Graphic Design Tip: Keep A Drawing Notebook

Keeping a drawing notebook has many advantages. It provides a lot of inspiration when you need it, and it is very easy to keep one. I keep a drawing notebook myself, and I just draw in it whenever I have some spare time, or whenever I get inspired. I might see a cool logo somewhere or a design idea might come to me out of nowhere and I’ll just pull my drawing notebook out and draw in it. I also find myself drawing in my notebook when I don’t feel like paying attention in class. I just drift off and the next thing I know I filled up a whole page of my notebook, and it is time to go to my next class. Even if you can’t draw (like myself) still keep a notebook to draw in because you can still doodle some small stuff. Logo designs, font designs, etc. don’t take any drawing talent, and you can fill your notebook up with stuff like that. Your notebook doesn’t have to be anything special or expensive, mine is just a simple notebook that you can find at any dollar store. The great thing about keeping a notebook is that whenever you have “designers block” and you can’t think of any new designs, you can just pull out your notebook, flip through the pages, and you might find some inspiration. Now I can’t promise amazing results like Jack (the picture above) from “The Titanic” (if you have seen the movie you know what I’m talking about), but I can promise that it will come in handy sometime, whether it’s to show off (like Jack did) or to use as inspiration.

Sample

With that being said let’s take a look at a page from my own notebook. I lowered the contrast and brightness a little so you can see the drawings more clearly.

Break It Down

So lets take a look at these drawings individually. A lot of these drawings actually made it to the digital world. Now, you might get some bad pages in your notebook and non of those drawings will make it to the digital world, but on the other side, you might get a couple really good pages where most of those drawings made it to the digital world. This page was in the middle. It had a couple good drawings that made it to the digital world, and a couple drawings that didn’t.

Potential Items

Most, if not all, of these drawings have a potential to become a design. Whether they were meant to be a logo, a Photoshop brush, a t-shirt, or any other form of design, they all have great potential. Now obviously not all of these drawings made it to the digital world, but I’ll show you a couple that were very close to becoming something big. And who knows, in a while I might actually make the drawings below into a design.

In Conclusion

Design ideas can pop up anytime, and anywhere. Why not be prepared? Get yourself a notebook to draw in, and you will be surprised by how much it can help out. Leave a comment below talking about your own drawing notebook, and what you have accomplished using it. Or if you just decided to start your own drawing notebook, let us know.

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