Here’s some doodles from the past month or so. I’ve been really obsessed with Chinese dragons and Asia’s ancient artistic style. (is that enough “A” words in a row?)

I think im going to do an illustration next.

Enjoy!

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Here is a wonderful article about design in a third world environment. Its not Sketching but for me its just as Inspirational.

I love the fact that these stories are getting more face time in the media. I think, as designers, we usually aggrandize the crazy cool electronics/cars/footwear. They are cool but i usually feel that the real opportunities to make peoples lives better exist in the more  mundane daily chores. I’m not trying to lesson the accomplishments of any of those industries but its nice to be brought down to reality and see individuals take up the calling to make life easier outside of our rich consumer based economy. These individuals have less money, materials, and man power yet manage to have such a greater impact on the people in their community. I think there’s a lot to be learned from these “design stars” and the areas they live in. Maybe we can help.

I have a ton of this kind of stuff ( i.e. innovation with the resources available in less develop areas) and i’ve been thinking a lot about it. If your interested in seeing more let me know in the comments and ill do another more inclusive post.

Image and Article Copyright Leigh Buchanan | Inc. magazine

Speaking of shoes, John Muhlenkamp, co-founder of IDSketching and my design partner, put together this sick shoe concept for PowerForce. Now, you may not have heard of PowerForce, and frankly wi didn’t before, but be sure to check out the link and vote for his concept. PowerForce put on this competition to help jumpstart their brand. So head on over and vote for John!

Powerforce Shoe Design Competition

Check out the newest website/online magazine from Daniel Bailey - Concept Kicks. You may recognize Daniel’s work on the Monkee Design Blog where he always has some fresh inspiration and design insight. Concept kicks is all about footwear, but not just sketching. Daniel aims for his site to be the definitive source for all things footwear design and so far, it’s off to a fantastic start. Cheers Daniel!

via – Conceptkicks.com

I’ll be honest, I haven’t watched the whole thing,but from what I have watched, this video is pretty awesome. It’s produced by Axel Egolf of Acadesign. If you’ve every wanted to know any and everything about different brands of markers, papers, techniques and the like, be sure to watch this video all the way through, as I will later when I have a spot more free time.

I’m totally getting this! Sub $500 3D prototyping. Solidoodle! Who else is with me?

Here is a sweet site with all the video candy you could want. You get a decent view of process and there’s a lot of great artists. The videos are really sped up and there’s not a lot of info on the materials, time, or tools they used. But there’s a ton of inspirational content so i’m not complaining. Enjoy!

Check out this latest video from Sketch-A-Day where I walk through a quick 7 minute sketch of a garden spade. I’ve been trying to do more video as of late on sketch-a-day in a short form/quick post format. Check out the Sketch-A-Day youtube channel as well if you have a minute. Enjoy.

For a limited time, I’ll be printing a short run of tee shirts. I’m doing them for me, but also thought, hey, maybe some people would want one of these. There’s an IDSKETCHING variant as well as Two Sketch-a-day variants as well. Prices will be listed soon, but if you’re interested, email me spencer [at] idsketching.com

I’ll have something more official up soon enough. Just trying to gauge interest and then I can give more solid numbers.

UPDATE:

Visit my “Stuff” page on Sketch-a-Day.com for more info on pricing, and sign up to pre-order.

As many of you know Andres Parada is a good friend of ours. We’ve hosted his work a few times and he has his own featured page in our Sketchbook section. Well, he now has a book of his own and its a 100+ pages of sweetness! The book is being sold through Blurb and  just got released about a two weeks ago. We didn’t actually get a physical copy but Andres did give us a decent digital peek at whats inside.

The book is hard bound and has about 118pgs total. Everything is full color and looks terrific. I asked Andres to do a write-up about his book and give us a bit on an introduction. You can read it, and see more from the book, by clicking past the break.

My good friend and inspiration, Waikit Chung, has recently launched another website – CHINADESIGNHUB. Be sure to check it out and show your support for asian design. From the about section of the site:

The main purpose of this site is to promote quality and original designs from China, by designers who work in China. That includes Chinese, Taiwanese, Hong Kong and other Chinese speaking Asian designers. Additionally we will publish designs made here in China by non-Chinese speaking designers, and designs by Chinese designers who work outside of China.

You might recognize Waikit’s name from his other popular sites – productdesignforums.com and productdesignhub.com

Congrats Waikit!

I don’t typically write in depth reviews of anything, and this time will be no exception to that rule. As always, I’d like to sum up my general thoughts on the book.

Learning Curves (2011), by Klara Sjölén, Erik Olofsson, and Allan Mcdonald, is the amazing follow-up to the highly popular Design Sketching (2005) book, which I’m sure many, if not all of you reading this have heard about. if you haven’t, be sure to check them out.

Learning Curves is an ambitious project. What makes it special to me is that rather than focusing on the same old, same procedural methodologies in other sketching books, Learning Curves brings together a myriad of designers and artists who contributed their work to this book. Full disclosure, some of my work is featured in Learning Curves.

After perusing the pages, it’s impossible for one to not feel inspired to get up and start sketching something amazing. Of course, that first sketch won’t be amazing but it’s inspiring nonetheless. Learning Curves is certainly both inspirational and educational, and leans heavily on the provided examples of work from contributing designers.

The book reads much like a compilation of solid, sage, and sound advice gleaned from the mind of a very experienced soul. It’s much like the advice I give to students as I travel to present sketching and visual communication workshops. Putting into words that which you have learned is one of the most difficult things to do. Trust me, I know this. I’m writing my own book right now. Learning Curves (2011) seems to do this very well.

The book is solid and well printed and you get a sense of the life in each sketch. It is perfect bound on the spine, though I do wish that there were a spiral bound version that could fold flat. That way, one could follow along or have the reference open while sketching.

Despite the lack of procedural instructions on how to be better at visual communication, Learning Curves (2011) is an excellent resource and I highly recommend it to any designer who is looking for some good inspiration to help mix things up. Learning Curves (2011) is available for purchase at the design sketching website for 55USD. Happy sketching!