In truth, good designers are primarily problem solvers. They seek to understand the purpose, audience, technical parameters, and strategic nuances of an assignment before reaching for their Moleskine sketchpads or going to town in Photoshop. Next time you work with a designer, start with an overview of your goals, before diving into a discussion about colors, fonts or materials.
The confusion stems in part from the fact that some designers are excellent at drawing, like Glaser. But for designers, drawing–or thumbnail sketching–is a way of thinking. It’s a way to plan and visualize creative solutions for a logo, a poster, a chair, a website, or a room’s interiors, just as a mathematician works out equations on a blackboard. While the tools of artists and designers look similar–pens, styluses, Adobe creative tools, color swatches–their methods, training and potential are vastly different.