Paper Rules!

An encouraging finding: among 4,000 designers surveyed world-wide, most of them - 64% - still use plain ol' paper and pen or pencil to brainstorm.

Doesn't surprise me at all.

One designer remarked on the particular usefulness of this old-tech method in a meeting.  

Exactly!  Nothing is as fast, as flexible, as readily available as scribbling on paper.  You can respond immediately to the flow of thought in a meeting - or while solo brainstorming.  There is less temptation to perfect the drawing (and computers do prefer perfect); instead the impulse on an impromptu scrap of paper is to rough out something messy but expressive. 

The this-ain't-nothin' worthlessness of a quick sketch on a cocktail napkin is part of its value - it stops the rough idea from becoming too precious to change or discard.

Sketch by Clare Floyd DeVries - do not use commercially please.

The ability to create fast hand sketches is so useful that I once

got flown to Tennessee just to show design grad students how.

Now, the old style of formal hand-drawn drafting or presentation drawings... those easily(ish) translate into computer hardware and software use.

More on the survey HERE at Wired.com.

SNIPPETS - From Alice Through the Proscenium

When I started teaching myself set design I jotted notes (mostly, "Well, don't do that again!"). Those notes eventually mutated into a how-to theater design book, Alice Through the Proscenium, which I plan to e-publish soon.

Meanwhile, here's a snippet from the "Design Process" chapter, one suggested design tool. The quote is from Alice in Wonderland (THE definitive guide to theater):

Brainstorming – Scribble every idea that pops into your head. Fast. No editing. No self-consciousness. Go wild. Only later do you go back to winnow out the very silly ideas… which may be the very best ones.

“You may call it ‘nonsense’ if you like,” she said, “but I’ve heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!”