Did you know that today is the first ever World #Sketchnote Day? Read more about this landmark day. As ambassadors of visual thinking we’re excited to join the celebration. To mark the occasion I’ve put together a sketch note with some tips on live sketchnoting.
I started my sketchnoting journey practicing during presentations in a safe space, the privacy of my own notebook. Although I am a very visual person I am by no means a trained graphic designer, graphic facilitator or visual note taker. But like any remotely creative person, I found sketchnoting a useful tool to help me remember the key ideas of anything I was noting down, and much easier to refer back to than traditional written notes.
One day I got asked to sketch note an upcoming client workshop; suddenly I had to prepare to venture outside of the comfort of my notebook and reveal my work to a live audience.
With the difficult task ahead of me I had to face the fear of exposing my work to others as well as ensuring I would be able to effectively capture the key points of the discussion for our client. To prepare for the task I asked for tips from colleagues who I knew were excellent at sketchnoting, I watched countless videos, read bunches of articles and practiced sketchnoting to capture the key discussion points during recorded presentations such as TED talks.
When the big day finally came and I did my first live sketch notes I found it so rewarding to see how my work helped people in the workshop see their discussions come to life, and allowed them to refer back to topics and have a shareable record of the outcomes of the session.
That day I learnt that although not everyone may become a master live sketchnoter, as designers we can use our skills to help facilitate and visualise discussions. Our sketchnotes need not be works of art to have value and meaning.
Since then I’ve continued to live sketchnote for a variety of clients across a wide range of topics. To help inspire you to try live sketchnoting I’ve captured some some hints and tips I’ve picked up along the way, and here they are.
So grab your pens, start exploring the world of visual thinking and join the sketchnoting conversation on Twitter using #SNDay2016!
