One Squiggly Line

A visual thinking business that uses hand-drawn pictures to make things clear, simple, & fun
  • Welcome!
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Classes
  • Shop
  • Contact
  • Welcome!
  • About
  • Portfolio
  • Classes
  • Shop
  • Contact

One Squiggly Line Blog

Hand-drawn pictures can make things clear, simple, and fun in blogs, too!

  • All
  • About Visual Thinking
  • Animated GIFs
  • Creativity
  • Drawing
  • Graphic Recording
  • How to be More Visual
  • Lettering
  • life
  • Sketch Animation
  • Supplies
  • the creative process
  • Tips & Tricks
  • Visual Notes
  • Visual Notes: Sketchnotes
  • Visual Thinking Examples
  • Visual Thinking Tips
  • Visuals in Use

Fast Facts! The Benefits of a Hot Tub

melinda carpenter June 21, 2023

The Benefits of a Hot Tub

Here are seven fast facts about the benefits of using a hot tub. This is an example of visual notes created from print materials, not while people are talking. This image was created in-studio, which means not with the client and not in real-time, as visual notes are commonly created. Because of that, this image is more like an illustration.

It doesn’t matter if you call this an illustration, visual notes, an infographic, or something else. If you know what you want and are looking to hire someone to create it, don’t worry about finding the correct term for what you’re looking for.

The odds are, there is no “correct” term! People hire me to create visual note, live illustration, graphic art, event art, infographics, sketchnotes, illustrations, storyboards, little doodles, sketches, storytelling art…I could go on! That sounds like quite an impressive list of various styles of work. But it’s not! It’s basically the same type of work — some may be in real-time, others not in real-time, but it’s the same kind of work and similar style.

In Visual Notes, About Visual Thinking Tags illustration, fast facts, hot tub
Comment

Free Hand-Drawn Animated GIF

melinda carpenter November 29, 2022

Warm up this chilly season with a hand-drawn animated GIF. Click the image above for instructions to easily text this GIF from your smart phone. Available for a limited time.

In Visuals in Use, How to be More Visual, Animated GIFs Tags cheerful, good mood, gift idea, happy, illustration, free, visuals, animated, animated GIFs, greetings, greeting cards, texting, snowman, winter, holiday, holidays
Comment
Fun Fact: There are more dogs than kids in San Francisco.

Visuals Make Facts Friendly

melinda carpenter October 13, 2022

Friendly hand-drawn visuals make facts more friendly and approachable. They can also make the fact more memorable. This is one of many visuals about fun facts of San Francisco.

In About Visual Thinking, Visuals in Use, How to be More Visual Tags illustration, drawing, fun facts, visuals, San Fr
Comment
alan.kay

Visual Illustration: Live Graphic Recording

melinda carpenter November 17, 2019

When working live, you never know what's going to happen. I usually only have the same information the people in the audience have, which is a basic agenda. So I know the speaker's name, title of their talk, and how long they are scheduled to speak. That's it!

It's not uncommon for talks to go longer as planned, like the one above. That's usually a good sign, as it means the audience is really engaged. But it can be a challenge to capture all that extra content on the same page.

Color is a great way to keep things organized when there's not much space available. Grouping concepts and thoughts according to color allows you to have completely different ideas right next to each other without things getting confusing.

See more visual notes created live at One Squiggly Line's graphic recording page.

In Graphic Recording, How to be More Visual, Lettering, Visual Notes Tags graphic recording, Design Thinking, design, illustration
Comment
visual illustration.jpg

Visual Illustration: Demos & Pitches

melinda carpenter November 12, 2019

Demos and pitches are a pretty common part of the business world. Actually, they're a big part of every world, even if you don't formally use the term "demo" or "pitch". At the heart of both demos and pitches is a quick, concise presentation of key points. Hopefully, that presentation is both entertaining and memorable.

Hand-drawn visuals are a great way to make your presentation more entertaining and memorable. The drawing above was created live, in real-time as the speakers gave their demo or pitch.

To see more examples of visual notes create live, in the moment, visit One Squiggly Line's Live Graphic Recording page. Or for visuals created to highlight key points, created before or after a presentation or from print materials, see One Squiggly Line's Synthesis Images page.

