Notebooks of Great Creators: Peek Inside Designers’ work
The nature and origin of creativity is the subject of many a theory.
Rather than theorizing about it, wouldn’t it be great if we could just lift the lid of a great creative mind and see just how the machinery works?
We can by way of great creators’ private notebooks and sketchbooks, which offer a trip to as close to the creative process as we can get.
After last week’s rare look at Michelangelo’s, here are five cross-disciplinary favorites, spanning everything from street art to field science.
Maria Popova posted this Dec. 8, 2013:
What Brazil’s favelas have to do with field science and Milton Glaser’s creative process.
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Steven Heller is easily today’s most prominent and prolific design critic.
In 2010, he partnered with the SVA’s Lita Talarico on an ambitious project: Graphic: Inside the Sketchbooks of the World’s Great Graphic Designers, which offers a rare glimpse of how today’s most acclaimed designers think and create.
The project features 110 designers, including icons like I ♥ New York logo creator Milton Glaser, Design Observer co-founder Michael Bierut, typography maverick Oded Ezer, the amazing Marian Bantjes, negative space master Noma Bar, 2010 Guggenheim Fellow Amy Franceschini, and my personal favorite, Stefan Sagmeister.
Noma Bar
Stefan Sagmeister
Milton Glaser
Sara Fanelli
Tim Lane
Paul CoxImages courtesy of Monacelli Press via Flavorwire
Flip through the goodness here.
STREET ART
In Street Sketchbook: Journeys, Tristan Manco takes a rare peek inside the sketchbooks of 26 of the world’s hottest new graffiti artists.
From Brazil’s iconic favelas to Tokyo’s backalleys, it reveals both globe-trotting adventures and rich internal landscapes in 227 large-format pages and lush double-spreads of pure creative genius.
Full review, with more images, here.
FIELD SCIENCE
I firmly believe science is a creative discipline, so no look at the creative mind is complete without a look at the scientific mind.
Field Notes on Science and Nature offers exactly that thought beautiful reproductions of pages from the journals of the world’s greatest field scientists. Twelve essays by professional naturalists from such diverse disciplines as anthropology, botany, ecology, entomology, and paleontology contextualize the doodles, drawings and marginalia with equal parts infectious curiosity and affectionate enthusiasm.
‘Meriwether Lewis’s journal notes of the Eulachon fish (Thaleichthys pacificus), made on February 24, 1806, while Lewis was near Fort Clatsop, Oregon.’Image courtesy of the American Philosophical Society
‘A typical notebook page detailing the thoughts and events of a day doing fieldwork at Olorgesailie, Kenya, with a personal note near the end of the page about the joy of being alone with rocks.’Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Paleontologist, in the essay ‘Linking Researchers Across Generations’
‘Page from a field notebook made in New Guinea on the food webs of aquatic animals known as phytotelmata that live in plant containers, such as tree hollows and bromeliad tanks.’Roger Kitching, Ecologist, in ‘A Reflection of the Truth’
‘Ink and watercolor drawing of a red sea fan (Swiftia sp.)’Jenny Keller, in the essay ‘Why Sketch?’
Kirstin Butler’s full review here.
ADVERTISING
In 2009, creative academics and researchers Glenn Griffin and Deborah Morrison set out to investigate the minds of the advertising industry’s greatest creative thinkers in a series of experiments, analyzing the “process drawings” of these top creative professionals — artwork that answered the deceptively simple question, What does your creative process look like?
The results, illustrated with a Sharpie on what Griffin and Morrison call a “process canvas,” were published in The Creative Process Illustrated: How Advertising’s Big Ideas Are Born — a fascinating glimpse of the routes leading creatives take to finding and catching ideas.
Original review here.
ART
Drawn In: A Peek into the Inspiring Sketchbooks of 44 Fine Artists, Illustrators, Graphic Designers, and Cartoonists is the second gem of a book artist Julia Rothman — a voyeuristic visual journey into how artists doodle, brainstorm and flesh ideas out.
The lavish volume offers a rare glimpse inside the minds and hearts of favorite artists like visual poet Sophie Blackall, happiness-designer Tad Carpenter, nature illustrator Jill Bliss and many more, showcasing stunning full-color images alongside profiles of the artists, who discuss their sketchbooks and how they use them.
The recent full review, complete with more images and an exclusive Q&A with Rothman about the project, here.
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Adonis Diaries 
Worst Client Comments: Turned Into Posters?
Posted by: adonis49 on: February 23, 2014
Worst Client Comments: Turned Into Posters?
Frustrated by stupid client criticism, Irish graphic designers Mark Shanley and Paddy Treacy decided to turn their “favorite worst feedback” into posters.
The guys worked together on so-called “Sharp Suits” series with a team of other ad creatives, designers, animators, directors, illustrators and more, who must have all appreciated a chance to let out some of their exasperation in a creative way.
Border Panda posted the posters of Worst Client Comments
The series was exhibited at The Little Green Café, Bar and Gallery in November, giving a chance to purchase an A3 poster of your choice.
The guys received so many orders during a 5 day exhibition, that they’ve already stopped accepting them.
All the thousands of euros they claim to have raised were donated to the Temple Street Children Hospital.
Website: sharpsuits.net
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