Design Ideas

These are your first sketches communicating your first ideas about how to solve the design problem that you have been set.

Remember that your Initial Design Ideas should be quick sketches.

Step 1: Underlay Sketching

Ghost lines should be soft and light.

Step 2: Fine Lining

Fine lining must be neat and accurate.

Step 3: Rendering

Rendering must include a range of tones.

Step 1: Underlay sketching where you draw with ghost lines. These lines should be very soft and light. Ghost lines will probably consist of multiple lines rather then just one sketch line.

Step 2: Fine lining where you outline your design with a fine line pen. All edges and lines should meet neatly and be drawing accurately.

Step 3: Rendering with colour pencils. Apply a soft base colour to your shape and then outline a darker heavy edge. Lastly you will need to blend in from dark to light with a medium tone.

You can see here how the light base colour has already been applied and a darker heavy edge has been coloured. The next step is to blend from dark to light to blend the 2 different tones.

Design ideas should show your ideas clearly and from 2 different angles. Choose a design template that suits your design idea - there are 2 to choose.

Front view as a main angle + smaller top view angle
Top view as a main angle + smaller front view angle

Template A

Front view as a main angle + smaller top view angle

Template B

2. Top view as a main angle + smaller front view angle

Don't forget to use your inspiration board to generate your design ideas

Use your Inspiration Board to get ideas for shapes.

It can also be very helpful to think about a ‘Theme’ i.e. Design Ideas for a very young child (2-3) could be based around nursery rhymes, or children’s story books, such as:

The Gruffalo, What the Ladybird Heard, Mr Tiger goes wild, The dinosaur that lost his roar etc.

Example to the left shows, volcanos, dinosaurs, T-Rex, 2D and 3D shapes, colour palettes, smoke/clouds

Inspirations Boards

Clear flow if ideas that visually explain possible design ideas.

Good collection of matching images but the title seems to stand out and doesn't match in the same way.

Grid-like photo layouts can work well to create a full poster.

Nice selection of images and use of background but the title lacks design!

Tips for success:

Use the following presentation techniques (Symmetrical 2D Crating, Shading, Colour Surrounds, Rendering) to help communicate your design ideas more clearly. Remember to use very light guidelines to help you draw simple shapes before adding more complex detailing.

A lightly sketched centre line will help as a guide and is recommended for all sketches. For the main shape, mark out the features (lamp shade, switch, potentiometer) so that you can position everything correctly.

Remember your designs should be for your chosen User Group.

You should use the images from your inspiration board to help you sketch your Initial Ideas.

Task

Choose a suitable design template that compliments your idea (template A or B)

Sketch out a minimum of 4 ideas for the lamp project although some of you may sketch as many as 10 (or more). Fine line, render and annotate your ideas and make a title on your page.

Look back at your Inspiration Board to help you generate shape ideas.