Free sketchy people

Open Doodles

2019Creator · Illustration · Product · Creative directionopendoodles.com
Free sketchy people.

Free sketchy people.

Loose, playful figures you can drop into anything. CC0. Remix them, sell with them, whatever. No permission needed.

Every landing page in 2019 used the same three stock illustrations. Everyone recognized them. So I sat down and drew a pile of loose figures instead… people stretching, thinking, sitting on nothing, floating for no reason.

Then I gave them away. CC0, public domain, no attribution. Remix them, put them on a t-shirt, sell them, whatever you want. The point was to make the internet a little less samey and a lot less precious about it.

One long sketching session

The drawings

I wanted them loose on purpose. Wobbly lines, no fussing, the kind of sketch you'd do in the margin of a notebook while a meeting drags on. Loose reads as friendly. Friendly is the whole job.

Now in color

Black and white line art goes anywhere, but people wanted them to match their brand. So I explored palettes… same wobbly figures, dropped into whatever color the moment needed.

The generator

A static library is fine until you want a pose that isn't in it. So I built a generator: pick a figure, recolor it, tweak it, export it. Make your own sketchy person and take it with you.

The generator. Pick, recolor, export.

The site

opendoodles.com, live.

Building the shelf

The site had to feel as easy as the drawings. Wireframes first, then something you could scroll and grab from without reading instructions. Click, download, done… back to whatever you were actually working on.

Keep digging

Everybody is moving

Everybody is moving

open doodles

illustration

The download page lives

open doodles

site

Pick a color, any color

open doodles

site

Everyone's moving somewhere

open doodles

illustration

Rollerblades, free-falling

open doodles

process

Open Doodles went everywhere. Decks, apps, blog posts, places I'll never see. Giving the drawings away for free is still the most reach any of my work has ever had. Un abrazote to everyone who used them.

Next up

Humaaans

Mix-and-match flat people. Everywhere, for years.