In About Visual Thinking, Graphic Recording, Visual Notes, Visual Thinking Examples, Visual Thinking Tips Tags visual thinking practive, visual notes, illustration, live illustration, presentations
Comment
visualthinking_onesquigglyline_happiness

Creativity: Failure & the Creative Life

melinda carpenter June 13, 2019

Why are we afraid of failure?
 

It’s embarrassing. It’s humiliating. And perhaps it makes us feel weak and small inside.
 

When’s the last time you failed? How did it make you feel? Do you remember your reaction?
 

Perhaps it was a test. Poor performance at work. An interview. Suggesting a new idea.

Were you nervous? Did you cry? Get angry? Did you shy away and never try again?

Oftentimes these emotions are uncomfortable. Although difficult to experience, they lead to some of the most important lessons, opening up many doors for us later on in life.

We live in a culture where everything appears to be perfect and “normal” on the outside. Our social media accounts portray this.

The reality is that life is messy. We’re not always perfect people. And if we try to always stay within the lines, we’ll never know what lies beyond.

It’s important to allow ourselves to be open to failure and rejection, because on the other side is a reward - either a lesson to be learned, or you achieve what you intended.

This doesn't mean to be stupid with our failures, but rather, to be smart with our intentions and our reactions.

It’s not the failure itself that’s important. What’s important is that we learn from our failures and implement these lessons into our lives.

Ask yourself: If I fail at this, what’s the worst that can happen?
 

Failure is one of the most important tools for a creative life.
 

When we’re comfortable encountering failure and rejection, only then will we be able to experience results that we’ve never seen before.
 

A creative life is one that has experienced failure multiple times - not recoiling from it, but embracing, learning and implementing its lessons.

Failure is a steppingstone to personal success and creativity.

Learn more about Visual Thinking

In life, Creativity, the creative process, Tips & Tricks Tags happy, illustration, creativity, thinking, visual thinking, Design Thinking, leadership
Comment
InfoToBrain_visualthinking_onesquigglyline.png

Creativity & Visual Thinking: Go for Quantity!

melinda carpenter May 21, 2019

Creativity demands quantity. Creativity comes from being exposed to a lot of different stimuli. It comes from having a lot of different experiences. It’s being able to draw from each of these experiences, and the unique reservoir associated with it. When we have a lot of different experiences, we can continue to build upon new and old ideas with the wisdom we’ve gained.

 

In order to come up with a great idea, we need to have large quantity of ideas to pick and choose from, and experiment with. It’s easy to pick the first ideas that come to our mind, and it’s oftentimes the case that we stop after the first few ideas and fail to go further. 

 

We need to open our minds to more ideas. We can’t stop at our first ideas. Our first ideas are typically generic, and already thought of before. The more ideas we come up with, and the more we suspend our judgement, the more novel our ideas are. We must stretch our minds to think further, and to suspend any judgement. 

 

This is particularly helpful with brainstorming - of trying to come up with a good idea, whether for a work project or a personal project. 

 

The creative mind is the mind that doesn’t stop at the first idea.

Visual thinking is a simple way to increase the amount of knowledge that sticks in your brain. And the more knowledge you have, the more building block you have to create with.

Contact me to bring the power of visuals to your next meeting, events, or project.

In Creativity, Tips & Tricks, life, the creative process Tags creative thinking, creativity, progress, productivity, Innovation, books, art, quotes, illustration, blog, basics, action, ideas, visual thinking practive, practice, abstract
Comment
VisualThinking_GetitGrabitGoforIt_OneSquigglyLine

Visual Thinking: Get it! Grab it! Go for it!

melinda carpenter June 24, 2016

While visual thinking makes things simple, it certainly does not dumb them down. Part of the simplicity comes from removing unnecessary parts, leaving behind only what you need to work with. That allows you to really see exactly what it is you do have to work with. This often leads to that, "Oh, now I get it!" moment when everything finally seems to fall into place and make sense.

Once you can see things more clearly, you are able to make better decisions. Sometimes, things become so obvious it doesn't even really feel like you're making a decision at all. The right choice just jumps right at you. Or if you do need to think about it for a minute, it's much easier for you to grab it and run with it.

Check out One Squiggly Line's About Visual Thinking page to learn more.
 

