Non-electronic Drawing Materials

Non-electronic drawing materials are physical tools used to plan work by hand. They include pens, pencils, rulers and paper. Because they are physical objects you can touch and use to create pre-production documents, they count as hardware too, even though they do not plug in or use power.

You can use these materials to sketch a layout, write short notes or arrange early ideas. A ruler helps you draw straight edges for a rough page plan, while a pencil lets you rub out and change a line without starting again. The paper becomes the working surface for the document.

Where hand drawing is chosen

Storyboards, visualisation diagrams, mind maps and mood boards are often created on paper or board. Drawing by hand can be easier when you do not have a graphics tablet, because you can pick up a pencil and start straight away. Paper also lets you sketch quickly and annotate ideas in the margin without opening software or saving a file.

This makes non-electronic materials especially useful in the early stages of planning, when ideas are changing fast. For example, you might sketch four rough storyboard frames for an animation club film in pencil, then rub out the weakest one and redraw it in a new position once you have settled on the order.

A hand-made document can later be digitised if it needs to be shared or edited on a computer, but the first planning work can still be done with simple drawing materials.