Thu 23 Dec
2010
A Sketchbook Book
If you’re still looking for a great holiday present, It’s not too late to run down to your local bookseller or order overnight delivery for this terrific book I just got my hands on: it’s called “Graphic: Inside the Sketchbook of the World’s Great Graphic Designers,” and it’s another production from the prolific Steven Heller, who co-edited the book with Lita Talarico.
Full disclosure: I was lucky enough to be included within the 352 pages of drawings, doodles, paintings, collage and random visual goodness from over one hundred prominent graphic designers. On page 340 (the book is organized alphabetically by last name) you’ll find about a dozen sample pages taken from the many sketchbooks that I’ve kept over the years. In addition to my own work, there are samples from a ton of amazing luminaries including Gary Baseman, Michael Bierut, Henrik Drescher, Seymour Chwast, Milton Glaser, Bruce Mau, Christoph Niemann, Art Spiegelman and many others.
Outtakes
I photographed dozens of pages for Steven and Lita, but of course only a few of them could make it into the final printed volume. So as a special bonus, here are some more samples. Most of these date back over a decade, which explains the yellowing tape and some of the prematurely retro subject matter.
For more on the three-ring binder system that I use for the sketchbooks, read this blog post from five years ago.
Remarks 11 total remarks were added before the post was closed.
Did Steven do an Amazon search before deciding to write this book?
Jim: Huh. Well that shouldn’t stop anyone from putting together a book of sketchbooks. Just like a Google search for “social networks” shouldn’t have prevented Mark Zuckerberg from creating Facebook back in the day.
23 Dec 2010, 06:40 pm
They’re great sketches—thanks for sharing them. I’ve done all my Christmas shopping now unfortunately, but you’re right—that book would be a great present.
24 Dec 2010, 07:56 am
Congratulations! Great to see. I’m curious about the book. Looks like it’s going to be a gem.
What a good idea. Here are some of mine. They are are such good things (sketchbooks).
Theo, here’s a colour version… it’s just too c-c-cold to do anything serious!
26 Dec 2010, 10:08 am
Great Work. Will you be teaching a course at SVA in the future?
There are aluminum and kraft paper half-sheet binders available online. Not as cheap, but really nice looking. You could always archive the sheets outside of the binder, filed away, and reuse the binder.
http://www.binderfinder.com/cgi-bin/category/hs
I’ve been looking at doing a nice sketchbook as a Kickstarter project. Something with better paper than Moleskine.