Pro tip: I used to sketch my designs on plain paper, but a friend in my night class said to try a light blue grid pad.

I bought one from the art store for about $12 and it totally changed how I plan my patterns, making everything way more even. Now I can't imagine going back to my old messy sketches. Has anyone else found a simple tool that made a big difference in their early design work?

3 comments

3 Comments

holly71311d ago

Totally get what you mean about the blue grid. I switched to using a basic mechanical pencil with really hard lead for my first drafts, and it was a game changer for clean lines I could actually erase without smudging. It sounds so small, but that little bit of precision made my rough sketches feel way more legit and easier to build on. I wasted so much time before that trying to fix messy, dark lines from a regular pencil.

chen.casey1d ago

Messy dark lines are the worst.

the_christopher11d ago

Yeah, the hard lead thing is key. I used to ruin sketches with a soft pencil until I tried a cheap blue non-photo pencil for layout lines. It just disappears under ink.