Michael Graves, Digital Visionary: What Digital Design Practice Can Learn From Drawing

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Comment by Ángel Linares on September 10, 2012 at 5:41pm

The video (I can't edit the post) ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk

Comment by Ángel Linares on September 10, 2012 at 5:40pm

Really nice post. I'm one of that guys that thinks that tools are always useful, no matter the nature or the purpose which they were created for. In the mix is the perfect balance for me.

I've always thought that architect's love for drawing comes from the necessity of translate abstract ideas into built 3D reality, and the technology behind that 2D representation has not evolve so much until some decades ago. Our teachers come from that times: times when computers try to find their place in the reality representation world. If you try to imagine that people that have always drawn with pencils adapting to this new tools...some become fan of new methods, other just keep the old fashion workflow (like Andrew said in the article, Schumacher VS Graves)

We've bear (at least Andrew and me :P) in 80's with first video games, computers (I still remember my old x286 with 1Mb RAM and 20Mb of HD and that MS-DOS interface)...New technology was natural for us...But there is a big difference between traditional drawing and new computer aided tools: the learning curve. To draw you only need to take a pen and put over a paper (that interface is understood by children easily) , but traditional computational tools (new touch interfaces are out of this group) are based in a complex logic and environment that is not easy to understand for some people.

In the workshops I'm teaching in, I try to put all that tools (new and old one) in my students hands and motivate them to mix and use them together (Andrew knows a little bit about that :P). Why not to make a lines sketch with GH and then print it and render with some markers?; the last step could be scan the result and enhance it in Photoshop adding textures, vegetation, some background...There are no rules, only a bunch of tools to explore and use to develop your ideas, evolve and finally represent them. 

I bet to the touch interfaces (with some augmented reality sauce) like that one that will be able to blend both worlds, analog and digital, offering that fluidity and natural interaction that Grave miss in digital tools. And our generation attached to this "not natural" interfaces will need to change its mind and adapt to that new and amazing interface that our children will love. 

Only to complete:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aXV-yaFmQNk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Comment by Vicente Soler on September 10, 2012 at 12:15pm

You can quickly tell the author of the NYT article has a conservative bias with things like:

"...to declare the death of drawing. What has happened ... The computer, of course."

and

"... I notice that something is lost when they draw only on the computer."

 

I guess he means 2d freehand sketching vs popular 3d modeling software, but he doesn't say that. It's always "drawing" vs "the computer".

 

Wouldn't someone be "drawing" if he uses a digital sylus to freehand sketch if Photoshop. You are moving a cylinder shaped pointing device on a flat surface, if you are using good hardware it has many more advantages that pencil and paper.

 

I like one of his last arguments:

"To pass the time, I pulled out my pad to start drawing a plan, probably of some building I was designing. An equally bored colleague was watching me, amused. I came to a point of indecision and passed the pad to him. He added a few lines and passed it back.       

The game was on. Back and forth we went, drawing five lines each, then four and so on."

 

Now, thanks to computers, someone can pull out his electronic pad, start drawing, and share it as a digital drawing board with another friend hundreds of kilometers away, and both be able to sketch on it at the same time.

Comment by RWNB on September 10, 2012 at 11:48am

Interesting content!

thanks for sharing.

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