Why are we so focused on direct perfection? I don’t believe it has anything to do with pressure on time or budget. I think it has something to do with our education. Most of the times students are being judged on the end result instead of the path they took. The process of discovery isn’t important anymore.. we’re afraid that if we present something that isn’t finished, others will judge it as an end product.

We need to become explorers again, seeking for worlds we don’t know that exists. The patterns will have to follow later.

The emphasis on sketching as a crucial activity is almost an insight directly into how to be creative, it seems to me. The idea that one thing made “permanent” can lead to new thoughts about the same topic. Not only is it eye-opening about fostering creativity, but it’s also an antidote to the diva-esque “I spat out an idea, so it must be good” mentality that can cause so much trouble. And I would say it’s even a form of self-collaboration, putting something into a medium external to oneself so you can get our of your own way and think newly about your goal.

The nice thing too is that this is not getting away from science at all, because in the end we need to measure the effectiveness of what we do as designers, so we can know whether we are harnessing our creativity well. So, the flow of sketching must still drive us toward the accounting of what we are doing. Indeed, many times the “final” version is nothing more than the best sketch currently and there is always version N+1 to make changes for.