Student Featured in Metropolis Magazine

Congratulations to Sue Jin Kim, second year Product Design track. Some of Sue Jin’s work was featured in the most recent (April 2007) issue of Metropolis Magazine. Conceived in a class sponsored by HP, her concept e.share is a device aimed at female “silvers,” or baby boomers. The article examines the various projects as indicators of future design trends, and they were right to choose Sue Jin’s forward looking project. She sees it as highlighting the trend of design for the aging population as well the trend of design of things that enable users rather than simply performing a task.

Sue Jin’s work is featured alongside that of students from schools like RISD, Design Academy Eindhoven and Parsons New School of Design.

What the Metropolis article doesn’t tell you is the interesting way that the device integrates into the lifestyle of the user. Check out the Flash presentation (758KB) that demonstrates the use, and congratulate Sue Jin when you see her.

IDers attend Conference at Taiwan's NCKU

by Alex Cheek

With most ID students finishing up for the semester, Jordan Fischer and Alexis Baum still have one big thing on their to-do list. They have been selected to represent ID's Product Design track at an international design competition in Taiwan's National Chong Kung University. This is the second year that ID has participated in the event. Last year, Sue Jin Kim and Alexa Curtis attended and won an award.

The event is as much a conference as a competition. Students from all over the world will present posters about their educational institutions as well as on the themes of the conference, "Green Attitude" and "Universal Approach." Then, all of the attendees will be divided into international teams and a sponsoring company will propose a problem that the teams compete to solve, with a monetary award for the best solution. The rest of their time will be spent on cultural tours of Taipei.

This year's conference themes matched well with projects from ID. Alexis and Jordan will present (WattWatchers), a system to help people control their energy consumption for the "Green Attitude" section, and the results from their product localization project from Cultural Human Factors for the "Universal Approach" section. The two are excited to meet and mingle with the other design students. Here at ID, we get a very diverse student population, but it is rare that we get to work side by side with students from other programs. This will be a great opportunity to see how the ID approach is understood and accepted, as well as a chance to see what working on a design team outside of ID is really like.

What with finals looming over them, Jordan and Alexis have had precious little time to think about what will happen at the conference, but they have been getting tips from last year's attendees ("Make sure you have powerpoint, InDesign is nowhere to be seen" and "Be prepared for the fish to have their heads intact") as well as helpful literature from some of our globe-trotting faculty.

The rest of us are proud to send these two fine representatives, and we eagerly await stories upon their return. Good luck and bon voyage!

BETTR than my RAZR?

by Ash Bhoopathy

On April 24, insideID hosted Jennifer Kwee, Motorola's Product Marketing Manager, who presented a lecturette about designing the MotoFONE for emerging markets.

For the uninitiated, the MotoFONE is the low price, thin, high design, long battery life, easy-to-use mobile device that Motorola has introduced for the countries it considers to be “emerging markets" - Brazil, China, India, other African countries.

The lecturette touched on the interaction design of the phone, product form, packaging design, and general market strategies.

The following are some interesting tidbits for those who could not attend:

• Motorola mostly operates in a retail model in emerging markets instead of a carrier model, as it does in the developed markets. It sells phones directly to retail outlets and local vendors instead of partnering with carriers (e.g. Verizon) to offer deep discounts on phones in conjunction with annual contracts. This means that the phone has to be extremely cost effective for the value conscious consumer.
• The phone is the first mobile device to make use of Sony’s Electrophoretic display (EPD), which enables users to view the sizable high contrast screen in brightly lit environments. The phone’s user interface is almost entirely graphical, with voice prompts translated into local languages.
• Women in South Africa loved the thin form factor of their phones, because they could discreetly place the phone in their bras (and not be at risk for theft). Marketers at Motorola wondered if they should advertise this feature!
• The simple cylindrical product packaging was designed to be kept and reused for household purposes, which keeps the brand alive well after the initial purchase. Women in India loved the packaging because it was the perfect size for their bangle bracelets.
• Motorola considered using brand ambassadors (e.g. Bollywood stars) for the voice prompts on the phones. The stars thought it was weird to have their voice on the phones, so the idea was placed on the back burner.
• Motorola suggests that the phone is not feature-rich like its upmarket phones. I personally feel that that the simplicity of the MotoFONE is its *best* feature, however, especially for those of us who only use a mobile phone to make and receive calls!
• After the lecturette ended we had a chance to play with the phones, and I was impressed with the display, which was very easy to read. I tried trading my RAZR in for the MotoFONE, but I think they thought I was joking.

