Nails Inc. came to us asking for a proposal to discuss with Harrods. They had no agreed space and only a rough idea of a brief, involving a chocolate bar, but wanted to involve Harrods in their thinking at the earliest opportunity.

I love these sketches for a number of reasons. Adam in our studio started with some lovely scamp layouts exploring the space (sketches 1 and 2). The free swishes of the pen show his intention to create a fluidity to the space and a real sense of flow, visually bringing together all the various service elements required to allow the site to function.

The fun part comes when he cheated – sketch 3 shows his wireframe extrusion in Vectorworks. Adam wanted to take his early thoughts and put them into some real sense of scale (Vectorworks renders in scale) to ensure the design functioned visually.

Finally he simply used the wireframe extrusion as a basis for final sketches (4 and 5) which were enhanced with a little colour and a client visual.

The end result is an early presentation that allows both client and store to comment on and contribute to. A perfect example of how a sketch allows a client to perceive this as a start of the process not as a finished result.

It is true that computer aided design is invaluable when it comes to ease of altering complex drawings. It is not the case though that computers help the thinking process. Indeed, my experience is that it can and often does the opposite. Designers spend time 'setting up' drawings rather than actually thinking through the issues.

I saw this sketch lying around in the studio and I thought it worth a mention.

Here is a simple sketch showing the thinking before committing to computer. It's quicker (cheaper for the client) and shows the designer thinking about the symmetry and balance of the space in plan.

If you sketch long enough you'll end up inadvertently sketching to scale – it's quick and allows the mind to experiment – something that computers do not necessarily help you to do.

We had a great meeting with Mama Mio but they were confused as to the possibilities in terms of Point of Sale support material.

We could have spent time collating photos of competitors or even preparing more detailed renders to help the client understand the options. The simplest and quickest option was a series of explanatory sketches showing how their range could be supported at point of sale.

These four 'content library' sheets were sent over to the client to help them with their internal discussions.

The result was a comprehensive list of requirements without costly or time consuming presentation preparation.