Experiment · shipped

The Library of Sketchbooks

A self-published ten-book sketchbook series, each volume tuned to a different drawing exercise

A row of nine sketchbooks standing upright on a wooden cabinet, each one a different cover color (deep navy, teal, gold, cream, peach, scarlet) with the volume number and title printed on the spine. THE LIBRARY OF SKETCHBOOKS runs across all the spines in a uniform display caps. A row of rainbow Lego figures stands beside them as bookend.

The Library of Sketchbooks is a self-published series of ten sketchbooks, each one designed around a single drawing exercise. Point Line Play. Line Up. On the Grid. A Good Story(board). Grids Are Like Underwear. Design on the Go. Full Screen. 1000s of Thumbnails. Read Me Like A Book. All That Sketch.

The cover of each volume is its own type-and-pattern composition. The spines all wear the same brand mark so the set reads as one shelf piece — a Penguin-style boxed library for designers. Inside each book, the page templates change to match the exercise. Iso grids for one. Storyboard frames for another. Subject-and-date headers for the rest.

The whole project is a working tool kit and a self-portrait of how I think about practice. Show up, do the exercise, fill the page, turn the page.

The set

Ten volumes, one shelf.

Each cover is its own object. The pattern, the title type, and the color all tune to the exercise inside. The spines stay quiet on purpose — the library reads as a set first and as ten different things second. The books physically tell you which one to pick up by leaning into the colors of the work they want to do.

A stack of ten sketchbooks viewed from the side: each spine prints THE LIBRARY OF SKETCHBOOKS in matching display caps, with the individual title (POINT LINE PLAY, LINE UP, ON THE GRID, A GOOD STORY(BOARD), GRIDS ARE LIKE UNDERWEAR, DESIGN ON THE GO, FULL SCREEN, 1000s OF THUMBNAILS, READ ME LIKE A BOOK, ALL THAT SKETCH) tucked next to it. Each cover is its own color and pattern, so the stack looks like a small shelf of Penguin classics for designers.

The set fanned out at an angle: nine of the ten spines visible, each volume number and title legible, the pattern detail of every book different, the LIBRARY OF SKETCHBOOKS runner running uniformly across them all.

A close-up of one cover: a lavender-grey sketchbook with PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE set in stacked black display caps in the lower-right corner, against a half-grid pattern that breaks across the front like a torn page. A peach and pale-green book peek from underneath.

Inside

Page templates tuned to the exercise.

Each book has a page template that does its half of the work. The Grid book opens to an iso grid the size of a sheet, the kicker reads "l'esquisse · the sketch" and a tight verb list — draw, paint, rub, drip, photograph, sprinkle, scan, print, distress, find, gather, hunt, peck, make, scribble — runs along the gutter. The 1000s of Thumbnails book opens to a thumbnail grid sized to fit a hundred small ideas to a page. The All That Sketch book opens to the simplest template of all: a Subject/Date header and a square grid below it, ready for whatever shows up.

An interior page of the Grid book: a lavender ground with a fine-grained square grid printed underneath, PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE set in stacked black caps reading vertically up the right edge. A yellow and pale-green page peeks from the layered stack underneath.

An interior page of another volume: a soft-green ground with a fine grid, the page-header reading 'iso grid / l'esquisse · the sketch / draw, paint, rub, drip, photograph, sprinkle, scan, print, distress, find, gather, hunt, peck, make, scribble' set in tracked sans body copy along the upper edge of the spread.

A volume spread photographed from above at an angle: the same lavender PROCESS AND EXPERIENCE cover with the title rotated and stacked, sitting on top of a yellow page and a green page also from the series. Soft natural light raking across the paper.

A close-up detail of one of the page templates: a SUBJECT and DATE header in tiny tracked caps in the upper-left of a fine square grid. The kraft endpaper of the book itself shows underneath, with 'rub, drip, photograph, print, distress, find, gather' partially visible in the gutter type.

A working sketchbook is a piece of equipment. Designing the equipment is its own discipline. Ten sketchbooks, ten exercises, one shelf — the library is the rehearsal space, and the design of the rehearsal space is part of the rehearsal.

Closing