Demo Ditty: Kids in Cities

by Steven Babitch & Hyuniee Jung

Since September of last year, our Demo team has taken up the task of trying to answer the question: How can major U.S. cities attract and retain families with economic options? Our client for this project is CEOs for Cities, a non-profit network of urban leaders geared toward speeding up innovation in cities.

The first question that may come to mind is why families with economic options rather than low-income families? There are two main reasons for this. The first is that cities must hold on to these families in order to maintain the tax base, which subsidizes all of the services and infrastructure a city provides. The second is families with economic options spend more than low-income families, thereby supporting local businesses with greater effect. This is not to say that low-income families don't deserve our attention. Indeed, low-income families are on the agenda of every major U.S. city. However, without a mix of all economic levels, a city will suffer. Detroit, for example, has lost most of its middle and upper middle class families, lost its tax base, is the most poverty-stricken major U.S. city, and is therefore feeling the effects of losing this precious demographic.

To tackle this multi-faceted problem, the first semester was spent defining the dimensions of the problem as well as conducting primary and secondary research and analyzing the results. Part of our research involved a trip to the City of Philadelphia, which has done interesting work to revitalize its downtown region. We interviewed everyone from parents to education consultants to people in real estate to Paul Vallas, CEO of Philadelphia Public Schools. We toured neighborhoods, schools, and people's homes. In total, we interviewed 20 parents and 10 stakeholders in five states.

A tremendous amount of rich data and stories came out of our research. We quickly found that so many themes emerged from this wide-ranging topic that we knew we couldn’t tackle it all. So, we narrowed the field down to two critically important themes based on how well they could answer the following question: What issues can a Mayor actually address given the myriad of constraints he or she is faced with?

In answering this question, two themes emerged as the focus for the rest of the semester:

1. Childhood development is like prepping for the draft. Parents strive to prepare their children for the next step in life by seeking the best schools and extra-curricular activities. Resume-building begins as early as birth when parents hire bi-lingual nannies specifically to teach their children a second language.
2. Social Interaction in cities is natural, but in the suburbs it’s forced. Urban communal spaces are hubs of social interaction for families. These interactions provide parents with ways of sharing information relating to their children, work, housing, and daily life occurrences. Furthermore, these city communal spaces create a sense of safety and community.

We then prepared a workshop to generate concepts based on these themes. We invited participants to the workshop who were experts in public policy and city government, architects, designers, and real estate developers. We refined the plethora of concepts generated from the workshops into five categories:

• Signature Strengths, leveraging a city’s unique assets
• Giving city kids advantages: urban leadership, mentoring, and tutoring
• Providing family-centered information
• Encouraging happy accidents
• Branding the city as kid-friendly

We are currently in the final stretch of finalizing concepts and developing a plan for cities to take forward and implement. We have a conference call scheduled with members of CEOs for Cities to present our results, and we’ve heard from the Metropolitan Planning Council in the city of Chicago, who is looking to take our work and carry it forward. It’s been a long journey, but it has also been a rewarding learning experience.

Reintroducing Jay Doblin

by Enric Gili Fort

We hear a lot about Jay at ID. Sometimes, professors that knew him tell us stories about him, point at his writings or simply express their admiration and respect for his figure and work. Other times, students talk about him and drop tidbits that they have heard from the rumor mill or read in some publication. As a result, we have a partial and fragmented vision of who he actually was and his relationship with ID.

To gain a closer and more complete picture of Jay, I went to the only people currently employed at Doblin who had actually worked with him: Larry Keeley and John Pipino. Larry supplied me with a miscellanea of stories that will bring you closer to his persona, both at ID and in the design world. Pip produced an amazing array of visual material from Jay to delight your eyes and help conjure an image in your mind the next time you hear about Jay Doblin.

I hope this piece will trigger other people’s interest in this figure, and that in the future more articles will be written to expand our collective knowledge about him and increase our school pride through a better understanding of our history and our roots.

“We will hire that crass commercial hack over my dead body”

Larry Keeley: "To a very large extent, [in the 1950s] ID saw itself as a direct descendant from the Bauhaus. In that sense, it was about creating a culture of art and craft, trying to create a new sense of style. Moholy-Nagy’s famous photograms and a variety of other works epitomize the way in which the school saw itself. It was a powerful new vision of form, clearly connected to this one school and this one director. They brought Jay Doblin in in an attempt to try to cast a wide net, to see if he could be the next Director of the Institute of Design.

