Sketchbooks as knowledge construction in publishing and contemporary book cultures

Citation

Preston L (2026) Sketchbooks as knowledge construction in publishing and contemporary book cultures. Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, 11 (1), pp. 33-53. https://doi.org/10.1386/drtp_00174_1

Abstract
This article contributes to this Special Issue with a focus on drawing intertwined with the author’s artist-publisher-researcher (APR) practice-research approach situated in the discipline of publishing and contemporary book cultures. This article connects with but expands the disciplinary focus of drawing, research, theory and practice from hitherto more commonly discussed fields of architecture, design and the visual arts. After outlining the APR research practice, categories of the visual and material details of a range of formats and structures of sketchbooks, from the factory-made to the handmade, are considered. Discussion of these categories concentrates on the respective functions of the sketchbook and the modes of drawing they afford the author in her APR methodology. Analysis of the roles of sketchbooks as a mechanism for knowledge production engages with 4E and 6E cognitive frameworks (McGuirk 2024). In doing so, the process of sketchbook making itself as cognition in the production of experimental publications is illuminated. The contribution of this article relates to the relevance and significance of the new angles on the sketchbook it reveals as a mechanism for knowledge construction processes in the context of contemporary book cultures and publishing studies.

Keywords
aesthetic knowledge; artist-publisher-researcher methodology; epistemic artefacts; experimental publication; tacit knowledge; zine skethcbook

Journal
Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice: Volume 11, Issue 1