I recently posted a couple of photos on Instagram of my collection of books about sketchbooks, journals and notebooks. The posts got a lot of responses, and Ana from The Well Appointed Desk commented “This needs to be a more in-depth blog post. I’ve zoomed in on this photo but I can’t read all the spines. It‘s killing me. I want more info. More details. Opinions. Favorites? If you could do it all over, are there books you would buy again or skip? I have one or two but I also have different ones. I heard about YouTube bookshelf tours. I challenge you. Gauntlet is thrown.“

When Ana talks, I listen! Gauntlet caught! Or picked up! Or whatever it is you do with a gauntlet. I’m more of a writer than a YouTuber, but I will endeavor to give you an in-depth look at each book, including a video flip-though of some representative pages.

This is going to be a series of posts, as I have a LOT of books to cover. I’m going to start with 4 books that are a great starting place for creative inspiration, as they all survey a variety of artists, designers, illustrators and creatives on how they use their sketchbooks.

Drawn In: A Peek Into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers and Cartoonists

By Julia Rothman

This is one of my favorite books about sketchbooks, not just because it includes a wide variety of gorgeous artwork, beautifully presented. What I love most about this book is that every sketchbook spread is shown in full, to the page edges and beyond. You see the covers and ribbon markers poking out. You see the full shape of the page. You see torn edges, bent wire-o bindings, ragged post-its stuck between pages. This gives you a really intimate, hands-on feel for each artist’s sketchbook. In the introductory text, Julia Rothman says that she asked each contributor to send her some of their actual sketchbooks so she could handle them and photograph them herself, which makes me feel very jealous! If the artists had just sent her their own digital images, I don’t think the book would have been as successful.

The text is presented in a Q&A format. Each of the 44 creators responds to a few questions. Some questions are repeated, such as “what mediums do you use in your sketchbook,” “when did you get your first sketchbook,” or “how many sketchbooks do you have? Where do you keep them?” There are also questions specific to particular aspects of an artist’s background and work. Some of the artists talk about their sketchbook usage habits, why they use a certain brand or size of sketchbook, or how it feels to look back at old sketchbooks. From the way the questions are framed to the visual presentation, I get the feeling that Julia Rothman really shares my appreciation of sketchbooks as objects and tools that are interesting in their entirety, not just as a surface for parts of an artist’s process.

Julia Rothman used to write the excellent “Book By Its Cover” blog, which included a regular series devoted to sketchbooks. The blog is gone, sadly, but the archives are still viewable via the Wayback Machine. It includes lots more sketchbook artists who aren’t in this book.

Drawn In is no longer in print, but copies are still for sale on Amazon. Check out Julia Rothman’s other books too.

Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers

By Steven Heller and Lita Talarico

This book’s introduction begins with a great question: “What is it about sketchbooks that makes them so appealing to touch and smell?”

Graphic is a huge book with 110 contributors, who actually include illustrators, comic artists and other creative types beyond just graphic designers. Each is covered in 1 to 3 two-page spreads. The text is very brief but includes quotes from each contributor, pulling out interesting and unique observations about their sketchbook habits, including methods and materials and how they’ve accumulated sketchbooks over the years.

The images vary in how they are presented: many are great photos of open sketchbooks showing the edges and exteriors beyond the page spread. There also are some photos of sketchbook collections. But many of the images, perhaps about a third of the book, are close-ups and cropped photos where there is no sense of the true size of the sketch or how it fits into the sketchbook. In some cases, photos of finished projects are juxtaposed against sketches in a way that makes it unclear whether all the images are part of the sketchbook itself. But the variety of images is fascinating, from highly detailed and polished paintings and drawings, to colorful collages, to basic lined notebooks with scribbled thoughts.

Much of the content in this book really does make you feel like you can almost touch and smell these sketchbooks, but for me, the inclusion of cropped sketches without the context of the sketchbook itself is a disappointment. Still, if you can’t afford to buy too many books about sketchbooks and want to start with just one, Graphic is so massive and varied, you can’t help but find satisfaction poring over these pages.

Graphic is no longer in print, but you can find copies for sale on Amazon.

Sketchbook: Conceptual Drawings from the World’s Most Influential Designers

by Timothy O’Donnell

This is another book that shows a nice appreciation for the sketchbook as an object: the cover and introduction have images of exteriors of various sketchbooks, and though there are some cropped images within, the visual content is mostly nice scans showing the entire sketchbook beyond the page edges so you get a good sense of context.

This book is oriented more towards how designers use sketchbooks as part of their work process, so it also includes images of finished work so you can see what developed from the sketches. The coverage of the 35 designers (some of whom are also featured in Steven Heller’s Graphic) is a bit more project-oriented than in the other books I’ve reviewed. Each has a brief intro text and some quotes that address specific images. There are also a few longer Q&As with selected designers. Again there is an interesting mix of imagery and approaches, providing plenty of creative inspiration.

The main body of the book is divided into 3 sections: “Rough,” “Refined,” and “Random.” It was not really clear to me what the difference is between these sections, as they all seemed to cover sketches and finished projects in similar ways. At the end of the book, there is another section called “Revealed,” which shows the sketches the author made when he was conceptualizing and creating the book. This “making of” section was quite interesting.

O’Donnell’s approach is very much about exploring the creative process but he also appreciates sketchbooks as “fascinating and often beautiful pieces of ephemera in their own right.”

Alas, this is another book that is out of print, but you can find copies on Amazon, including a Kindle edition.

Sketchbooks: The Hidden Art of Designers, Illustrators & Creatives

By Richard Brereton

This is another compilation of images from the sketchbooks of various creative people. There is a foreword and then an alphabetical presentation of the 41 creators, each with an introductory bio and a brief statement from the creator about their sketchbooking practice.

A lot of interesting artwork is included, but more than half of the contributors are shown with mainly cropped images, so if you enjoy the context of the sketchbook itself as I do, you may find it a little disappointing. The author, Richard Brereton, says this towards the end of his foreword: “After a while I was almost tempted to keep a sketchbook myself.” My jaw dropped when I read that, but I felt like it sort of explained what makes this book less satisfying than the 3 others I’ve written about in this post. The author is concerned with sketchbooks as the unseen, private origins of the creators’ other work more than as objects of interest for their own sake.

Guess what? This book is also out of print. (Art books like these tend to be printed in Asia in fairly small runs, and the economics and timing of reprints are often challenging. So if you see an art book you love, snag it before it sells out!) But again, you can find copies on Amazon.

I will be back with more book review posts soon. In the meantime, you can check out my lists of interesting notebook/sketchbook/journaling books. I earn a small commission on any purchases made via these links:

My storefront at Bookshop.org is still a work in progress, but I’m building up lists of active, in-print titles divided into lists such as “books about sketchbooks,” “books about journaling,” etc. Moleskine notebooks and various other sketchbook and journal brands can also be ordered through Bookshop.org. A portion of all proceeds go into a fund that benefits independent bookstores, so it is a great way to support small local businesses.

My storefront on Amazon includes out of print books that can be ordered when stock is available through 3rd party sellers. In addition to my various notebook/sketchbook/art supply lists, see these book lists:

Books About Sketchbooks, Journaling and Stationery

Artists’ Facsimile Sketchbooks