Well I would say a lot! I will indulge you with an explanation. “Thumbnails”, or more specifically “Thumbnail sketches”, are one of those seemingly small things that play a big roll. First off lets cover what they are. Thumbnail sketches are semi appropriately named so because they are a series of SMALL sketches. While some of them may not be literally the size of one’s thumbnail, they still stay decently small. There are usually many and they are done quickly. What is their purpose you ask? Well lets delve deeper shall we?
Thumbnail sketching is a very important step in the design process. It is part of what I call the discovery process. It’s a way of dumping out all of your ideas for the layout or design of a particular project out of your brain and onto paper. With these quick sketches you don’t worry too much about detail, they are very rough. The quicker the better so you can focus more on the general idea rather than the fine details yet. For me it is the second step in my process. My first step is always getting a good brief and research of the project and or subject matter of which I am designing for. I then use that the fuel my thumbnails!
The neat thing about thumbnails is how they influence each other and start a snowball effect of ideas. You might draw one sketch that inspires another idea, then another, then yet another. I try to force myself to at least do 100-150 thumbnails. It seems like a lot but it pays. I will always hit a point early where I FEEL like I have enough good ideas but when you push further even BETTER ideas are ready to be found.
There is such freedom in this process. With these little guys you are not worrying about fine details, just go with it. You don’t worry about how stupid or great an idea seems to be. Thumbnails bring out possibilities that you didn’t even know where there until you just went for it. Whatever comes to your brain needs to be given a chance at this stage.
Sometimes inspiration for a thumbnail or two will come to you just about anywhere and that is ok! All you need is something to sketch it onto. You will find that some of my thumbnails are sketched out on a restaurant napkin or notebook paper.
After I feel I have sketched out enough ideas, I use the thumbnails to choose the best options and off I go to the refinement stage. As I have mentioned before I refine quite a bit on paper before even getting into the computer. Once those usually 3-4 options are refined on paper they are then refined more and finalized in the computer.
When I am all finished with a project I always hang on to all the sketches I did and bind them together so that I can look back and see my visual thought process for that particular project. It is great to see how things evolve.
Never underestimate the power of a thumbnail sketch.
