Extended Drawing Within Embryonic Design Processes

While we evaluate design through the designed objects the designing process generates, designerly thought processes are mainly judged through the production and interpretation of designerly graphical artefacts: drawings, images, models and diagrams.2 Where design sketches used to dominate embryonic3 thinking within design it now seems that the outcome of explorative processes is driven through an intuitive layering of drawings, (graphical) manipulations, processing techniques combined with the designer’s creative interpretation of the produced artefacts which, together, generate designerly decisions. The afore mentioned evolutionary process has constituted a shift in paradigms when considering graphical exploration and thinking processes within emerging design. The proliferation of digital drawing and editing tools, the emergence of online search engines and the easy availability of digital photography has changed the way designers and certainly novices perceive the preliminary designing process and from there on altered the status and value attributed to drawing as a commodity of design.4 Within the following we will explore some intentional and conceptual (research) strategies to re-approach drawing as a hybrid and integral activity within design and it’s education and propose a, to some extent, interdisciplinary approach to reflect the alleged changes in attitude towards the designerly assessment of embryonic explorations. Through combining research within design and teaching practices, applied thought processes through extending traditional drawing and the formulation of a “conceptual framework” our research project intends to re-opproach and re-position the concept of drawing within design and it’s teaching.status: publishe