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Designing Installs Usin Have you tried your hand at drawing? Start using Procreate today to plan projects without having to cut a single piece of material. WORDS BY BRANDON GREEN
When I was younger, I did a lot of sketching. I got my inspiration from aircraft or car-related books I borrowed from the library, and I went through countless notebooks trying to recreate what I saw in books. I am still fascinated with design and how the lines of a vehicle flow together. I got to the point where I could draw an F-14 or a Porsche 911 from memory, although I never mastered human faces or live subjects. Over the years as I turned my mobile electronics obsession into a hobby, I relied on some of those skills for sketching enclosure designs, but I never really put a whole lot of stock into how valuable and useful it could be—kind of like the math we thought we’d never use when we were growing up, yet we use it daily
50 Mobile Electronics May 2020
as adults. People like Tom Miller and Randy Kunin were drawing designs to show clients, and I got to see their amazing results. I wondered whether I could also use drawing to better serve clients in my own business—and what would I need in order to make that happen? Getting Started With Design Using Procreate I have always been comfortable with a pencil, but Tom gave me some advice and helped me start with pens. After seeing what he was able to do with Procreate, I knew I had to start learning to use the program. I do not want to get into the “why” behind designs; Tom teaches that in parts of his courses at Mobile
Solutions, which I highly recommend attending. What I want to do is give you some general knowledge you can use to start drawing today, and I’ll share how we’ve used this skill here at The Car Audio Shop. While I’ve always been able to create what I saw in my head, I couldn’t build it if I had no idea where it was supposed to be placed. Sometimes a sketch is helpful to get the ideas flowing. And although that’s been great for me, conveying what’s in my head to clients—or to others helping me with a build—has proven a bit more challenging. It’s hard for a client to justify cost or approve an elaborate design you only have in your head. This is where drawing can be a game changer. Most of what I had done in the past