In About Visual Thinking Tags decisions, visual thinking, leadership, tips & tricks, vision, template, planning, imagine, stories, education, live illustration, Conference, events, Workshop, illustration, action, synthesis image, productivity, basics, drawing, inspiration, pictures, doodle, visuals, conference, Events, success, visualize, creative thinking, efficiency, design, Innovation, visual notes, meetings, goals, innovation, imagination, implementation, thinking, story, Visual Notes, summits, progress, impact, creativity, conferences, ideas, simplicity
Comment
VisualThinking_LiveIllustratedNotes_OneSquigglyLine

Visual Thinking & Visual Notes: Live Graphic Recording

melinda carpenter June 22, 2016

 Hand-drawn visuals are far friendlier than standardized fonts and stock photos. And hand-drawn visuals are even more inviting when created live, right there where everyone can see.
The drawing above was created during the opening remarks at the Women in Cyber Security conference the end of March. It was then displayed near registration to welcome late-comers. Not a high resolution file shown here, just taken with my iPhone in the moment.

To see the whole set of visual notes from the Women in Cyber Security conference, check out this Flickr album.

In Graphic Recording, Visual Notes, Creativity, About Visual Thinking, Visual Thinking Examples Tags posters, creative thinking, leadership, illustration, conferences, visuals, synthesis image, design, meetings, doodle, Workshop, pictures, Scribing, innovation, ideas, Graphic Recording, visual notes, sketchnotes, stories, Visual Notes, pre-event, basics, imagine, summits, live illustration, Conference, art, scribing, conference, impact, graphic recording, organization, visualize, simplicity, post-event, thinking, visual thinking, success, planning, events, inspiration, scribe, creativity, Innovation, drawing, imagination, Events, social media
Comment
VisualThinking_VisualizeRichlyColorfully_OneSquigglyLine

Visual Thinking & Creativity; Visualize it richly & colorfully

melinda carpenter June 21, 2016

Visualizing things richly and colorfully leads to more creative thinking. You probably visualize things more than you realize, without really thinking about it. So you already have some visual thinking skills. But how do you become better at visualizing things on purpose?
Try this:

Go to a hardware store or someplace that sells paint. First, pick a paint sample color card that matches your shirt. That's a warm-up, starting with something very concrete and right in front of you — your shirt.

Then, look for a paint sample color card that matches something at home. It could be a different shirt, a piece of furniture, your walls. Whatever you choose, you will need to picture it very clearly in your mind so you can "see" the color.

Paint sample cards are usually free, so you can take home the ones you think are the closest and see how well you did. The more you practice, the better you get!

Check out One Squiggly Line's About Visual Thinking page to learn more.

In Tips & Tricks, Visual Thinking Tips, Creativity, About Visual Thinking, How to be More Visual Tags design, creative thinking, imagine, doodle, experiment, Visual Notes, pictures, art, leadership, vision, simplicity, illustration, Innovation, impact, free, drawing, success, tips & tricks, composition, innovation, inspiration, basics, thinking, practice, creativity, visuals, imagination, ideas, visualize, color
Comment
  • One Squiggly Line Blog
  • Older
  • Newer

One Squiggly Line:

A visual thinking business that uses pictures to keep things clear, simple, & fun...in blogs, too!


  • Animated GIFs (1)
  • Supplies (1)
  • Visual Notes: Sketchnotes (1)
  • Drawing (2)
  • Sketch Animation (3)
  • the creative process (8)
  • Visuals in Use (9)
  • Visual Thinking Tips (16)
  • life (19)
  • Visual Notes (30)
  • Graphic Recording (41)
  • Lettering (44)
  • Creativity (46)
  • Visual Thinking Examples (46)
  • Tips & Tricks (48)
  • About Visual Thinking (53)
  • How to be More Visual (60)

Visual Thinking:

Words and pictures used together to engage the whole brain and turn information into knowledge that can lead to wisdom and action.

It's about communication, not art!


Graphic Recording:

Large-scale visual notes drawn live, in real-time, usually in color.


Visual notes:

A catch-all term for notes of any size created with a mixture of words and pictures, and may or may not be created live.


Sketchnotes:

Small-scale visual notes drawn in real-time. They may be created live or from audio or video files. My sketchnotes are usually black & white.


