Includes sketchbooks spanning most of Ojeda's life after college, from 1979, when he graduated from Parsons School of Design, through 1987. Drawings are usually rendered in graphite, and sometimes ball-point pen or marker ink. In addition to the drawings, the sketchbooks also include lists, names and addresses, reflections, reminders, and other notes.

Sketchbooks with dates on them are arranged in chronological order, preceded by undated scrapbooks, which are arranged alphabetically by title.

The sketchbook titles were assigned by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué during preparation of sketches for the book, An Excess of Quiet: Selected Sketches by Gustavo Ojeda, 1979-1989. Ojeda-Sagué named the sketchbooks by brand and numbered them (usually on masking tape affixed to the sketchbook cover) in the order in which he scanned them. The numbers are not sequential by chronology and there are sometimes overlaps and gaps in numbering (for example, there are two Aquabee 5s). Archivists have retained the original titles in this inventory. In the cases of overlaps, archivists have added dates, words or other markings—usually taken from the front or back cover—to distinguish between titles.

The collection also includes 1,549 jpeg scans of pages from the sketchbooks, created by Gabriel Ojeda-Sagué and provided to the Archives with the rest of the collection.