Serge Chermayeff, Ivan Chermayeff's dad, led the search committee for a new Director, who was appointed by the board. Amongst its members was Sybil Moholy-Nagy, the widow of Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, the former Director. Sybil’s words, shortly after Jay Doblin came for the interview and moments - nanoseconds, they say - after he walked out of the room, were, “We will hire that crass commercial hack over my dead body.”

Jay Doblin, knowing full well that Moholy-Nagy was a genius, came with a distinctive and revolutionary point of view: “There is only one strategy that I would consider if you bring me in as Director. The strategy that I would consider is to make the ID the world’s foremost functionalist design school. It is not that today. It would be a radical transformation. Today, you are fundamentally a great art school, one of the best in the world, but you were led by a genius, and so you have no place to go but down if you continue with your current strategy. On the other hand, there is no great functionalist design school and you can swiftly be the best in the world.”

And with that sort of pronouncement, and brooking no interference, Jay effectively breezed out of the room. That’s what gave rise to Sybil Moholy-Nagy’s outraged comment, which is a word-for-word quote.

I don’t know exactly how long the search committee stayed in business after Jay Doblin sort of breezed in and breezed out of the room, but one of the ways that I heard the story told was that they were so divided that they could not bring themselves to give him the position for a very long time and they interviewed many, many more people.

Ultimately, Serge Chermayeff said, “Look, of all the people we have interviewed, only one had a strong point of view, only one had an idea about what to do with the place. The rest of them were all perfectly nice but had no distinctive point of view.” And he recommended people to hire Jay.

It was controversial inside the board and it was controversial among faculty, as you would expect. A number of them were great artists and they did not want to be associated with something less than Moholy-Nagy’s view of what the Institute of Design could be.

A designer in camouflage

Jay Doblin went to Pratt Institute and his degree was in camouflage, which will surprise some modern ID students. But, remember, it was the war years and people were trying to do things that were relevant. I can remember more than one vivid conversation with Jay were he was teaching me principles of camouflage. What do you do to disguise a tank, or a factory, or ammunitions plant, or ammunitions storage facilities so that anybody on a bombing strafe will go past it and tend to drop their bombs in a way that misses the target? It is not a question of making it completely disappear. It is a question of actually trying to get it to appear somewhere else.

It may also interest modern-day design students to know that Jay’s favorite color palette, both for the clothes that he wore and for virtually all of the things he designed, went towards military draft colors. He loved khakis and olives and a color palette that was decidedly muted and in line with theories and practices of camouflage.

Next: Defining the ID curriculum

New IDer: Sriram Thodla

MDes, Fall 2009

Hi, I’m Sriram Thodla. I’m a foundation student at ID. I moved here with my wife from Boston where I worked as a retail analyst. I moved to the US when I was 11 with my family and lived in Queens, NY for several years before attending college at U.C Berkeley. I worked with my father after college at his startup and helped him start another company called Watch360. After 4 years, I decided to move to Boston for a change of scenery and to be closer to my girlfriend. Married: Yes. Children: None. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Not really

How did you end up at ID? What were your motivations for coming? Where were you working before?

Design was something i was passionate about for a long time. I got started when a friend introduced me to 3dstudio, a 3d modelling program when I was 17 and I was hooked. I dabbled it in for a long time while I was studying engineering and working in the valley for a tech startup. It was only in the last year that I realized I was not happy with where my career was headed and looked for a change. I heard about ID through BusinessWeek and it sounded exactly like what I was looking for and decided to give it a try.

I was working as a retail analyst for 3 years and in the last year, my position changed into more of a sales role. It’s something i wanted to try but not something I enjoyed which spurred me to reevaluate what I wanted to do.

What are your first impressions about ID?

Love at first sight – I knew after spending time at the open house that it was exactly the kind of place i needed to be. I felt that people here spoke my language and instantly felt at home. And talking to Chris Conley sealed the deal – he was and remains very inspiring.

What do you think you can bring to the people here at ID?

I’m the ultimate generalist and very curious and I love to party – does that work?

Is there anything amazing from your past hometowns that you think people should not miss?

The best pizza I’ve ever had is on Queens Blvd. It’s not to be missed if you are a fan of thin crust pizzas and I still make sure I never miss a chance to eat there when I head back to NY.

