Drawing and Sketching for Designers (and Everyone Else!)
What you'll learn
- Effectively communicate visually with drawing.
- Drawing gesture drawings, structural drawings, product sketches, and more.
- Apply appropriate value (lighting and shading), texture, and line in drawings.
- Apply effective composition in drawings, designs, and logo designs.
- Apply dozens of types of mark making methods with a variety of materials (pencil, charcoal, and conté).
- Draw form-based products with appropriate mark making and shading.
- Combine various shapes and forms to produce more complicated drawings of objects and products.
- Draw the head and face with appropriate proportion.
- Draw objects and a scene in one-point perspective.
Requirements
- Students should have access to at least a pencil, paper, eraser, and pencil sharpener. To follow along exactly with the instructor, a set of pencils will be needed as well as a few other items, described in the first section (set to free preview).
Description
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.
Who this course is for:
- Anyone wanting to effectively communicate in visual form by using drawing.
- Graphic designers wanting to improve their drawing skills.
- Graphic designers, logo designers and others wanting to learn and apply compositional principles in designs and drawings.
- Anyone who wants to learn and apply effective line work, shading, mark making, perspective, and composition in order to produce interesting and informative drawings and designs.
Course content
- Preview05:30
- Preview04:05
- Preview02:11
- Preview03:28
- 02:05Materials List Links
- Preview02:09
- Preview04:51
- 00:21Support Files, Drawing Book, and Facebook Group Link
- Preview11:30
Instructors
I love seeing students succeed in their designs, photos, productions, artistic work, and careers.
Do you want to learn become a better designer or communicator? Do you want to learn industry-standard editing and effects in Photoshop? Do you want to create logos for your brand or for clients? Do you want to learn new skills that are in demand in the new digital economy?
I'm passionate about communication, writing, art, and design education, and I'm currently a full-time professor of communication and digital media. I've developed curriculum and taught classes on design, photography, and writing for over a decade. My university students have become full-time, award-winning photographers, web designers, creative specialists, reporters, and layout designers. And now, you can learn from me as well!
Get started by enrolling in my courses, learning new skills and knowledge, and asking me questions in the courses and forums.
My Three-Part Qualifications to Teach You (Professional Experience, Education, and Experience Teaching):
By combining my professional in-the-field experience (both full-time and freelance), formal education, and experience teaching these topics, I've been able to produce top-notch courses that maximize learning and enable students to become better graphic designers, logo designers, photo editors, artists, and digital media producers.
Real World, Professional Experience:
I've worked as Webmaster and Advertising Designer at a regional newspaper (The News Chief), Internet Development Director at an award-winning advertising design firm, Technology Librarian at a city library system, and Managing Editor at two international graphic design magazines at Kelby Media Group. I've also written for print and online publications and designed websites and other promotional design work for clients on an on-going basis for the past 20 years.
Education:
Besides relevant marketplace experience, I also have a B.A. in Communication from Southeastern University, an M.A. in Journalism and Media Studies from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg, and a Ph.D. in Communication from Regent University. My Ph.D. dissertation focuses on the mythic branding of Apple's Macintosh/Mac in their primary commercial campaigns (1984, Think Different, Switch/Real People, and Get a Mac). Example graduate courses such as Creative Approaches to Digital Media and Visual Storytelling have helped me when developing my own courses.
Experience Teaching:
Teaching these topics in the classroom and online has helped me figure out the best ways to explain concepts and guide students in the designs and productions. Besides being a full-time professor, I've developed curriculum and taught design, photography, and digital media courses for years at the university level for various schools in Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Sorrento (Italy).
Courses:
I'm the founder of Good Creative Academy, the premiere online school for learning and creating. If you're looking to learn more about graphic design, photo retouching, visual art, Adobe software, and digital media production, you have arrived at the right place.
Fun tech-related facts about me:
I taught myself QBasic when I was 13, and later used that programming language to write a program that simulated the DOS prompt, to fool my high school graphic design teacher into thinking the computers had been hacked.
I used web banner advertising on my websites in high school and during my freshman year of college, which brought in about $750 a month in income.
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.
Jonathan prefers to work from life, as opposed to photographs. "Using live models and setups affords me the opportunity to study, interact, and change course in real time," he says. "I enjoy this careful examination of my subjects, as much for the artistic process itself as for the end result."
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 and offers both private and group instruction on everything from basic drawing skills to more advanced concepts.