Graphic Recording: Welcome!

Friendly visuals can set the tone for the day! This graphic recording was created during the welcoming remarks at the CompCloud event last month here in San Francisco. This represents about a half an hour of content on one 40"x60" board. As you can see, there's some white space and the writing is fairly large.

The next blog post will show another visual from the same event created during a much longer session. As you'll see, the length of the session and amount of content covered impacts the overall look of the resulting graphic recording image.

Live Graphic Recording: Design Thinking Innovation Workshop at The Product Summit

Workshops are generally made of PowerPoint presentations, hands-on work, and lively discussions. Graphic recording is a great way to capture both the facts and the flavor of the group, giving everyone (present or not) a clear picture of the key points and the experience as a whole. It's also a great way to show the whole group how much of an impact each person's  participation has on everyone's experience there.

The two images above were created during the full day Design Thinking Innovation Workshop last Saturday, as part of The Product Summit in San Francisco.

Timeline: Golden Gate Bridge

Timelines are by nature visual, but that doesn't always make them so visually inviting. I did this one a while ago for practice and to learn a little about a Bay Area landmark, too. Even from a distance, you can clearly see it is about the Golden Gate Bridge, it's foggy, and there's a blimp in the sky. A successful visual creates a very simple, yet clear, first impression like that.

This timeline was created on a 4'x8' sheet of paper and colored with crayons...which I quickly discovered are hard to photograph well. So, this one remains a cropped snapshot, not a bright and shiny digital image like I usually send my clients.