Conclusion
Ideally, undergraduate designers who intend to
follow a career in the design industry must be
expert at sketching by the time of graduation.
The degree course is a relatively short time to
perfect these abilities.
Ten or fifteen years ago there was little
alternative to sketching to present design ideas,
and sketching was used at almost all stages of
a design project. However, now CAD is
increasingly used to present final design
concepts, replacing some of the time spent
sketching in both schools and universities. The
survey shows that students are arriving with
very basic sketching skills and little confidence.
Although some students may initially consider
themselves to be excellent at sketching they
soon realise that the quality and speed required
at this level is a considerable step above school
based work. Confidence appears to be an
essential element if students are to use
sketches to design and communicate freely.
However, confidence can only develop from
being taught principles correctly and then
practicing over a broad range of examples,
carefully chosen to iteratively improve skills.
This takes time and careful planning.
CAD drawing techniques are increasing available
to present and develop design ideas. There is
some concern about CAD replacing sketching,
however the author considers that both CAD
and sketching can complement each other,
offering synergistic benefits to the designer. For
example the three methods of sketching can
also be found as methods to create geometry in
various CAD packages; Crating has similarities
with traditional solid modelling systems,
Primitives are the basic building blocks of 3D
Studio Max and the Sections method is very
much like a surface modelling technique such as
Alias Wavefront. CAD can be used to generate;
grids, primitives, sections and crates in
perspective as a starting point for sketches.
Efforts are being made to more overtly link the
teaching of CAD with the teaching of sketching
to give a more cohesive structure to the use of
modelling tools in design.
The findings indicate that the author’s reflection
on his design consultancy experience and
skills, in this case specifically sketching, can
transform and improve the teaching and
learning of these skills. This approach is to be
extended to other consultancy based design
skills and examined to explore how this might
be used to enhance teaching and learning at an
undergraduate level. For degree courses that
offer some level of vocational skills training it is
essential to keep abreast of current Industry
practice. The design business moves quickly
and teaching methods and subject matter need
to be continually reassessed and updated to
keep up or even lead. Hence to keep teaching
quality at a high level a degree of research
activity needs to be directed at investigating
current professional.
The final element to ensure success in design
sketching rests with the student themselves.
Educators only have a finite amount of time
available. Methodology can be explained
thoroughly, examples and demonstrations can
be presented clearly and tutorial material can
be made available on intranets. However if
students do not engage with the subject and
spend time practising the