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.
