Hey guys, it's me, Will Paterson.
Today I'm going to be showing you
what I use in my logo design process, used on my table, my desk right
here for all of my work.
I don't know about you, but for me, I'd love to see what other
graphic designers, what other creative professionals use as a
day to day device.
So what pens they use, what notepads?
So hopefully this will help you, inspire you and answer a bunch
of questions that you you guys have left on the comments about
what's on my desk.
Okay, first of all, paper.
What do I use?
Well, I use field notes.
These are tiny notebooks.
Well, they're not tiny.
They're just perfect pocket sized notebooks that you can
carry around with you. As a graphic designer, someone who
does logo design, especially, I'm always getting inspired by
things when I'm outside the office.
A lot of my inspiration happens when I'm sat down and I'm in
the zone, but I'll be going out for a walk, and I'll see
something that will spark inspiration.
Maybe it's a shape, or maybe it's just some idea that I have
and I don't have my notebook, or I don't have a way of recording that.
Well, my memory is terrible, so I carry on field notes with me
all the time because I can have any idea I want written down,
drawn down.
90% of my logo design work, if not 95%.
I mean, pinch of salt there.
But a lot of my work is done inside of just one of these
little field notes.
I use them even when I'm at the office.
They've always got a place in my pocket, and without them,
I would just forget the idea or forget the shape that I saw.
So that's what you see on my desk a lot.
Now, to draw, I'm just going to get out of my pocket now.
I use a Rotring 800 0.5 millimeter retracticable mechanical.
A pencil that's a bit of a mouthful.
Have you ever had it where you've got your field notes,
let's say, or anything piece of paper on you
and you don't want to be drawing with a pen but you
kind of have to because it retracts back in?
If you don't draw with a pen, you're kind of left with a
pencil that's stuck in your pocket, and it keeps jabbing
you in the leg or you break the lead.
It's just a mess.
Well, the great thing about this is that it is retractable.
It's all this mechanical retractable thing.
It's like a fidget spinner, really satisfying.
I've been a fan of Rotring for a long time.
In fact, my first proper mechanical pencil is the same one,
but without the retractable part.
It's just sort of stood there.
I've had this since I started my career, and it's sort of
here on my desk for me to use whenever I want.
But with this, it's small enough, but large enough to
hold in the hand nicely, but small enough to be in my pocket
next to my field note.
It's about the same size as a field note actually as well,
which is quite nice.
So that's the number one pencil and the number one notebook I use.
Something that you guys have seen on my videos is this
really long portrait notepad.
But this is made fully from brass and it's got a cork bottom,
it's really heavy and it was made by Grovemade.
Even this felt desk mat was made by Grovemade.
And the little container for my plant is made by Grovemade.
This is my to do list and just random notes section.
This is where I just write notes to do list, what I'm going to do.
If I think of an idea, I just pick up the pen, which is also brass
and it works kind of like the Rotring one.
And I'll just write it out.
It's quite nifty actually, having it to be longer than
it is wider, because on your desk you want it to take up less
space lengthwise, because a lot of what you use is kind of wide,
like your keyboard and this desk mat.
So having a long list of things that are just really short
bullet points, it's great for that.
The pen holder was made of brass as well.
And it is heavy.
You could knock someone out with that.
It's pretty crazy.
Grovemade did send me these things out to be in the videos,
but I genuinely use them as well.
They're very, very nice and premium.
What you're seeing here is tracing paper.
This is 150 GSM tracing paper, which is thick.
It's kind of like baking paper.
Now, a lot of you guys seem to think from one of my last
videos that I don't draw anymore.
It's not what I said at all, which is hilarious.
In fact, most of what I do is draw.
But this tracer paper is perfect to me.
It's an A5 size because when I have a
sketchbook like my field notes, I can just place this on top of it.
It doesn't take a lot of space on the table.
I can actually take this with me as well.
It goes into my bag.
The problem is with the full A4 ones that get all messy
when you're using them.
So I like the smaller ones.
And also it is 150 GSM.
Why?
Well, because it stops it from creasing.
Most annoying thing when tracing a logo is creasing the
paper because you have to kind of redo it again and it doesn't scan properly.