Which designers or thinkers have impressed you the most lately or you are following now?

Henrik Fisker – the former designer at Aston Martin

What are the websites you could not live without?

Gizmodo, Engadget, LiveLeak

What kind of activities are you planning to do in your free time (in case you have any) while at ID?

Learn spanish or portugese. Not sure why but I haven’t found nearly enough use for my French.

Past IDer: Brian Switzer

MDes, Fall 1993

My name is Brian Switzer and I'm a candidate for a faculty position in Communication Design, and a 1993 graduate of ID. I'm a co-founder of envision+ design network, a design consultancy specializing in branding and corporate identity, graphic design, and interaction design. I live in Bühlertal (Black Forest), Baden-Württemberg in Germany and am currently a professor at the Hochshule Konstanz. Married? Yes. Children? No. Politics? When they present me some real options yes – generally human centered (left). Religion? No

You already had a BFA in graphic design before coming to ID. What made you decide to pursue a Master of Design here?

I wanted to expand my mind and knowledge and learn about product design. Somewhere in there was a faint desire to teach someday and, at the time, the masters degree was the terminal degree for designers.

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID changed your career?

It expanded the way I approached problems. It didn’t make itself felt immediately; I had to find my way, but once i did it helped my vertical movement.

Can you imagine what would you be doing if you had not attended ID?

Working as a graphic designer somewhere.

What are the skills learned at ID that you use the most in your current practice as a designer?

Systematic thinking, conceptual thinking and user observation.

You were one of the team leads for a huge Systems project for Chuck's class that received recognition at an international design competition. Looking back, how would you characterize that experience? What were the most valuable takeaways, and how in the world did you manage/coordinate such a big team?

learing how to subdivide the team into good sized task groups, and keeping the energy high when spirits are low or the hour is late. i guess i did alright – although in all fairness the team was highly motivated and honest about its strengths.

What hard times did you have at ID, and what got you through them?

The work load was immense, and the location dangerous, but it was the group that gave each other strength. Kind of like a unit in Vietnam, we helped each other and thus have a strong bond.

If you could have changed one thing about ID while a student, what would it have been?

I would have liked to do a Systems project on city planning for the south side of Chicago. It was outside our window the whole time and we never addressed it.

How many nights did you sleep at school?

Only one all-nighter – I hate them with a passion – for the Nestle plastics competition. But my work schedule was 8 am until midnight 7 days a week. The place was hard on relationships.

I checked out the school you currently teach at, but Google's page translator only got me so far. Tell me about what you're teaching students at the Hochschule Konstanz Technical Institute in Germany.

I teach Analytical Image Design (a basic course in how to design), Design English (an introduction to design terminology, i.e. how to explain yourself) and Intro to Typography rolled into one. Then there is Information Architecture which is a 6th semester (junior) level project course in explaining complex information systems, from a user guide to a signage system. In the 7th semester (the final or senior level) I teach a course that prepares students for the profession (how to write an invoice, request a quote, negotiate and present, etc.) and advise them on the development of their bachelor thesis project. In the masters program, I teach a project on corporate communication and two compact modules on networked/remote communication and communication design in an international context.

Does your ID masters education influence what and how you teach at the Hochschule Konstanz? In what way(s)?

Definitely in the scope of what I am capable of teaching and in the subject matter as well. Additionally, it helps me prepare the classes themselves so that the student learning is maximized.

What do you think ID and American design can learn from German design?

The Germans and Swiss are very exacting in looking at and developing design languages for very narrow groups. Since the sensitivity for how one positions oneself in society is very fine-tuned here, this skill is in higher demand. In short: precision of expression. In addition, some of the roots of the craft of typesetting are more readily available and celebrated than in the US.

Speaking of "design languages," we use that term quite a bit at ID but it (like "design") seems to have multiple definitions depending on the context. What's your definition of design language? How has recent research in Linguistics or other communication fields informed and helped shape your understanding of design languages?

A design language for me is a tangible expression of an idea or concept. The more precise the language, the better the concept is revealed. Think of some vernacular objects that are wonderful in their directness; these are the examples I look to. Recent readings on the subject of rhetoric have helped me refine my definition. I have started from a communication design point of view, but I need to grow it over time to consider other languages involving space, time, and the third dimension.

