A sketching and searching application for idea generation is described. In an embodiment, a software application is described which has a user interface which comprises a sketching area. When a user draws or annotates a sketch in the application, the application automatically searches for images based on the sketch and displays results in the form of images outside the sketching area. These images are used to inspire new ideas and to facilitate the creative process in a way that is closely linked with the sketching process. When the sketch is updated, additional searching is automatically performed and new results are displayed. In some examples the sketching area is deformable and deformation may cause new results to be displayed and in some examples the user is able to drag image results into the sketching area to enable tracing of the image or to include the image in the sketch.