So what I do with trace paper is I use it to refine logos,
use it to refine lettering.
And the reason why I still use this about my iPad is because
I feel like I get less distractions from it.
Procreate and the iPad is great and I still use my iPad, obviously.
However, it doesn't have that same feeling.
I think the fact that you can zoom in on it doesn't help.
I think it kind of just distracts you a little bit on
the iPad, if I'm being honest.
Not saying that it's not a good piece of software.
So yes, that's what I use.
Tracing paper, it's great.
Get 150 GSM or up to 100 GSM.
You'll notice it's very thick.
Now this funky looking pen is the Pilot Parallel Pen for any
of my calligraphy followers out there.
You know, obviously I do calligraphy.
In fact, that's what a lot of my logo types are inspired by
calligraphy and hand lettering.
Well, the Pilot Parallel Pen is essentially a fountain pen, but
it's just flat nipped.
So that means that you can create gothic or black letter
calligraphy very easily.
I say easily.
It's not actually easy to learn.
It looks simple when you see the professionals do it.
And I'm no calligraphy professional.
It's not something that I do every day, but it works really
well and nicely.
But it also has a few different functions for me as well.
If I'm quickly wanting to block something out like a serif,
sans serif form or even a serif form, I can use this.
But this is always on my desk because when I'm creating logo marks,
I like to have different forms, forms of writing.
I like to be able to use different tools because
it inspires what comes out of me then.
If you want to learn more about black letter calligraphy,
I have got a video about it.
But just let me know down in the comments if you want more
videos about them and I can teach you what I know.
I've also got a book that teaches it too.
So you can go and find that. The next one is again, another pen.
But it's actually a brush pen.
A lot of my logo type design stuff, especially ScrawlrBox's logo,
which you'll see later on in the video was done with brush pens.
These are essentially squishy pens where you can go thick and thin.
It's kind of like the old style of traditional calligraphy but modern
and you can get some crazy styles out of it.
Well, the one that I use is this Uni Pin Fine Line Brush Pen.
It just seems thicker than most other ones but also the most
important thing is it's pocketable.
You can take this with you wherever you go.
Brush calligraphy is great.
Again for quickly jotting down or quickly getting some logo
type inspiration.
Maybe you want to do like a case study or one letter.
I call it form storming where you just go ahead and create
100 different types of that letter to see what you can do with it.
You can do that pretty easily with just a brush pen and your sketchbook.
The next thing I use is, I'm sorry, it's another pencil, but
you need to know about it.
It's the Palomino Blackwing.
Now, I've always loved Palomino ever since I got my grubby
hands on one of them.
The graphite in them is so smooth and it's kind of meant
for sketching and music composers.
Now, this black one is actually really soft, so you get really
thick lines in it.
And I like this for just general jotting down quick
ideas onto large pieces of paper.
However, this blue one that you're seeing is a
collaboration between ScrawlrBox and Palomino.
And the coolest thing about it is that because I designed the
logo for ScrawlrBox, you see the logo on it and it's cool AF,
but these pencils are great.
And you can see me sharpening it with a two point sharpener,
which means that you get this extra long fine point.
It just gives you better accuracy, I guess.
I don't know really what it does, but I like it.
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Now, the big one that a lot of people ask and it changes every
now and then is what keyboard are you using.
Well, this one is a new one.
I got it about last week.
It's called the Keychron K1.
I love mechanical keyboards.
I do a lot of typing.
In fact, most of my videos, you wouldn't believe it.
I write a lot beforehand to help formulate my thoughts.
I also write a newsletter every week.
So if you want to go ahead and subscribe to it down below,
you get some free stuff with it as well.
But this Keychron K1 has got Cherry.
I don't think it's Cherry MX but I think it's red Gateron, reds.
Something like that.
Anyway, it's nice.
It feels good.
It was sort of made so you could mod it and customize it.
But I kind of like the way it looks now.
It's a great experience with the keyboard.
The only regret I have is I got the American version, not the ISO version.
I keep doing that as well.
It's kind of annoying.
If you enjoyed this video, make sure to subscribe and then
check out this video here.
It's good.
Trust me, it's good.
I'm just going to sit here and tell you to go to see this video right here.