In the beginning there was art and more specifically drawing by hand. Hand drawing was my way into the world of web design yet is a principle now which often gets neglected due to a multitude of reasons. Drawing by hand is the fundamental principle of design…the source of design itself if you like. Granted there are designers who wont be comfortable or skilled enough o draw by hand, but for those who have come from art and can already illustrate or have a distinctive style then this is a great time to go back to the corner stone of design: of pencil and paper.

Sites are in danger of becoming dehumanised
Hand-drawn sites are becoming more popular in this at times human less online world. A lot has recently been talked about emotional design and creating a connection with your user on a human level. In many ways hand drawn design is a great way to humanise your work and has more personality than a clone produced straight from the Photoshop production line.

Hand drawn sites rose up against web 2.0 like a kite in the wind
In many ways I believe hand drawn sites have come to the forefront of web design recently due to a mini rebellion of the web 2.0 style. The web 2.0 style was a baby of Photoshop and the key effects it used (gradient, rounded corners, shine, drop shadow – these are all key traits of a web 2.0 site)….this style obviously became massively popular due to it’s ease of implementation and polished look. Basically if you knew how to use Photoshop you could produce a clean professional looking design in the web 2. 0 style. The problem with web 2.0 and other similar styles is that sites became far too linear, rigid and pixel perfect; there almost became a demand for imperfection as creativity stems from chaos and not necessarily following a rigid structure.

Web 2.0 along with other various web styles was beginning to dehumanise designs and the polar opposite of this is to ditch the Mac (and the blinkers) step away from the screen and grab a pen and paper (see my article on offline inspiration for more on this). Working without pixels opens up a whole world of new possibilities…don’t let the pixel restrict you.

Creativity flows in a flexible structure
One of my favourite designers Mike Kus works in a similar way…he says at the start of the design process he “doesn’t have a clue where to start!”…his exceptional creativity essentially flows from the spontaneous way he produces a site.

Wacom tablet makes your drawings digital!
The introduction of the wacom tablet also makes it easy to transfer your hand drawings straight into a digital format which can be used online. The tablet allows you to spontaneously sketch as if you were using a pen and paper. Before the Wacom tablet I’d need to do my drawing scan it in then, trace round it in illustrator! This was a time consuming process especially for larger sites, so the Wacom tablet made hand drawn sites more commercially viable.

It’s all the details
It obviously takes more time to hand draw a site as all the important elements of the site (such as button, nav, bullet points etc) will need to be hand drawn as well…but it is all about getting these small details right and the Wacom tablet also makes this process so much quicker. The end results if you put in the time to get the details right will be spectacular.

My current experience of hand drawn sites
I’m currently producing a website for one of our clients which is almost entirely hand draw, which is what got me thinking about this area! The logo for the client in question was hand drawn and the haphazard and fun nature of the event also lent itself to a hand drawn feel.  However as I’ve said in a previous post (diversifying styles in sectors) there is no reason why a hand drawn site couldn’t work for something like a corporate business or educational organisation.

Let’s humanise the web and bring art closer to web design
Bringing web design closer to art is definitely a future direction, users want to be interested and curious at what they are seeing …this can only come from unique visual stimuli in the form of art. I’ve said in the past how art and design are two very different disciplines but there is no reason why art can’t be used to enhance good design steeped in timeless principles. Interested in how your site could adopt a hand drawn style? Then drop me a line…

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