[Big Ideas]

For me. CAD can be great for drafting. But there are times when you want to get a spacer made and a hand drawing only takes a minute if you know how to do it.

More important for me is that CAD tends to NARROW and FOCUS my thinking. This is good for detail design and drafting but death to brainstorming and broad concept exploration. Being able to sketch, render, and draft in multiple views by hand, is IMPERATIVE to getting concepts recorded, and shared with out the burden of knowing the little details of a concept. Even better is being comfortable combining BOTH skills. CAD drawings of known items (C-rio, wheels, motors, . . .) give you scale and hand sketching fills in the blanks. This is the "Paper Dolls" part of design, also know as "System Drafting".

In any case, a drawing is important. You should never machine anything without having a drawing of some type to work from.