Visual thinking and sketchnoting
Description
Sketchnotes – often created in realtime at lectures and conferences – are a way of capturing concepts in an engaging and visual way by combining the power of hand-drawn images, words and diagrams.
The technique itself is not new – artists and designers have captured their thoughts in a visual way for centuries. Recently the interest and activity around sketchnotes and visual thinking has grown significantly. And for a good reason – humans are visual thinkers from birth so it’s only natural that we are attracted to visual explanations, particularly given their power to help solve problems, explore opportunities, and aid in understanding complexity.
We will start with a quick overview of key concepts and then move rapidly through a series of hands-on exercises interspersed with live demonstration, group reviews, and practical critique. This fun and informative session will equip you with a deeper understanding of how to memorably capture what you hear and see using visual skills.
Topics will include:
- Basic sketching techniques (How to sketch objects, people, emotions)
- Attributes and elements of sketchnotes
- How to create a structure and establish visual hierarchy in your sketchnotes
- Tips and tricks to enhance your visual explanations
- Strategies for translating words into images
All skill levels are welcome, from absolute beginner who can’t draw to confident sketcher.
Workshop structure
The workshop will cover:
- Warm-up sketching activities
- Differences between drawing and sketching
- Using the visual alphabet to sketch objects, people, faces/emotions and hands
- How to add information to visual explanations
- Visual hierarchy and emphasis
- Strategies for coming up with images
Outcomes
Participants will learn about:
- why sketchnotes are a great technique for designers to capture talks, meetings and their
- own thoughts while practicing their visual thinking sills in general
- how to sketch basic objects, people and emotions
- how to express ideas and concepts through simple sketching
- how to sketchnote live talks: how to deal with time pressure, structure and abstract concepts
- to work with ‘mistakes’ and accept them as happy accidents
Target audience
Designers, researchers and product managers with or without previous sketching skills. Taking visual notes can be practised on all skill levels. The workshop will start out with some sketching basics that will give even people who think they can’t sketch a headstart that will enable them to continue on with the second part that focusses on visual note taking in particular.
The skill of visual note taking is relevant for everyone as an additional communication tool.