Every Picture Tells a Story

Hand drawing is arguably architecture’s oldest technology. Even as we plunge headlong into the age of artificial intelligence, drawing remains a timeless, intuitive, and powerful tool for exploring, explaining, and understanding both built and imagined environments. It remains a timeless tool for design thinking. This richly illustrated monograph features over 250 works from the 40-year career of architect Wesley L. Page, FAIA, ASAI, one of the nation’s top traditional media architectural illustrators. Rather than a “how-to” book of drawing tricks and techniques, it is a visual journal organised around a purpose-based approach to drawing architecture and how understanding the overlap of drawing, design, and storytelling can profoundly impact the power and effectiveness of architectural illustration. The drawings collectively represent a holistic approach to both conceiving of and executing drawings—not just drawing for illustration, but drawing to achieve a more intentionally targeted outcome driven by purpose and story. Every Picture Tells a Story is a virtual encyclopedia that displays compelling, beautiful evidence of the lasting relevance, appeal, and storytelling capacity of hand drawing in the digital age.

Wesley L. Page, FAIA, ASAI, is a design principal and illustrator with Hanbury Design in Norfolk, Virginia. Over a 40-year career as a designer and architectural illustrator, his work has garnered numerous national and international awards and been published and displayed regularly in juried shows across the United States and abroad. He has long been a vocal national advocate for hand drawing as a still critical design tool, even in the digital age.