There are some great products/ideas/rules/techniques which we don’t know about in the beginning of our career and it really helps if someone can tell us about the right things at the right time. there are thing we explore/discover/realise during our journey and wish if we had that knowledge earlier in life and we would have done something much better in our career and lives.
So here are some product/tools/toys that i think can really help any designer learn many good things much earlier and faster in his/her career. lets begin,
No. 1 ) For improving 3d object drawing and perspective skills, keep a scale model of your favourite car/ bike/ product/character at your desk.
Scale Model Bike and Cars
A Rubik’s CUBE or LEGO or Mechanix kit.
For improving 3d spatial and visual reasoning skills and understanding motion in geometry and volume + it helps a lot when you want to take a break and play something to change your mood and refresh yourself with new ideas.
Brush Pens
For improving colour sense, lettering and Calligraphy, playing with brush pens is a great exercise and fun especially when you want to write a thank you note for someone 🙂
Parallel pens
Calligraphy and Hand lettering is so much in fashion these days, when printout and fonts look boring its a great way to do something new and learn a classic skill for a change.
Alcohol Markers
For improving 3d and 2d rendering skills, alcohol makers are industry standards and a great way to learn about surface, textures, lighting effects and enjoy sketching.
Water based Spray paints are great for colouring 3d models made or wood, plastics, sheet metal or Thermocol/Polystyrene.
TANGRAM
A great toy/game for improving visual reasoning and exploring geometric compositions, these thing can help a lot in logo design exercises.
A nice LED table lamp for product photography, miniature drawing and spot lighting
High quality manikin for reference for Fashion illustrations, animation drawings, posture study, storyboarding and Artwork/ figure drawing etc.
Roller scale
A good to have tool for grid work which involves drawing many parallel lines, like Hand lettering, calligraphy, logo design, poster design etc.
French curves
a great tool and industry standard for graphics and fashion design students.
Soft Pastels
Another great dry medium to try for quick colouring and rendering techniques, especially helpful for students, easy to use and carry around. good for travel.
Charcoal sticks
Very good dry medium for pencil artist and monochrome lovers. if you master black and white colour is much easier. one of the best tools to study light and tonality.
Fixative Spray
After all the hard work done on these dry medium colours and charcoal, you definitely want to preserve it for long, right ? so this fixative spray is done on the drawings to ensure the colour particles don’t come off by touching and rubbing and the colour are preserved as good as new.
Wacom Cintiq
This is the ultimate digital tool for professionals and this is here just to introduce you to the top end products available in the market for creative professionals. DO NOT BUY THIS ONE UNLESS YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL GRAPHIC ARTIST OR PHOTOGRAPHER.
I hope you find something interesting in this list 🙂
The Designer's point of view 