board, from an appreciation of townscapes to the design
of children’s furniture.
Questions of scale are hardly relevant – we live in a
designed environment, whether we as consumers are
aware of it or not. Every lamp standard and traffic sign has
been ‘designed’, the layout of motorway junctions has
been shaped by an engineer with an eye to beauty as well
as safety. On a smaller scale, our cutlery and crockery are
designed, as are the disposable wrappings at the fast-
food restaurant.
The sketchbook allows us to be aware of this reality as
long as students are encouraged to explore through
drawing. The welcome changes to the national curriculum
to enhance the status of design and craft teaching, and
the broadening of appeal of courses in architecture,
landscape design and town planning, have created
an unprecedented interest in the environment and design.
To turn this interest into a better-designed world requires
the development of graphic and visual skills.
In a sense we are all designers, even if we do
not make our living through the medium of design.
As designers we modify our immediate environment
through changing the decor of our houses, or designing
our own clothes, to choosing consumer objects on
the basis of how they look as well as how they work.
We are sold products and services partly by design – you
have only to watch television advertising to realise that
our aesthetic sensibilities are being appealed to even
when the product being promoted is as unglamorous
as double glazing.1.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh possessed a
unique vision which embraced not only his
freehand drawings and watercolours, but
also his designs as an architect. This sketch
(dated 1901) by him of the castle at Holy
Island in Northumberland is similar in spirit to
his more adventurous designs, especially in
the three-dimensional treatment of gables.
(Glasgow University: Mackintosh Collection)The benefits of drawing 5