SKETCHBOOK: Conceptual Drawings from the World's Most Influential Designers by Timothy O'Donnell

I love, love, love seeing how a design develops and that is exactly what this book is packed with!

Sketchbook
Conceptual Drawings from the World's Most Influential Designers

Timothy O'Donnell

This book explores influential designers’ sketchbooks as a truer reflection of a designer’s thought processes, preoccupations, and problem-solving strategies than can be had by simply viewing finished projects. Highly personal and idiosyncratic, sketchbooks offer an arena for unstructured exploration, a space free from all budgetary and client constraints.

Visually arresting objects in their own right, this book aims to elevate sketches from mere ephemera to important documents where the reader can glean valuable insight into the creative process, and apply it to their own practices. Visit the author's book page at timothy-odonnell.com/sketchbook for more information.

Timothy O’Donnell (Bloomfield , NJ) is design manager for Johnson & Johnson’s Global Strategic Design Office; his previous posts include working with Vaughan Oliver in London and MTV in New York.

To read a way cool interview with Timothy pop on over to Cool Hunting. While you are there you will see more inside pages. Ironically we were captivated by one of the same pages, this one:

Click on the image to enlarge and read  about these sketches by Jason Munn of The Small Stakes, Oakland, California.

Cool Hunting are also giving away a free copy of Sketchbook to one of their Twitter followers on Wednesday, May 13th, 2009.

You know me, I just have to share a few of my crazy sketches with you. Now no laughing at my drawing ability or my spelling. That is not what sketching is about. It is about, for me at least, remembering an idea.

There is no spell check in a sketch book.

 

I use day calenders for sketchbooks. I generally have a few for each year and sometimes, as in this case this was one that I probably bought a few months into the year for a dollar or something because I love learning new words and I continued to use it into the next years until it was full. The top sketch was for a Halloween decoration made from a recycled sweater. You can see how to make a Halloween ghost decoration from an old sweater here.

 

This sketch is for my Halloween sweater that is again a recycled sweater that I took apart and re-crocheted a spider web on the back, you can see how to crochet a spider web sweater here.

Today's question:

Where do you sketch? What does your sketchbook look like?

Leave your answer and you're entered to win a free book!

And one last note on the subject of sketchbooks;

Are you going to be at Maker Faire on May 30th and 31st at the San Mateo County Expo Center?

Come by the Craftside booth to get a free sketchbook/journal made from recycled materials!

Ya wanna see what one looks like? You will just have to come back to this here blog, I'm workin' on that post! It is soooo cool.

Also at the Craftside booth there will be Make and Takes and free book signings with yours truly,

Stefanie Girard

author of:

Sweater Surgery
How to Make New Things from Old Sweaters

 -you can make a fun needle felted project out of recycled sweaters (see pictures from CHA of what the fun looks like here),

and Scatha G. Allison author of:

Jean Therapy
Denim Deconstruction for the Conscientious Crafter

and the Good Mail Ladies, Carolee Gilligan Wheeler and Jennie Henchcliff, will be there doing make and takes!

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Comments

[Janet]

Yes I have a sketchbook where I keep experiments, ideas and techniques (both the ones that worked and reasons for the ones that didn't).

[mary]

Stef...your readers might also want to know that Craftside will also be giving away the little Craftside Sketchbook/Journals (we're calling them Makeready Journals--more on that later!)in the goody bags at Squam Art Workshops in June. www.squamartworkshops.com

[Barbara Hagerty]

I usually have 4 or 5 sketchbooks going at a time. Some are designated for certain projects, some are doodle books, some are visual notebooks and some are journals, but all are full of sketches, ideas and notes. A few include paint and collage.

[Jennifer Conway]

Ha! I sketch on any little scrap piece of paper I can get my hands on.....gum wrappers, bank slips, napkins...all of it is supposed to be transfered into my "organized", and "dedicated to ideas" book!

[Fran]

I have a sketch book, matter of fact I have several sketch books. I have one on my night stand for when my creative mind wakens me during the night. Since I'm a doll maker it usually is a doll that I have to get out of my head and into a sketch. Sometimes it's fiber art, mixed medium, etc etc... After all I love to create lots of things. I have a couple of sketch books in my studio, in my car and a small notebook in my purse. A girl never knows when she will need to doodle a sketch or ideas. You have to put your thoughts in writing or drawing when they flow out of the mind.

[Krista]

I have sooo many sketch books. I start one and then I always forget to take it somewhere and so I end up buy another one. I think I have about 5 on the go right now. They have everything in them from quotes I might have heard that I find funny, to drawings of most anything. I just like to draw and doodle.

[francie]

my sketchbook is a 2007 moleskine daybook. i bought about a dozen of them really cheap in 2008. and when i run out i'll buy the previous year's again. it's my way of using up and saving money.