Sketching and wireframing are a specialized style of drawing, used for fleshing out preliminary complex ideas, group brain-storming, a lo-fi method for evaluating interaction concepts, and as a way of roughly perfecting a design technique.
Sketch and wireframe paper is essentially drawing paper that is designed specifically for this purpose. You could use it for web page design, web app design, architectural or structural design, graphic design, movie direction, animation... basically any type of design that needs a physical creative outlet or group collaboration.
Not all sketch and wireframe sheets are universal, most are specialized for a particular medium, such as storyboards and specialized grid paper (axonometric perspective templates).
Below you will find a concise collection of ready to print sketching, wireframing and note-taking templates. Most, as expected, are geared towards the design community, but there are also templates that could be used within any industry and for any purpose.
You may be interested in the following related posts:
- 35 Excellent Wireframing Resources
- 50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files
Wireframing and Sketching Paper
Paper Browser - It's a browser, only in paper
This PDF can be used for creating a website's wireframe. The entire PDF is proportionally scaled at a 1024x768 screen resolution, with guides for designs that use a 960px or 800px layout and with each grid sized at 32x32px. The PDFs are available in both A4 and A3.
Web Sketching Template - Single Page
This A4 template has been designed for sketching a website with a resolution of 1024x768.
iPhone Wireframe Templates for Sketching
These iPhone paper prototyping and design templates are available to download in two different styles: the basic iPhone design template and a more advanced one that also has the iPhone sketch template but leaves space for making notes. Both can be downloaded in a .zip-file which also contains the templates in Viso (VSD) format.
iPad Idea Sheet
This template has been designed for wireframing iPad apps. There are three templates within the zip-archive: The first template allows for full size iPad sketching (100%), the second has two iPad templates (at 70% of the normal size) and the last has four iPads sized at 50% of the regular size.
iPhone Idea Sheet
This iPhone idea sheet has been designed by the same people that released the iPad Idea Sheet above. The .zip-file contains 4 different printable templates: two templates are sized at 100% of the actual iPhone with a choice of horizontally or vertically aligned sheets and the other two sketching templates each have 9 iPhone designs (sized at 75% of the actual iPhone) and again with a choice of either horizontal or vertical orientation.
iPhone Application Sketch Template
This iPhone template has a grid with the grid squares sized at 10px; it is designed with tick marks to indicate the heights of the status bar, nav bar, keyboard, tab bar and toolbar. The download is a 300dpi A4 JPEG.
Android Wireframe Templates
This sketching set for Android contains templates for Nexus One, HTC Dream, HTC Hero, HTC Magic, HTC Tattoo and Motorola Droid.
Wireframe Print and Sketch Template
A4 & A3 Sketching Paper
This printable grid sketching paper can be useful for the initial stages of web design, concept designing. You can choose between the A4 size or A3.
Basic Wireframing Paper
This is a basic grid box which you can use for concept diagrams, sitemaps, spectrums, tables, and whatever else you may need to sketch.
Wireframe and Notes Paper
This is a wireframe grid divided into 24 columns with gutters between each column. The column units are numbered along the top of the grid. To the right of the grid there is a ruled column for adding labels and annotations.
Two-by-Two Wireframe Paper
This template is a two by two grid with 4 cells divided by an x-y axis.
Blank Grid and Graph Paper
ZURB Grid Paper
With this grid paper you can connect the dots to give your sketches a little more structure while exploring refined concepts on paper.
Graph Paper with Two Lines Per Inch - Letter-Sized
This basic letter-sized graph paper has two aqua blue lines per inch.
Four Dots Per Inch A4 Paper
This printable dot paper has four dots per inch and is in portrait (vertical) orientation on letter-sized paper.
Storyboard Templates
4 Cell Storyboard Paper
This is a basic storyboard sketching template with 4 cells with each cell having a simple grid.
MBTI Sketching Paper for Ideation
With this MBTI sketching paper for ideation sessions, you can describe a design challenge on every piece of sketching paper which represents the problem you want to solve. There’s also some space for annotations. You can download the PDF in A4 and A3.
ZURB Sketchsheets
A set of editable PDF sketchsheets ideal for rough ideas and presentation to clients. There are five slightly different templates in the .zip-download package.
