*Please pardon the un-styled mess why I am rethinking and re-designing my blog!*
Creativity can spark at the strangest moments – Thats why its good to always be prepared to jot ideas down in a handy dandy notebook. Take a peek at 24 designers sketchbooks and get a look behind the scenes of creative minds.
These particular sketches are from a year or two back while sitting in the airport. Using a mix of ball point pen and good old Sharpie marker a few fun characters were created ranging from Pirates to Bunnies!
Readers of Blog.SpoonGraphics may recognise Captain Blackspoon in there, who went on to become quite a popular tutorial on the site which covered his creation in Adobe Illustrator.
I have a standard hardcover Moleskine notebook (lined), which acts as my weekly planner, do-to list, and notes. I use the notes section a variety of ways, to wireframe a web design , for brainstorming , notes, doodles, and even my grocery list.
I carry it everywhere because inspiration can hit you anytime (and I can doodle when I’m bored).
I hate to say it, but I never sketch anymore! I have a small sketchbook, but it’s mostly filled with “to-do” lists and rants. I had to scour through OLD sketchbooks – probably dating back 4 – 5 years to find actual hand drawings for design layouts/ideas. …This may be my resolution for ’09 – get to sketching more!
I usually use project sheets to draw between the lines or on the back side. The good ones I keep on a pile, the rest goes bye-bye … Here is a dog I did, to use as a background for my twitter account.
I use post it notes like they are going out of fashion! I try to sketch an idea down in its entirety on a post it note before I implement it. There is just enough room for the key points without waffling on about the idea. Simplicity is the key to design and if you can’t fit it on to a post it then its too complicated 
I’m a design student with an incredibly chaotic mind so it’s imperative I write ideas, objectives and tasks straight away. This is the initial stage of my process, before I pick and mix what I reckon is worth developing further. My little notebook is A6 sized and has brown paper – my favourite feature since I’m a pen fetishist and love writing in all sorts of colours, some of which don’t show up on white paper. I tend to cross things out a lot. I’m a little compulsive like that.
I doodle some times, but I always have ideas when there’s no paper around (ie. in the shower), so I put myself in single-mind mode ’till I get to some paper, or Photoshop.
I lay down most of my sketches in my Moleskine notebook. Pen, pencil, graf, design sketches, words, notes, ideas… doesn’t matter. It all goes in there.
Currently putting down a lot of sketches for an art nouveau style poster series. as well as teaching my 7yr old niece how to draw perspective boxes. Too cute!
I’m sketching in a book that was made out of the covers of a “Highlights for Children” cover – somehow they made it into a hardcover and spiral-bound it, kept the original pages through out, but the main bulk of pages are blank and white.
My process is always word driven most of the time – I do identity/Logo design and sketching is my brainstorming process, with shapes, things that come to mind. This one page is one out of six that involve a leaf – the client wants a stylized leaf.
Being left handed – I avoid using pencil if I can so I can avoid having pencil lead all over my palm and a smeary drawing. I sketch on whatever surface is around – usually scrap paper – and with a red Pilot Precise V7 pen. Once I have a basic form, I’ll go back over it with a black Pilot Precise V5. By far my favorite general purpose pens. Then I’ll make notes on what I like and what I want changed before tracing the good parts and start fixing the bad parts piece by piece.
1) I am setting up a rough layout for a marketing dashboard for clients.
I was asked to roughly draw (all my drawings are rough) the general layout once a user logged in.
2) Using a whiteboard to sketch out the site map and functionality of a local directory i am designing.
I carry a notebook around everywhere I go (an old-fashioned one with paper), so when I get an idea I can quickly jot it down. This was the first mockup of the design for my new portfolio site.
This sketch is for a folder I created at my day job.
My work sketchbook is a hardcover notebook made by Blueline. I ordered it out of one of those office catalogs. It’s certainly no MOLESKIN 
Original sketch is in black ink – created while in a meeting to discuss the piece. The red doodles were added later while I was on the phone and the book just happened to be open in front me. heehee.
I was working on a new identity logo for a coffee shop – the first drafts. I needed to make a bunch of logo proposals, with the same name and with a new name suggestion. So first I was thinking about the names I was going to use, besides the one that they already use. After that, what I needed to work around the concept of the new names and things that are related to the words. Then just started working around the names and ended up with 4 pages of sketched logos ready to get to illustrator.
