Sketchbooks

I was just having a discussion with our design intern about how "fine arts skill" and "design skills" are becoming two separate things - resulting in designers who can't draw or understand how things are put together or how things are lit or shaded, except in the context of a computer design application. There is a box of old sketch books, full of drawings of hands, furniture, naked people, thumbnails, etc., that I was pretty religious about filling up when I was at school. Now they're just adding weight to the van every time I move, and my pencil-n-paper artistic skills are woefully rusty.

As the work of designers is expected to reflect - more and more - a "jack-of-all-trades" skillset, we're loosing touch with roots in art, however impractical they might be in the tie-straightening, teeth-whitening, blue-tooth-wearing marketplace. Those who do the best work very clearly specialize in some way - and I don't think that its every appreciated, except by other designers and nerds, rarely by clients.

Perhaps its appropriate to come across this work of Rod Luff, which simultaneously amazes me, inspires me, makes me itch to draw, and makes me bashfully embarrassed to admit that I ever kept a sketchbook of my own, when clearly this is how its done:

more at rodluff.com