📝 Tracing Is a Designer's Best Friend
How I did it: #3 Double-Decker Bus
I trace a lot.
Tracing is a basic tool for learning how to draw.
Just look at how children do it: they copy and colour shapes, they join dots. Tracing trains eye-mind-hand coordination during the drawing process. And what’s more, it allows you to quickly and accurately draw some elements of the drawing.
Tracing makes your drawings look better and allows you to draw faster.
See these two examples below I did on the same design in response to the Double-Decker Bus design challenge. These are different examples of how to use the tool of tracing in your design process:
Sketch:
Drawing:
In the Sketch, I sketched the bus in literally 10 seconds and traced Bowie’s lightning to make sure I got the iconic design correct. In the Drawing, I first traced the bus to create a good base for the image, drawing the bus quickly and accurately - this way I could focus my attention on sketching the concept and the colours of the re-branded look1.
The Sketch is used to capture or test an idea immediately, and the Drawing is a more complete and accurate representation of a design idea. During my design process I tend to do several sketches, then pick one to develop a drawing in more detail to communicate my design.
You can do the same in your design process. For example, if you are designing a façade you can trace the overall volume in perspective and then sketch your design options on top of it2. On the other hand, if you are learning to draw portraits or figures tracing is a great tool to study the subject before you do your drawings.
My advice is always to experiment! Copy, re-draw, edit, collage. And don’t be ashamed of tracing3!
Tracing is a designer’s best friend.
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Cheers and happy sketching! 💫✏️
Ana
Notice the design brief for London’s double-decker buses clearly stated that the layout of the bus was to be kept. The bus was not part of the design - only the way it looks.
This can be done easily with digital drawing apps such as Procreate or Morpholio. You can import the photo and layer your designs over it. For analog fans, tracing paper has always been an indispensable tool.
People tend to think tracing is cheating. This is far from true (unless your real reason is to copy somebody else’s work). It is actually a missed opportunity for learning. The Artists Network Staff explains perfectly in this post why outlining photographs and other drawings is a great way to learn to draw.