You are currently being considered for a faculty position here at ID. With such a successful design career, several design awards, and a teaching gig in Germany under your belt, why do you want to return to the US and ID?

It seems like a good next step to me. The level of conversation, thinking, faculty and students that the school offers is pretty unique to the planet, and Chicago is a world-class city with many options for a designer/design consultant. I would have the chance to do and publish serious design research. On a personal note, I would be much closer to my family, who are not in Germany but in Urbana and in Michigan.

What unique skills, perspectives, and knowledge will you bring to the ID community?

I will bring a very precise knowledge of how to transfer the concepts into a wonderful tangible form--something that often gets dropped at ID and can have very large effects on the success or failure of a product, service or communication.

What is the last book that has impressed you the most?

Collapse by Jared Diamond, a must-read for all ID students (and people in general) who are serious about sustainability.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

Be prepared to (and good at) communicate your skills and their relevance to your employer, other companies, and other people. Be ready for skeptics, especially if you are young; credibility comes with age in some places. And just because business is the main playing field at the moment, don’t think it is the most important one. We all live on the same planet, and we are in the process of killing it by only thinking of short term or personal gain - this society we have worked so hard to build. These are very large complex questions facing humanity now, and I can think of no better place to face them that at ID.

Past IDer: Sylvia Davis

M.S.A.E. (Art Education - School of Design), 1967

My name is Sylvia Davis and I receivied my Masters in Art Education from the School of Design in 1967, before it was called the Institute of Design. I live in Chicago, my birthplace. I'm widowed; I enjoy having 3 children, 6 grandchildren, and 4 great-grandchildren. I have been presenting all of my favorite pieces of art in a moving slide presentation, Ken Burns style. I am also working on another book of my artwork, and experimenting with a new concept using plastics.

What was your background before coming to ID?

I was a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a degree in Art Education. I was teaching art in the Chicago Public Schools at the high school level and attended IIT in the evenings to earn my Master's Degree in Art Education. I studied law before attending the Art Institute.

Why did you choose to attend ID? What had you heard about it?

I knew that IIT was a good school and I decided that it was the right school for me to attend to expand my appreciation of art. When I attended the school it was called Illinois Institute of Technology. At that time it was not referred to as ID.

In which ways and dimensions do you think ID has changed your career?

I was always a teacher at heart, and my career was established before attending IIT. In fact, I was teaching high school at the same time that I was earning my Master's Degree in Art Education at IIT. However, receiving my Master's degree was very helpful with regard to knowledge. The classes at ID expanded my appreciation of design concepts. I found myself using design as a way of teaching my students a basic understanding of art. I also learned to use molds to make ceramics and continued to experiment with this technique.

In what ways did the classes at ID expand your appreciation of design concepts? What did you learn that you used?

My studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago were focused more on oil painting and working with live models. As an ID student, I began to experiment with a variety of different mediums. I enjoyed etching, embossing, collage, ceramics, and even welding, but it was batik that really captured my interest. It was an entirely new concept for me to work with and I was eventually inspired to delve into it on a deeper level when I began my thesis on batik.

The art of batik is highly regarded in the Far East, while little is known about it in the United States other than "tie-dye". In actuality, it is a very complex aspect of artistic expression. I had the opportunity to experiment with every conceivable expression of batik with out even using "tie-dye". I won first prize on a very delicate and detailed batik.

One of my first teachers at ID was Misch Kohn. Actually, he was the one teacher who inspired me the most because he presented a whole new area of art that was previously unknown to me and which ultimately ended up being the subject of my thesis.

What was your thesis about?

I was told that they never give a grade for a thesis, but mine was so long and unusual that they gave me an A+ and put it in the IIT library. This was a very uplifting response to a project that was quite demanding.

I endeavored to show how one might utilize the tremendous possibilities of the art of batik. The object was to relate the experimental to the aesthetic qualities in color and design and its limitations.

I am extremely grateful to Misch Kohn, my advisor, who was an exceptional person, teacher, and artist who inspired many students to express and to develop their creative potential.

Can you tell us more about your experiment with plastics?

I retired from teaching to take care of my mother and I continued to experiment with a variety of ideas just to keep my interest in art lively in my daily activities. The saturation of color and the endless possibilities for design as a result of working with plastic was both challenging and satisfying. In 2004, I participated in the 10th Annual Bare Walls Exhibit that is organized by the Alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Each artist had 8 hours to create a work of art that was presented in a silent auction to raise funds for scholarships. I created a triple collage out of free-form plastics on one large canvas and it was purchased at the end of the evening.