Storyboard with Notes
A storyboard template with 4 cells, with the area space beneath each cell for notes.
Web Sketching Template - 6 Pages
An A4 web design sketching template with space for notes.
Scenario, Taskflow and Grid Sketchsheets
This all-in-one PDF download package contains scenario, task-flow and grid templates. All can be useful during the early stages of web development process. Here are the three templates:
Lined and Notepad Paper
A4 Narrow-Ruled
This letter-sized lined paper is narrow ruled in portrait (vertical) orientation.
8.25" x 11" Lined and Squared Paper
This lined and squared paper template is sized 8.25"x11", and available in both PDF and JPEG.
Speciality Paper
Printable Cornell Note Paper
This Cornell Notes paper is lined and additionally formatted with two large blank areas for a summary and a cue (on which to later note and review main ideas, ask questions, or draw diagrams).
Moleskine Writing Template by Rod Graves
This template is based on a medieval page layout principle described in Robert Bringhurst’s classic book on typography, The Elements of Typographic Style. The Large sized notebook’s dimensions are nearly equivalent to a Golden Section rectangle (1:1.61803…). The design of the template is related to the golden section / the Fibonacci sequence.
Penmanship Paper
You can use this dashed paper to practice penmanship. The PDF is in the size A4 and has twelve lines per page, in portrait (vertical) orientation.
Calendars
Weekly Printable Calendar
This calendar's overview format lets you prioritize tasks, schedule appointments, and jot down notes all on one page. Custom options include Letter and A4 printing sizes, start day of the week, time range, and multiple languages.
Monthly Printable Calendar
This template lets you create printable monthly calendars for letter and A4 paper sizes.
5-Day Monthly Calendar
Create and print a 5-day calendar with holidays and your choice of start day by using the generator.
Lined Weekly Printable Calendar
Create and print lined weekly calendars in horizontal or vertical format with your choice of start day.
Index card sized Printable Calendars
Choose from 4 different compact templates for printing directly to3x5 and 4x6 index cards (with the dates already filled in). Here are the download links: Monthly Calendar, Split Month Calendar, Yearly Calendar and 2-Year Calendar.
Music Sheets
Music Paper from the University of Virginia
There are many sites where you can download blank music sheets, but none are as a comprehensive and detailed as this resource. You can select PostScript or PDF formats for your templates; they are all sized 81/2 x 11 (portrait orientation). Overall, there are 37 templates available and they are split into the following categories: General (9 templates), Solo (3 templates), Ensemble (8 templates), Band (4 templates), Orchestra (4 templates) and finally templates for Choral (8 templates). Below you can see examples of the Basic template and the Full Orchestra templates:
Generators and Tools
Incompetech Grid and Graph Paper Generator
On this site you can generate basic graph templates in any size, color and even by grid spacing, you can also choose from the scores of different graph variations: Axonometric Perspective, Cross Grid, Inverted, Equilateral Triangle, Octagonal, Hexagonal, Semi-bisected Trapezoid and Tumbling Block - Trapezoid.
Notepad Generator
This tool allows you to customize a PDF notepad which you can then print it out on standard 8 1/2 x 11 paper.
Print Free Graph Paper
Here you can choose the size (Letter or A4), paper type (Cartesian, Polar, Isometric...), measuring units (Millimetres or Inches) and finally whether you want the paper formatted or un-formatted.
All work and no play PDFs
Downloadable Origami Templates
You know the saying "all work and no play...". Well, not all printable PDFs are geared towards work. How about a fun stress reliever? This site offers a huge database of printable origami models that will keep you amused for hours. Best not to make these during collaboration and brainstorming meetings though!
Design Police - Bring bad design to justice
Fed up with the bad design choices of your colleagues? Design-Police.org has created, as they call it, "visual enforcement kit" for designers. Help bring bad design to justice!
Related Posts
You may be interested in the following related posts:
- 35 Excellent Wireframing Resources
- 50 Free UI and Web Design Wireframing Kits, Resources and Source Files
What other goodies would you like us to collect?
Would you like us to collect other PDFs, files, download kits? Let us know what you need in the comments below and we will collect them and present them in one of our upcoming posts!