Every artist has an origin story. Mine starts at a kitchen table with a broken crayon and a napkin that was never meant to be anything. I was six years old, and I had discovered that the world looks better when you draw it yourself. Trees got faces, clouds wore hats, and the family dog had wings. Nobody told me to stop, so I never did.
Sketchbook Studio was born from the belief that creativity should never feel corporate. Design briefs are useful, but the best work happens in the margins, the accidental smudges, the happy mistakes that reveal something truer than the original plan. This studio is an argument for imperfection, for the human hand, for the wobble in a line that a computer could never replicate.
I studied illustration at a school where they still taught us to stretch our own canvases and sharpen our own nibs. After graduation, I spent five years in advertising agencies, learning what happens when creativity meets deadlines, budgets, and clients who say make the logo bigger. It taught me discipline and diplomacy, but it also reminded me why I started drawing in the first place: because making things feels like magic.
The Journey So Far
Graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration. Won the student portfolio award for a series of ink drawings about urban loneliness.
Left agency life to freelance full-time. First major client: a childrenas book publisher in Portland that needed an illustrator willing to draw 200 different species of imaginary fish.
Launched Sketchbook Studio as a formal brand studio. Began combining illustration with brand identity work. Discovered that hand-drawn logos convert better than sterile vectors.
Pivoted to digital while keeping the analog soul. Learned to digitize watercolor textures, build design systems, and collaborate remotely without losing the warmth of the studio.
Published a coffee table book of collected sketches. Spoke at three design conferences about the intersection of illustration and brand strategy. Hired our first junior designer.
Studio now serves clients across six countries. Still using the same brand of pencil I started with. Still believing that every project starts with a blank page and a good idea.
Tools of the Trade
We work across mediums. Graphite on paper, ink on bristol board, watercolor on cold press, and pixels on screens. The tool always serves the idea. Sometimes that means a 2B pencil and a sketchbook. Other times it means a Wacom tablet and a vector file with 400 layers. We do not take sides in the analog versus digital debate. We use both, often in the same project, because the best result is the only thing that matters.
~ Ready to make something together? Let us talk. ~