Improving Your Designs
Design transcends woodworking. It is an artform all on its own, which makes it one of the hardest parts of woodworking. It’s also the natural progression in skill development. You start learning how to build, eventually push past the pocket holes and into increasingly complex methods until you run out of ideas.
Upleveling a box through techical build skill still results in a box. Eventually you start seeing new elements to add to your work, or a design you want to recreate that incorporates curves.
It is time for a challenge. Move past making copies and launch into the unique. Cast off those plans and design based on your own thought, drawing inspiration from random objects and nature.
Easy to say, hard to do.
Luckily, there are a three simple things you can do to improve your designs.
Take Your Time
Invest in a pencil that inspires you to use it.
Designing is not a rush activity. Drawing takes time, it takes refinement. Slowly adding and subtracting lines, steepening, shallowing, and re-steepening curves.
I like a sturdy mechanical pencil and a small eraser to slowly add and remove lines until I get it just right. This process is slow, it’s methodical, and it takes time. Relinquish yourself to the process and don’t rush it. All you’ll end up doing is frustrating yourself.
Speaking of frustrating, don’t be afraid to start over. Its often easier, and good practice, to flip the page when things aren’t going right. Give it another go. Keep the parts you like and change the others. It’s often faster and easier to start over, but the perception is it will take longer, so give yourself time to draw so you can make the decision you think will take longer and maybe you’ll surprise yourself.
Clear Your Physical and Mental Space
Some people live a cluttered life and cannot operate without the chaos. Their chaos is a breeding ground for new ideas, but they also have a process to create which you may not have.
As a beginner, clear a space and remove distraction. Allow yourself to focus on the task at hand. That means silencing your cellphone and powering down your computer. If you sit and stare at nothing but an empty page, eventually you will fill it, but you stand zero chance if the immediate reaction is to open Instagram.
Part of clearing your space is a symbolic act to clear your mind. By removing physical distractions you are telling your mind it is time to focus. You should not shut your mind off, in fact you will want your mind to bounce and explore many different ideas, but all in relation to what you are designing.
Clear your mind of everything else. Upcoming meetings, appointments, what are you going to make for dinner tonight, its your mom’s birthday in a week and you haven’t bought a card, etc. All those thoughts are taking away from what you should be doing. Put them aside for a while and let your mind focus on the one task at hand.
Practice
Practice makes perfect. We’ve all heard it. In this case, it really does. Drawing is an artform and it is hard to get good at it. Don’t try to be perfect right away, try to get the idea out of your head.
If you want to improve fast, draw every single day. Have a notepad on your desk and take a 15 minute break to draw a piece of furniture in your house or that you see online. Copy it as close as you can. Do this over and over and eventually what you see in real life will show up on the paper.
Speaking of paper, it is easier to start there. Sketch out an idea, no matter how rudimentary, and then move to a computer. Tools like SketchUp are great for figuring out scale, but they are not great for idea making. There is too many details and it takes too long to move your idea from your head into a computer.
Computers are great for replicating and fine tuning. Taking an initial design and modifying, while saving past iterations for comparison.
Drawings a year apart.
Not perfect, but vastly improved.