Back to basic techniques that chime with straitened times

I couldn’t agree more with the view that drawing and making are essential to the initial stages of any design project (Editor’s blog, www.designweek. co.uk, 12 November).

There is no better way to quickly generate ideas than by using a pencil and paper. The speed and freedom of the process quickly generate new ideas that would never otherwise see the light of day. Ideas beget ideas beget ideas. I couldn’t imagine starting a project any other way.

Just as there is no way to know how a double-page spread will look until it’s printed out in front of you, there is no other way to get an accurate feel for the form and proportions of an object than to actually hold it, move it and use it. The ultimate destiny of the object is to exist in the real world where it will interact with other real objects.

We all need to draw and some of us also need to make. And it is good fun. So, hats off to The Sorrell Foundation – The National Art & Design Saturday Club is a superb idea which will benefit both British design and designers for decades to come.

In David Cameron’s Big Society it seems we’ll even have to learn to draw ourselves.

Andi Rusyn, by e-mail