Abstract:

Art and its interaction with technology has shown itself in different forms and representation techniques throughout history. New forms of digital art continued to be invented pushing the boundaries of creative expression. Traditional activities such as painting and sculpture have been radically transformed by digital techniques and media, while entirely new forms, such as net art, digital installation and virtual reality have emerged (Wands, 2006).

Today, a great variety of digital tools are employed in areas such as painting, drawing, animation, sculpture and photography etc.. Computer graphics software such as 2D, 3D and 4D drafting and modelling along with hardware such as digital cameras, scanners, printers, VR glasses, tablets and pens etc. have become practical and popular tools for professionals as well as common people.

Especially, with the invention of graphic tablets, digital drafting has become much more practical for architects, cartoonists, graphic artists and fashion designers etc. These digital drawing and skecthing applications provide a wide variety of drawing pencils, brushes and color options together with zooming, measuring, perspective help, portfolio creation, file saving and online sharing options. Carrying all these tools in one’s pockets in a tablet or in a smartphone, should definitely lead to a great increase in his creativity.

This paper questions whether this statement is applicable for architectural design education and examines the potentials of digital sketching for Architectural Design Education. In the scope of this paper, three different top rated digital sketching applications, will be compared according to their promises for creativity. A group of students from Architectural Design Faculty will be creating digital sketches, which will later be compared with their hand sketches to trace the signs of enhanced creativity and originality. Surveys will be held to learn about their previous sketching habits and feelings for the new digital skecthing media. What may the challenge for designers be for replacing the traditional sketch books and charcoal pens with these digital sketching tools? While digital tablets or smart phones have already become extensions to our bodies, how digital skecthing tools can be intensively integrated to design education?

Keywords:

Digital sketching, creativity, originality, architectural design education, applications.