Creative Idea Generation with Ultra Fine Black Sharpie Markers

A common question I hear is “where do you get your ideas?” I’m not sure I can answer that satisfactorily—it’s a combination of lifelong interests and intuition. I can tell you how I get them to paper though.

My favourite design tool is the humble Ultra Fine Black Sharpie marker. You can buy them by the box from Staples (or any office supply place). When I want to generate a bunch of ideas, I sit down with a Sharpie and a pile of copier paper, or some inexpensive equivalent. The idea is to remove mental blocks or friction and give free reign to the imagination. I don’t try to clear my head or exert conscious influence on the pen in my hand. I simply draw, letting my instincts guide the line. The critical process of selection and refinement comes later. This Sharpie step is similar to the shitty first draft approach to writing. I thought I’d show you three of the Sharpie drawings the the finished work that came out of them. Do you have any go-to techniques for prying ideas out of your imagination? Feel free to share them in the comments.

The world is large, but in us it is as deep as the sea — R. M. Rilke

I’ve been dividing my creative time between writing and drawing this week, so I’ve been doing a lot of ink-work—it’s easier to toggle between these two pursuits if there isn’t a lot of set-up or fussy equipment to deal with. I’ll get back to painting once my novel draft is complete. I’ll show some of that work in later posts.

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Thanks, Richard.