Long before the computer is switched on.
Before the software, the screens, the layers of colour and the pixels.
Before keyboard shortcuts, artificial intelligence and all the digital tools.
It all begins with a pencil.
Almost everything I have created over the past several decades began with the same small moment: the first line on a sheet of paper.
Whether it is a poster, a postage stamp, a coin, a logo, a book, a medal or even a poem, the moment an idea passes from thought into the world is almost always the moment when graphite meets paper.
There is no technological magic in it.
Only a thought that has become a line.
Although I work with advanced software every day, enjoy technology and readily embrace new tools, there is always a pencil lying on my desk.
Not out of nostalgia, but out of experience.
The pencil is the first heartbeat of an idea.
Paper Is My Territory
Some people see a sheet of paper as a surface to write on.
I see it as territory.
It is the place where I am allowed to make mistakes, erase, hesitate, change direction and begin again.
The page does not demand perfection from me.
It only asks me to think.
Ideas, therefore, do not wait until I reach the studio.
They arrive in a café, at an airport, in the middle of a meeting or over dinner. More than once, I have found myself scribbling on a paper napkin or the back of an old sheet of paper, simply because I did not want to lose a thought that might disappear a minute later.
I do not wait for an idea.
I chase it.
And when I catch it, I anchor it to the paper.
Sometimes it is a sketch that takes no more than twenty seconds.
A few lines.
A circle.
An arrow.
A small mark.
Perhaps just two signs that no one but me could understand.
But they are enough.
The idea is no longer floating in the air.
It has acquired a body.
The Hand Thinks
We are accustomed to saying that the brain generates ideas.
I believe the hand thinks too.
For me, the hand is a direct extension of thought.
As the pencil moves across the page, I am not merely drawing.
I am searching.
Testing.
Changing.
Erasing.
Adding.
At that very moment, it is not only the forms that begin to emerge,
but also the concept,
the composition,
the layout,
and the relationships between all the elements.
Where the headline will be.
Where the text will sit.
Where the centre of gravity will fall.
Where silence will remain.
All of these things are born long before I open a design application.
Quite often, I begin by sketching one idea, only for a better one to appear halfway through.
That is one of the great gifts of scribbling.
It allows thought to move.
A Sketch Is a Beginning, Not a Commitment
Some people think a sketch needs to be beautiful.
I think it needs to be honest.
It is not intended for an exhibition.
It is not meant to impress anyone.
It is a conversation between me and myself.
Sometimes I add notes, arrows or a single word to remind myself of what I saw at that particular moment.
A week later, that one word can take me straight back to the original idea.
That is its entire purpose.
To be a bridge.
Not a destination.
Why Not Start on the Computer?
It is a question I am often asked.
After all, today we can draw directly on a tablet, use artificial intelligence and produce an impressive result within minutes.
True.
But to me, the computer is an excellent place to develop an idea.
Not always to give birth to one.
The computer is precise – the pencil is free.
The computer asks for decisions – the scribble allows hesitation.
The computer seeks order – the pencil welcomes chaos too.
And it is precisely within that chaos that some of the best ideas are born.
I almost always photograph or scan the sketch, bring it into the computer and continue working over it.
At that point, technology enters the process, and it does what it does exceptionally well.
But it enters only after the idea has already been born.
The First Line
Over the years, almost all my working tools have changed.
The drawing board was replaced by the screen.
Cutting knives disappeared.
Software came and went.
Today, artificial intelligence has also joined the creator’s toolbox.
But one thing has not changed.
The first line.
There is still something in it that no software can offer.
It is intuitive.
It is personal.
And it is human.
Perhaps that is why, even today, after all the technological revolutions, almost every new idea of mine begins in exactly the same place it did decades ago.
With a pencil.
And a blank sheet of paper.
On the Desk
Right now, in front of me, lie a sharpened pencil, a small eraser and a crumpled sheet of paper I folded and slipped into my pocket on the way home.
There are only three lines and a single arrow on that sheet.
Perhaps they will never become a poster, a book or a postage stamp.
But every major work I have ever made began, once, in exactly this way.
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