and influences and in so doing becoming a learning experience.