Video-game designer Ste Pickford wonders why he still sketches on a pad with pen and pencil in this Digital Age. From his blog post:

“I’m no luddite. I’ve been happily working as a designer on computers for over 25 years, and I’m comfortable making graphics and building finished work on a computer. I can happily draw and paint with the Wacom pad (and even with a mouse if I have to), and I have no problems staring at the screen for hours on end, but I still revert back to pen and paper when I want to work out something new.

Why is this?

Is it because, despite my extensive computer experience, I started drawing before the computer age? I had never seen a computer before the age of 10, and probably not touched a mouse until I was about 17, but I had a pencil in my hand from the age of about 2 or 3. Perhaps the younger generation of designers, who’ve used computers since they were born, will be able to go completely digital and never need paper at all?

Or, more likely, is it that there still isn’t a software / hardware combination that offers the flexibility and ease-of-use of pen and paper, when you have unformed ideas that you need to explore?

Where is the digital paper I dreamed about as a kid?”

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Spiromania, 1973: