Celebrating Hand-Drawn Art in an Automated World

The entryway to my friend's house has a large drawing of a pink and blue flower with a creepy eyeball in the middle of it. It reminds me of a biblically accurate angel, if it were to grow in a field. The colors and strongly drawn lines drew me in.

When I started coming up with ideas for the logo and color pallete for Sissone, I thought about something black and grey, like my own tattoos or my favorite calligraphy drawings. Then, I remembered all of the cyberpunk colorscapes and textured worlds that inspired me to continue creating art in the first place. The high-contrast eyeball flower fit into my vision, and I eventually found the artist's portfolio online.

Out of the hundreds of portfolios I had viewed during the interview stages for my right-hand "draw-ist", I had never seen one that emphasized drawing so heavily. Among the beautiful dreamscapes, campaigns, and color combinations I saw, there was very little that felt human, even if it looked nice. Art and branding are subjective, of course. Like the marker drawings at the local fish store telling me that the lionfish is poisonous and not for sale, I tend to be drawn to works that feel real. Even if that just means some marker strokes are stronger or messier than others, and not necessarily on purpose.

The disruptive techonologies around us encourage us to do things the fastest way so often. AI is peddled as useful for everything. It can be tempting to choose automation or generation over patience, especially with branding. Why wait for someone to draw and refine digital art pixel-by-pixel when an AI program can do it? For us, the simplest reason is: it's human.

It's a gift to have the time and support to draw something by hand. The resulting assets and pieces will be one hundred percent yours, from the colors, to the brushstrokes, to the size of the image, to the clarity, etc. One of the interesting developments of our modern technology is the ability to hand draw a digital asset. An imaginative designer can use their drawing and painting skills to deliver a beautiful and highly original end product with little flourishes of imperfection.

What is more beautiful than originality?