I had to attend morning meetings at a job I had a while back. I could doodle while other people talked. It was a great time to come up with new sketch ideas for stock illustrations. This is the starter sketch for a poker series. The after pictures are the thumbnails from iStock.
I always start in my sketchbook, coming up with numerous amounts of ideas from simple to out of the ordinary. I then scan into Photoshop or Illustrator for the refining process.
I use numerous Sketchbooks and Moleskines depending on the project.
I carry my trusty Moleskine with me everywhere, well, almost everywhere and use it to scribble ideas in when inspiration strikes. I’ve scribbled everything from UI interactions, design elements and conference notes. The Moleskine’s are ideal due to their size and relative indestructability. I wouldn’t use anything else!
I sketch in meetings, church, the train… just about anywhere. I use my sketches to work out ideas for projects or just to see what I can draw. I can usually go through my sketch books and remember what we were talking about or why I drew something. The page I show here I was working on a t-shirt design for a Corporate Run in a meeting. I know someone said something that I thought was a bad idea and I drew the skull with the candle.
Here’s some pages from my sketchbook. It’s a finalized initial sketch to define the navigation system and the overall layout of the website.
All sketches are based on the Information Architecture documents prepared by the team and approved by the client.
Upon some feedback from the team, I can refine these further and then go to town in Photoshop designing the official interface mock-ups before I move on to XHTML/CSS coding.
These specific ones were done for http://www.bp-graphics.com
Our process starts with what we are trying to accomplish then tend to gather everything from everywhere. we pull from materials, examples and sketches… it’s a combination of many things. we place all items on boards for internal or external use. we call this process boardstorming.
i sketch to stay sane. not always before a project. most of the time just to relax myself.
i just make marks.
This sketch is in my Moleskin. I also have a large sketch pad and a variety of pencils in my office at home that I use. My Moleskin often gets sketches of user interfaces or lettering. Many of my designs start here next to the client information that I may take down on first meeting.
I sketch on 8.5×11 paper most of the time. I do have a couple of notebook around that I often use as well. I like sketching on the brown paper with crayons at restaurants. I like the look on the wait staff’s face when I ask to take the tablecloth (aka Kraft paper) home with me.
Usually my sketch process is very disorganized, filling white space in my notebooks in no particular order so you might find several projects in a single pages. I draw small and make annotations including to-do’s and brainstorming (words).
I use an sketchbook 32. x 24.5 cm (mostly used in elementary schools here in Mexico) that includes tracing paper between each sheet.
Do you sketch as part of your design process? Let me know your thoughts! Please leave a comment and let me see your scribbles.
*Due to the overwhelming number of people that submitted their scribbles I had to limit the length of the post.
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[45] Comments
Posted in color, design, design ethics, Graphic Design, illustration, Web 2.OH
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[...] Its methods like these which help build the design community. Its fascinating to see how other designers doodle and now I have a whole heap of designers’ work to check [...]
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Niki says:
Alternate digg link
http://digg.com/design/Designers_Scribbles_An_insight_into_the_creative_process/
Thanks @styletime
December 1st, 2008 at 5:51 am
Dietmar says:
Okay, until now, I thought, I was the only one, who still sit down, taking a sketch book and a pencil to “construct” my website before doing a template in Photoshop or Illustrator.
Personally I like the scribble book of Martin Kulakowski, because it’s clean and straight forward although it’s the first step to a website. I gonna buy myself a better pencil…
Thanks for this article!
Dietmar
December 1st, 2008 at 5:51 am
Donald Rush says:
Tony, I agree pen is the way to go for left hand. I prefer the Moleskine with the binding at the top. It lets my hand move with out running into the fold. Oh and spiral bound is out of the question. I used to us anything but since I got a Moleskine I am hooked. Here is a link to my Sketch Book
December 1st, 2008 at 6:20 am
Dan Denney says:
Excellent post! Very cool to see the scribbled beginnings behind some of the more popular designs and designers.
So, just how many post-it notes did that origami set take?!!!
December 1st, 2008 at 6:26 am
curtismchale says:
Thanks for the mention.
It is so much easier often to start with a sketch on paper when working on a UI. Getting your content areas down so and brainstorming on some ideas for design elements just seems easier on paper. I find that I try to do too much when working in PS right at the beginning.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:10 am
Dietmar says:
I agree to Curtis! It’s so muche easier to sketch things on paper without having the trouble to get a special effect to work. You can let your creativity flowing right off your hand without thinking about technical issues. This considerations should come with step 2 (creating the template with Ps or whatever) or 3 (building the html and css).
