Note 04: Sketching, Rendering and the Risk of Getting to “Finished” Too Fast

As I gear up to jump back into education, I’ve found myself doing a sort of informal skills audit. What techniques do I enjoy? What programmes do I rely on? Where do I feel confident? And, perhaps more importantly, what have I stopped making time for? One thing that immediately jumped out at me was sketching.

I do still sketch, of course. I doodle when I’m waiting on hold. I scribble down ideas before they disappear. I’ll draw something quickly if I need to explain a thought or work out whether something might physically fit together.

But actually sitting down with a sketchbook and playing? I don’t do that nearly as often as I used to.

And I think part of the reason is that it has become so incredibly easy to jump ahead. Rendering software is faster and more powerful than ever. AI tools can turn an idea into something visually convincing in seconds. If I know roughly what I want something to look like, I can often get from thought to polished visual surprisingly quickly. Which is brilliant. 0But I’m beginning to wonder whether, sometimes, we are getting to the end a little too quickly.

A render looks like an answer

There is something very seductive about a polished image. Once an idea has lighting, texture, materials and beautifully rendered shadows, it starts to feel real. It feels decided. And perhaps that is where sketching still has an important role. A sketch doesn’t pretend to be finished. It can be scruffy, contradictory and incomplete. You can draw five different versions of something on the same page, cross one out, draw an arrow to another and write “maybe?” next to the bit you’re least convinced by. Nothing has to be precious.

In a meeting, a quick sketch can communicate several different layouts or ideas far faster than producing a polished visual for each one. Those rough ideas can then become the starting point for further development. And sometimes simply drawing something by hand forces you to understand it differently.

• How might this actually be constructed?

• Where do these materials meet?

• What happens around this edge?

• How should that texture behave?

They are the kinds of decisions that can become strangely easy to gloss over once a rendering programme starts making everything look convincing for you.

I’m definitely not giving up rendering

This is not me declaring that every Post-it note sketch deserves a place in a portfolio (although a sketchbook full of multi-coloured post-its does have some sort of magical appeal to my brain!). Nor am I about to throw away my rendering software and dramatically announce that I shall now communicate exclusively through pencil and tracing paper. I love rendering. I use it constantly. In fact, my process often involves sketching an idea first and then taking that into rendering software alongside a material palette and detailed prompts or references. Both methods have value. I think the danger comes when the polished visual becomes the starting point rather than the result of a process. Because when we settle on one direction too early, we can accidentally skip the messy stage where all the interesting alternatives live.

I used to hate sketching

Ironically, I genuinely used to loathe it. I could never quite understand the point. If I already knew what I wanted something to look like, why would I spend time sketching out other ideas it first? It felt inefficient.

Now, I think I was slightly missing the point. The value wasn’t necessarily in producing a prettier drawing. It was in seeking out multiple paths before deciding which one to follow. Sketching gives you permission to create ideas that might be terrible, and that matters (I’m talking to my fellow perfectionists here). Because occasionally the strange little scribble in the corner of a page turns into something much more interesting than the very sensible idea you began with.

A computer can help me realise an idea incredibly quickly. But sometimes I need to make sure I’ve actually explored the idea first.

Perhaps the messy bit is worth protecting

There is a lot of pressure in design, particularly when we share our work online, for everything to look polished.

Beautiful renders, perfect moodboards, crisp drawings, finished concepts.

The messy middle rarely gets quite as much attention. But that is often where the design is actually happening. So, as I head back into education, I think one of my little challenges to myself is going to be making more space for that part again. Not because sketching is inherently better than digital visualisation. And certainly not because technology is somehow making us worse designers. But because when getting to a convincing answer becomes incredibly quick, perhaps we need to be more deliberate about spending time with the question.

Maybe I don’t need to sketch instead of rendering. Maybe I just need to remember not to render too soon.