Unit 1 - 2D and 3D Communication

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Introduction
Artists, designers and craftspeople communicate their ideas using 2D and 3D drawing and making techniques. In recent years, there have been many technological advances that help their work – though many artists and designers still use traditional drawing and sculpting skills.

• 2D mark-making includes drawing, photography, print-making and digital media software
• 3D making includes carving, construction techniques, cutting, shaping, forming, joining, weaving and digital 3D techniques.

In Unit 1, you’ll be thinking about developing your own drawing, mark-making and making skills. As a starting point, it’s useful to look at the ways in which practising designers and artists use both 2D and 3D techniques.

Using traditional methods
Many designers still use pen and paper to draft out their initial ideas. This may be because it helps them to explore a brief without being limited by technology, or it may be because it’s the method that they grew up with.

Designer Ian Loseby started his design career when he was at college.

When I was still at college studying video and media production, I designed posters for pub events. I did all the poster work by cutting up newspapers and sticking letters together, then I realised that letterset was out there so I got typesetting books and started trimming those down.

He still approaches jobs by sitting down and drafting out ideas manually.

From my research I end up with 20 or 30 written ideas and little drawings. I’m constantly going back to basics and thinking about the people, the company and the market. Asking whether my ideas answer the brief. It’s random – you go forwards and backwards, does that work, yes, no, yes, yes, brilliant.

Try this

• Read the case study about Ian Loseby.
• Imagine that computers had never been invented and think about ways in which you could present your design ideas using basic tools: paper, pencils, scissors, glue, textiles, etc. Set yourself a brief and draft out a response to it using these materials. Think about the opportunities – and difficulties – that using these methods presents.

Using technology
Designers at successful international design agency Elmwood use a variety of software programs to develop their work including Illustrator, Quark, In design, Photoshop and Dream weaver but they also use more traditional methods to develop initial ideas.

Our visualisers sketch out ideas but we also use technology. When everyone was producing Mac visuals we banned people from going anywhere near Macs for the first stage of a project because everyone was being constrained by what they could do on a Mac rather than developing good ideas. We asked them to get their pencils out and start doodling!

Technology is a great help in translating good ideas into products because not all designers are great artists.

We use visualisers because not all designers can draw. They may have excellent creative ideas but they can’t put them on paper so we get in someone who can. If we had to choose between employing a designer who is an excellent ideas person or someone who is technically brilliant, we’d go for the ideas person every time because those people are few and far between.

Try this

• Read the Elmwood case study to find out more about how technology is used by designers.
• Explore software programs that you have access to and find out what they can do. Think about how different programs can translate your initial design concepts into a finished product.

Using something different
If you read some of the case studies in the art dossiers section of this website, you’ll see that great artists and designers have never been limited by convention. They’ve often found new ways of expressing their ideas and used unusual media.

Try this

• Look at the art dossiers on this website and find out how some of the artists have broken new ground in art and design by creating innovative 2D and 3D techniques. Here are two suggestions for further work.
• Read the profile of Sonia Delaunay. Find out more about her 'simultaneous clothing' and the ways that she used fashion and soft furnishings to express her thoughts.
• Find out more about Antoni Gaudi and his passion for texture, shape and colour that influenced his unique style of architecture.

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