Graphic facilitation:

Facilitation of a meeting through the use of visuals. Often involves the use of templates and worksheets. Popular for problem solving, brainstorming, goal-setting, and strategy sessions.


Synthesis images:

Illustrations created to simplify complex information, drawn in the style of graphic recording or sketchnotes. Synthesis images are usually in color and generally created from print materials (like a company report or brochure).


Graphic Illustrations:

Simple, stylized drawings (including icons) created to represent an idea, concept, or information.


Other Illustration:

Drawings done in a variety of styles with varying degrees of complexity for a variety of reasons to depict pretty much anything.


Lettering:

A variety of unique, original lettering styles drawn by hand and designed to complement and add impact to the words.


Sketch Animation:

Short animations made from hand-drawn illustrations, generally to inform or educate.



  • July 2023 (18)
  • June 2023 (1)
  • November 2022 (2)
  • October 2022 (4)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • November 2019 (6)
  • August 2019 (6)
  • July 2019 (9)
  • June 2019 (5)
  • May 2019 (5)
  • June 2016 (20)
  • May 2016 (2)
  • April 2016 (4)
  • March 2016 (3)
  • August 2015 (5)
  • July 2015 (1)
  • June 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (6)
  • March 2015 (4)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (24)
  • December 2014 (31)
  • November 2014 (20)
  • October 2014 (6)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • April 2014 (5)
  • March 2014 (4)
  • February 2014 (2)
  • January 2014 (1)

  • One Squiggly Line ~
    Thanks so much @reverentgeek So glad you like the #visualnotes. And I am sooooooo excited about how much you have b… https://t.co/QAGSb9bHUX
    May 28, 2022, 11:12 AM
  • One Squiggly Line ~
    Love this creative logo 💖 https://t.co/BT2hh56tbo
    May 20, 2022, 11:14 AM
  • One Squiggly Line ~
    One squiggly line amidst wildflowers 🌸🌸🌸 #wildflowers #beautiful https://t.co/4K6NsifAbu
    Apr 30, 2022, 10:44 AM

  • abstract
  • academic
  • action
  • art
  • basics
  • block letters
  • blog
  • books
  • bubble letters
  • cheerful
  • color
  • composition
  • Conference
  • conference
  • conferences
  • Crayons
  • Creative Connections Network
  • creative lettering
  • creative thinking
  • creativity
  • decisions
  • definition
  • design
  • Design Thinking
  • diagrams
  • doodle
  • downloads
  • drawing
  • education
  • efficiency
  • Events
  • events
  • Experience
  • experiment
  • free
  • gift idea
  • goals
  • good mood
  • Graphic Recording
  • graphic recording
  • happy
  • ideas
  • illustration
  • imagination
  • imagine
  • impact
  • implementation
  • Innovation
  • innovation
  • inspiration
  • leadership
  • lettering
  • live illustration
  • markers
  • meetings
  • organization
  • pictures
  • planning
  • post-event
  • posters
  • powerpoint
  • practice
  • pre-event
  • productivity
  • progress
  • quotes
  • San Francisco
  • scribe
  • Scribing
  • scribing
  • simplicity
  • sketch animation
  • sketchnotes
  • social media
  • stories
  • story
  • success
  • summits
  • surprise
  • synthesis image
  • TED Talk
  • TEDx
  • template
  • The Product Summit
  • thinking
  • tips & tricks
  • travel
  • video
  • vision
  • Visual Notes
  • visual notes
  • visual thinking
  • visual thinking practive
  • visualize
  • visuals
  • website
  • white board animation
  • Workshop
  • World Creativity & Innovation Week
  • writing

“The soul never thinks without a mental picture.”
— Aristotle

instagram-unauth youtube pinterest email
  • FAQ
  • Copyright Notice
  • Blog

 

I’m raising money for Fighting Blindness through CharityMiles! Click to support/donate.

 

One Squiggly Line

A visual thinking business that uses hand-drawn pictures to make things clear, simple, & fun

Hand-drawn visuals to make things clear, simple, and fun so you can understand more deeply, communicate more clearly, and act more confidently. Visual Notes ~ Illustration ~ Sketch Animation ~ Graphic Recording ~ Other Creative Services.

One Squiggly Line | San Francisco Bay Area & beyond!, California, USA

instagram-unauth youtube pinterest email