Drawing and Sketching for Designers (and Everyone Else!)

Would you like to learn how to effectively communicate ideas in visual form? Would you like to learn how to draw? Would you like to draw interesting and aesthetically pleasing art and designs, including products, scenes, various objects, and more? 

In this course, you will learn how to draw effectively as a strong foundation for graphic design and other types of design. This course is for anyone who wants to learn how to visually communicate and draw effectively.

Some graphic designers start immediately on the computer, but drawing first by hand is a common practice at many top design agencies, advertising firms, and other types of design businesses. This process is also taught at art colleges, universities, and other institutions. Graphic designers and other designers benefit from learning how to draw in order to brainstorm, sketch, visually communicate ideas, and design.

Regardless of whether you are working on a logo design, editorial design, advertising design, digital design, or other types of design, drawing as part of the design process is an established practice that can help you more effectively produce clear and beautiful designs.

In this course, you will learn about materials and how drawing can benefit designers. Then you will learn how to draw in various sections:

• Mark Making Exercises – Learn many different methods of mark making in the context of drawing and design.

• Gesture Drawing – Draw an organic object, a video game controller, a Holga camera, and a paintbrush using gestural drawing methods for quick drawings to capture the essence or gesture of an object or scene.

• Drawing Basic Shapes Effectively – Learn various ways to draw basic shapes which can be used in line drawings and structural drawings later.

• Structural Drawing – Learn how to draw a sphere, cone, cube, and cylinder, and also start to draw structure-based objects such as a vase.

• Drawing Structure-Based Products – Next, use what you have learned so far by drawing structure-based objects, including a tennis ball (sphere-based), a funnel (cone-based), a makeup applicator (cylinder-based), and a GameCube console (cube-based).

• Value, Lighting, and Shading – Learn how to add a lighting source, highlights, and shadows for depth and form in drawings.

• Composition in Drawing – Apply effective composition in drawings and logo designs. Examples include the rule of thirds, focal point, formal subdivision, drawing an asymmetrical logo, and much more.

• Product Sketches – Apply structural drawing and value practices in order to draw products sketches such as a still life and a power drill.

• Drawing the Head and Face Fundamentals – Learn the basics of drawing facial proportions, for those instances where drawing people is required in designs.

• Drawing in Perspective – Learn how to draw a cube, sideways cylinder, and interior space using one-point perspective. Follow along in additional exercises in two-point perspective in the included book.

Enroll today and get started learning how to draw for design!

About the Instructor:

Jonathan Simon is a fine artist, illustrator and university professor. He holds a B.F.A in illustration from Memphis College of Art and a M.F.A. in painting from the New York Academy of Art. He has studied with a variety of talented artists in both accredited programs and private apprenticeships, including Tony Ryder, author of The Artist’s Complete Guide to Figure Drawing, Jacob Collins and Michael Grimaldi of Water Street Atelier / The Grand Central Atelier, and Frank Porcu at the Art Students League of New York.

A studio artist for more than 26 years, Jonathan is also an experienced art educator who has held full-time faculty positions teaching intermediate- to advanced-level drawing, figure drawing, painting and illustration classes at colleges such as the New Hampshire Institute of Art. He believes in sound, proven methods, materials and approaches.