December 1st, 2008 at 7:25 am
Eric says:
Very interesting read. Thanks!
December 1st, 2008 at 7:27 am
Aaron Irizarry says:
Niki,
Great article. Thanks for the mention!
Really cool to see everyone else’s thought process roughed out on paper… Loved the freakin’ sticky notes.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:34 am
Marnie B says:
Love, love, love, love, love this!
I’m terrible with sketches and love seeing the sketchbooks of other designers!
December 1st, 2008 at 7:55 am
mayhemstudios says:
Nice guys! Some pretty tight sketches there. Mine are so loose, no one can tell what they are but me.
- Cal
December 1st, 2008 at 9:06 am
Stephanie says:
These are fantastic. It’s always great to see the creative process of other artists. My sketchbook is a combination of many of the above: I log my billable hours in it, take phone messages for my boss, write lots of lists of words, and I’ve finally begun to sketch random things in it (I used to do this all the time in college when I was supposed to be taking notes).
Only I can understand my sketchbook. I’m having a rough time with my current one as it’s a cheap spiral-bound from a craft store with perforated pages. Not recommended, especially for lefties. I’m going to take Donald Rush’s advice about top-binding. Seems so obvious, and yet I’ve never tried it!
Thanks for such a great post!
December 1st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Martin Kulakowski says:
These are great! Stuff I’m seeing in Tim Hedgefield’s one is mostly what mine looks like. I would say 90% of the sketches in my book are for the website layouts, and of course feedback from client meetings. If you’d like to see a few more shots that have not been shown here, check out my Flickr Set.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:19 am
Matthew says:
Great post! Thanks for putting this together
.
December 1st, 2008 at 10:33 am
jessica mullen says:
great post! interesting to see designers’ sketches and good method of encouraging site participation.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:51 pm
Outlaw Design Blog says:
Great post. Just grabbed your rss.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Jon says:
I regularly publish the sketches that lead up to a project on my blog, but here’s some sketching from a logo I designed recently: http://blog.ohtwentyone.com/blog/draculLogo
December 1st, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Lee Munroe says:
Nice insight Niki.
A3 pad for sketching out wireframes and a tight little notebook to carry on me and take down ideas. That’s how I roll
December 1st, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Liz says:
fun stuff. some of these are really nice looking. Makes me want to sit down and do some good ol fashion drawing, not just quick little doodlies.
December 1st, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Steve says:
Thanks for including me in the sketches. It is great to see others books and ideas as they start out. Many a great idea start with a random line.
December 1st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
kyle steed says:
OH I love this. If you ever put together a part two I would love to be a part of it. Great job.
December 3rd, 2008 at 6:22 am
Adriana R says:
Last but not least!
Thanks for including me Niki!
Stephanie: I protect my spiral-bound sketchbook with a couple of big binder clips. Also helpful while drawing.
December 4th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Craig Farrall says:
Great post Niki, Its good to see that many people out there are doodling things, it helps you be creative and so on. If you have a part two, definately count me in.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Ashley McFarland says:
This is great! Thanks for posting and to all the folks who submitted.
I just jotted down the idea from Adriana–I had a notebook with white pages and tracing paper like she mentioned…PERFECT for sketching before moving to Illustrator. Can’t believe I hadn’t thought of that, too!!! Thanks!
December 9th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
green card says:
Why this web site do not have other languages support?
December 24th, 2008 at 11:54 am
jhoysi says:
Love seeing all of these! Though mine are usually indeterminate without scribbly side-margin notations, I couldn’t start a project without a sketchbook. Just blows my mind when I see people jump from the meeting to the computer with no in-between.
June 24th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Dee Wilcox says:
Wow, these are amazing! I always loving getting a peek inside other creatives’ notebooks. I’m not nearly as good an illustrator as these guys, but I use my Moleskines and big sketch pad in much the same way. Analog first, then digital.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:26 am
AB says:
Amazing.. Gives new budding designers a lot of inspiration!
February 11th, 2010 at 10:26 am
@markeetoodotcom says:
Its nice to see the process of creation of great designs. I myself do a lot of sketching before hav something done too.
March 25th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Jackson says:
thanks for taking the time to put these designs/scribbles together. great stuff.
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