I wanted to follow up on the post I wrote two weeks ago about my sketchbook organizing dilemma. I’m happy to say that thanks to all of your great suggestions, I’ve found the perfect way organize my sketchbooks without having to dismantle them: Evernote!

And even better, it’s also provided a way to organize all the snippets of photos, links, and documents related to all of my creating. This is definitely an upside to solving my sketchbook solution.

I took a hard look at Evernote’s term of service. I have to admit that I was a little concerned about them having all my ideas, hopes, dreams, disgruntled notes, and drawings. After much digging, it looks pretty standard, similar to Flickr, better than Facebook. So I’ve decided to use it. There are a few really amazing features.

One:

image text recognition – seriously! it takes your images and recognizes any text in them and makes that said text searchable.

Two:

you can tag all the photos and search that way.

Three:

You can install and use Evernote on your pc, mac, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and it syncs them all up via their server. Which is pretty sweet. So I can be working on things in my office on my pc, then come home and use my macbook at home to look things up. Excellent.

Four:

You can scan, photograph, clip links using a Firefox plugin, and “clip” files on your computer. So you can really pull together all the info and search through it.

One draw back is a monthly upload limit, but you can opt to pay a monthly/yearly fee to increase that limit, just like Flickr or any other similar service. Right now, I can only upload about one sketchbook a month.

Using Evernote to Archive and Search my Sketchbooks

At first I thought I would scan it, but then thought photographing would definitely be the good way to go. Here’s how I’m going to do it, one sketchbook at a time, over the next few months:

1. Set up lights-

-I use 3 utility lamps, one above and one to each side.

2. Tripod

– I’ve been taking photos right over the sketchbook with a tripod, nice a steady.

4. Turn the page

5. Naming the files

I’ve decided that it would be good to name the files according to what they are photos of. It’s a little archiving system so I can see what it contains or search easily for it.

1. A number for each sketchbook that I’ll write on the inside flap of the physical book: 001
2. Then, if I know it, year(s): 2010
3. Then, the spread number: 001
4. And then a letter for what type of thing it is:

• P = pattern
• J = journal
• S = sketch
• A = art project

Now I’m feeling like I want an assistant to help me with this monumental project. But I know for a fact it will be worth it.

Happy crafting!
Kristin