a sketchbook collaboration

The last couple of months I’ve been working on a really exciting project: I collaborated with my favorite sketchbook brand Odd Orange to create a limited edition sketchbook. It still feels a bit like a dream! In this blog post I’m taking you along on the journey, from the first DM to holding this book in my hands.

the sketchbook will be available to purchase on wednesday, may 31st,
on the Odd Orange website.

I feel like this project is a wonderful example of how freaking cool social media can be. Morgan ( illustrator from England & the founder of Odd Orange) and I had been following on Instagram for a long time. I’m a huge fan of her work and was so excited to follow her journey of starting her own book binding company, I remember writing about her first collection of sketchbooks in my first ever newsletter. One day I decided to treat myself to one of her sketchbooks and I haven’t really used another one since - the quality, size, ecology, all of it is to such a high standard - and all of them are hand-bound by Morgan.

I remember sending Morgan a message one day with an idea I had - her making sketchbook collaborations with other illustrators, where the illustrators create the endpapers for her sketchbook (not mentioning myself of course, we are humble!) She got back to me immediately, saying that she’d thought about that too - and that I’m at the top of her list! I probably screamed a little when I saw that message.

And a couple months later, I think it was December 2022, we hopped on our first zoom call to create this sketchbook together.

from our shared pinterest board

The Odd Orange sketchbooks have linen covers, and I was able to chose three colors for mine - one front cover, one back cover, and one for the spine.

Oh my, picking the colors was so fun but I realized once again how indecisive I am! Luckily Morgan was very patient when it came to me changing the color palette again and again. (and again.)

Morgan sent me swatches of all her linens, so I was able to see how they looked next to each other. I had my favorite colors all up on the wall above my desk for a couple of weeks, arranging them in different combinations and seeing which ones I liked the most.

Me and Morgan both came up with a couple of color combinations and after discussing them in a meeting, Morgan mocked them up for me. It was important to see them as 3D object as well, since the sketchbooks don’t lie flat - mostly you can only see 2/3 colors, so all combinations had to work.

We decided to go with the first option for the sketchbook - Upton, Brannes and Cream.
I was really happy with that color combo, I think it feels fresh, poppy and unexpected. But after looking at it for a while, I started to get doubts - I can’t really say what it is, but it just did not feel 100% like me. It got close to the date where Morgan wanted to order the cloth, so we had another meeting, where I told her that I just cannot stop thinking about the red and pink (which is, in my humble opinion, the superior color combo of all color combos). So we went back to the drawing board!

In the end, I’m so happy that I listened to my gut feeling and changed the colors last minute. I am so obsessed with the fresh red, pink and green, it feels happy, bright and summery and just so much like me.

let’s talk endapers!! Besides the linen covers, the other part that I designed were the endpapers, which are the first and last pages of a book. To get an idea for what pattern I wanted to do, I first looked at all the Odd Orange sketchbooks I had. The patterns with the greenery stood out to me the most - and if there’s one thing I draw a lot it’s flowers. So for a long time, I thought a floral pattern will be the way to go.

But when I was sketching out ideas for flower patterns I quickly got a bit bored by them. I started painting random doodles next to it - little icons and images, with elements that connected them to each other. I got lost in that painting. I showed the pattern to Morgan in our next meeting - and luckily she was as excited about it as I am! We felt it was different, original and I was really able to put my personality into it which was so important to me for this project.

After Morgan gave me her okay, I started on the final pattern. I worked with gouache - keeping the color palette simple as the pattern is already quite busy. I didn’t do any sketching. I liked how intuitive the first doodle of the pattern was and wanted to keep that. It took me so long to paint, but it was very meditative, letting my mind wander and just drawing whatever came to my mind. Hidden in the pattern are things from my flat that I saw while drawing, elements from songs I listened to or things I talked about with my friends.

Sketchbooks are places to be filled with memories, experiments and thoughts. I love the idea of the endpaper pattern being a collection of things, of inspirations. It’s like a picture puzzle with new things to discover - a page to come to when you don’t know what to draw.

thank god for digital color adjusting

After we decided on the colors and I had finished the pattern & sent it off to Morgan, my main part of the collaboration was done. Over the next two months I worked on the mini print that is coming with the sketchbook, whilst Morgan started actually making the books. She has documented her process and part of the collab on her blog, which you can read here. I have bound some books before and I have so much admiration for anyone who has mastered the craft, it’s so interesting but so difficult to do.

So a big applause for Morgan and her book-binding-magic :-)

So much time and work went into this sketchbook, but I enjoyed every part of the process and holding it in my hands is just SO COOL! I hope you love it just as much as we do <33 i mean look at her!

the sketchbook will be available to purchase on wednesday, may 31st,
on the Odd Orange website.