Early freehand design sketching, the focus of this paper, is one form of drawing. The sketches themselves
with their typically creative and searching nature are suited to the initial conceptual stages of the design
process. Th e process of sketching is a means by which a person is able to give expression to ideas,
concepts, intentions, analogies, qualities or inspirations as well as being a tool with which each of these
thoughts can be tested, questioned, developed and refined. The edge between the sketch itself and the
thinking it prompts is blurred and for the purposes of this paper the term sketching will be used to
describe both the actual drawing and the associated thinking.
Alvar Aalto off ers us insight into his use of early sketching when he describes his process for designing
the city library at Viipuri,