Tools for sketching

If you begin sketching ideas that pop into your head, here's a post for you. It's about the tools you can use. It might be useful if you're building your bulletjournal too !

Pens: All varieties of gel pens are interesting to use — they cover well and dry relatively quickly. I like the Pilot G2, the Uniball 207 and most recently Uniball Visionand Pentel Energel NV. I prefer a wider 0.7mm tip for better ink flow and coverage.

Markers: For markers I’ve been most pleased with Sharpie fine point permanent markers for quick concepts and have explored using Copic warm gray markers on wireframes—adding shading and depth to plain black lines with good results.

Pencils: I prefer mechanical pencils in a softer lead like HB and B, because those leads help me to stay loose when sketching. My favorite pencil is the Faber-Castell eMotionwith large 1.4mm leads for nice, loose lines. A thick pencil also lets me add rich solid lead very quickly.

Paper: Paper can be personal and depends very much on the pen, pencil, or marker you plan to use with it. Generally I prefer smooth paper that has enough weight to keep sketches from showing through to the back of the sheet.

I also tend to like graph and dot grid paper if I’m doing web and UI work to offer subtle structure, though plain paper works well for general sketching too.

Books: Moleskine sketchbooks and notebooks are always a great choice for pencil and pen, though thinner paper in the notebook can bleed through on markers and some pens. For that reason I prefer the thicker sketchbook paper.

I also like the Miquelrius graph softcover books, Behance Dot Grid books, Rhodia graph pads, and the more obscure Maruman Mnemosyne Imagination notebook from Japan, which features graph paper and a wonderfully smooth paper surface.

The advantage of a book is that your sketches all stay together in a nice package for presentations, yet can be removed if needed. Spiral bound notebooks can lay flat on a table and allow for easy page removal, while hard or soft cover books are sturdier and probably better if you don’t plan to remove pages and are OK with the binding.

Whiteboards: This is a great sketch surface that allows for easy erasure. The challenge here is to make sure you have fresh makers—dried out dry erase markers are no fun.

Chalkboards: I had a recent experience with chalk sketching at the 37signals office. At first, the chalk and chalkboard surface felt strange, but I came to like the loose feel after working with them for a day. It’s a little messier than dry erase but also more tactile.

source : alistapart.com