Drawn to think: Design visualcy

Design students often hesitate to use drawing as a thinking tool, wary of expectations for figurative outcomes and the evaluative traditions that shape the status quo in product design. This study draws on object-oriented ontology (OOO) and vibrant materialism to explore how a drawing tool—specifically the pencil—might act as an agent in rethinking the pedagogy of semiogenic design visualcy. The study proposes micro-camera activities that capture the pencil’s perspective to produce a radically altered visual and auditory encounter with drawing. Tracing the pencil’s entanglements reveals drawing not simply as representation but relation. The line becomes both a mark and an event. In this reframing, authorship and perception blur in the pencil’s quiet acts of resistance. Through small experimental interventions, the pencil invites a reimagining of relationships between tools, space and authorship. This shifts drawing from depiction toward encounter, opening possibility for new pedagogical approaches to visual thinking in design.