Tools are cool because they make work easier. They shift drudge from our shoulders to pistons or circuitboards. But for the designer or writer, tools aren’t all applesauce and Doritos. Sometimes making things “easier” leads to worse results.
This is not to romanticize ditch-digging or punch-card programming. It’s probably better that humans no longer do some things by hand. But when it comes to designing experiences for other humans, let us not surrender all our processes to software and artificial intelligence.
Paper and pen is how designers and writers (and writer designers) did their work not too long ago. I promise this is not a twee paper-fetish manifesto. I don’t care what pen you use. You can buy your paper from a pharmacy. What matters is that you step away from digital screen and one-click automations, and think with your hands, just for a moment.
Because paper and pen are both tools and a kind of practice. Like meditation or dynamic stretching. It’s a way to get goopy.
When you slow things down with paper and pen, something magic happens: you achieve a kind of syzygy between the mechanics of your hand, the images in your eyes, and the electricity of your thoughts. This is called presence.
If the designer willing to undertake it, this practice of paper and pen (and presence) offers three valuable gifts:
It slows you down → So you can think clearly
It allows imperfection → So you are free to innovate
It removes options → So you don’t optimize prematurely
Paper and pen encourages exploratory, under-polished, and straight-up impossible ideas. This is critical if you’re trying to dream up something new. Software can constrain you to the realm of the possible and what’s defined by your design system.
Paper and pen also make plain your mistakes. There is no backspace or delete. Everything in life takes training, and learning to tolerate imperfection is a critical skill for a designer.
Paper and pen hides optimizations you don’t need when exploring. You can spend all day tinkering and forgetting to design. You can’t really yakshave your paper and pen “stack” (I mean you can and I have), but in general your options are “draw line or not.” You can’t mess with fonts, you don’t have to download updates, and best of all, paper and pen won’t grind to a halt because you have too many pages open.
If you don’t want artificial intelligences to take your job, make your job the stuff that artificial intelligences cannot do. If you shovel coal into the beast don’t be surprised when the beast steals your shovel, smacks you in the face, and makes you find something else to do.
Pick up your paper and pen once in a while. It’s good for your soul.