What were the most valuable classes that you took while at ID?

Ceramics and batik.

Which member of the faculty influenced you the most and why ?

My painting teacher. He was very supportive.

Did you have any challenges at school?

There were many challenges, but perseverance pulled me through. The biggest challenge was receiving my diploma. I was scheduled to receive my diploma in Jan of 1967, the year of the big snow storm in Chicago. We were told that it was necessary to come to register if we wanted to graduate. It looked like just about everyone showed up and it wasn't easy to get there because of the snow storm. It was a challenge to even get into the building because there was so much snow. As it turned out, graduation was canceled and postponed for the following semester. I was told it was the only graduation that was ever canceled at IIT. I received my degree in June of 1967.

ID has moved a few times. Where was the school when you attended?

When I attended the school, it was 3300 South, near the field where the White Sox play baseball.

One night I was working late and I was about to leave when I changed my mind and went back to my locker and took my things out. I went to the workshop to complete a project. Time went by quickly and I realized it was midnight. I didn't see any guards around to take me to the elevated, so I started walking. Suddenly, I became aware of two people walking behind me. That frightened me, so I walked faster. As I approached the train station, I saw more people. I walked up the stairs and noticed more and more people coming up the stairs. It was getting crowded. There were hundreds of people. I couldn't imagine where they were coming from at this hour. I asked a young man where these people were coming from. He said they were coming from the Sox baseball game. Then he asked me, "Where are you coming from?" I said, "I'm coming from school--IIT." "ugh", he replied, obviously feeling sorry for me that I hadn't attended the baseball game. I followed the group up to the train, happy to have some company at that late hour.

How many nights did you sleep at school?

None, but I did stay awake for many extended hours.

What other advice do you have for current and/or future ID students?

Find a good mentor who will support your work.

Word-of-the-day Unleashed

by David McGaw & the 5th floor communiity

ID Director Patrick Whiitney was in a tizzy. The Instiitute of Design needed to participate in IIT’s breathtaking new marketing campaign. “Hey Aniita,” he called out, “I know it’s past 6, but who is still here?” “Well,” she replied, “Judiith is here working on the Piitney-Bowes project, and I thought I saw Steve and Waewwan.”

Alas, Judiith was busy eating dinner—a vegetable piita with a side dish of fruiit. Mr. Babiitch was entranced by the new studio kiitty-cat, which had triggered his allergies and left him iitchy. So, that left Ms. Siitthisathainchai, who grabbed Iitsuro Shibata for some creative iiterations using Post-iit notes. Soon, ideas multiplied like rabbiits—no conceptual chastiity here! The two designers made a posiition map, and even consulted alumna Niiti Bahn, whom they reached on the beach in Tahiiti (but it was a no-nudiity one).

Excessive specificiity in the problem framing produced some monstrosiities. “I think this idea suffers from suspectiity,” Waew admitted. “Yes,” agreed Shibata, “Half our ideas are kiitschy, and several smack of vaniity.” In the end, experiencing not a little futiliity, they found only a single word that included both ID and IIT references [which we’ve omiitted because iit’s inappropriate and so we don’t find a sudden, last-minute increase in our tuiition].

“What a piity!” exclaimed a disappointed Patrick. He gazed out his window at the twiliit ciity, and decided to go home and watch his favoriite movie. Which was, of course, Chiitty-Chiitty Bang Bang.

Multimodal Visualization

by Waew Sitthisathainchai

At ID, you don't have a lot of time to make things look nice, so I have been working on doing things in the fastest way possible. I try to look for shortcuts; instead of drawing circles or perfect spheres, I make it in Rhino, print it out, and try to draw things on top of that. I am always evaluating when I'm drawing or just visualizing some ideas. What is the easiest way to doing this? If I need to draw a box I will do it in a 3-D program because I can draw a box in 2 seconds and it is going to be perfect. But, if I need to draw a face I obviously cannot do it in Rhino, so I will do it by hand.

A lot of the time, I do two things in the same space - I draw a box or a shiny surface in Rhino, print it out on paper, draw on the top of it, scan them both in, then maybe trace them with the marker so they look like came from the same space and look nice.

We're not here to learn how to be the best sketchers, we are here to be efficient. Efficiency can mean bypassing some skills you have. It means being smart about choosing the right tools to use.