"The computer is
a unique sketching tool, when you let it be. It helps us see things in ways
we couldn't see then before. When reviewing sketches implemented on the computer,
print them out before evaluating them. Put these sketches beside pencil sketches.
Rip and fold the computer sketches to isolate ideas. Draw on the computer sketch.
Don't mistake a sketch for a finished layout and treat it as sacred and unchangeable.
Above all, don't present or evaluate the computer sketch on the computer screen.
You eliminate a world (one that is outside of the computer) of influences that
could impact that sketch by doing so.
Also, remember
that you may know you are sketching on the computer, but the client doesn't.
When something looks finished, a client assumes it is finished. Once that happens,
you may be forced to stop at the idea phase, long before you've found the best
idea, or polished the one you just presented.
That's one reason why the computer is both blessing and curse rolled into one expensive tool. And that's just what it is: a tool. It is the pencil of the late twentieth century, nothing more. It is not the brain. It is not a designer, a photographer or an illustrator. Designers have a responsibility to do what we are paid to do -- design. Although the computer can be a great tool for making visions reality, too many designers use it as their only tool, or worse, as a substitute for thinking. These designers use the computer as a sketching tool, thinking tool, writing tool, typesetting and illustration tool, and production tool. All this is well and good, until you can't tell where one starts and another ends. Then the tool has mastered the designer, not the other way around, and the designer may have begun abdicating his responsibility to the computer."