It helps to figure out where you are before you decide where you want to be. For my goal of blogging and tweeting everyday, I've noted how many blog posts and tweets I have today and what the total number of each will be when I reach my goal. That way, it's much easier to keep the end number in mind. Creating a visual like this with those numbers side by side makes it much more likely I'll actually look at at remember those numbers.
Goals: Make 'em Visual
If you make your goal visual, you're more likely to reach it. And visuals can help track your progress, too. I'll be using visuals to track my progress on this goal throughout the coming year.
Visual Summary: Milwaukee
Here's what I do on airplanes - I draw! I was in Milwaukee for a job a few weeks ago and created this visual summary on my way back. Looks like I managed to see quite a bit in the 36 or so hours I was there! The one disadvantage of working in black and white? I couldn't capture the beautiful sunrise!
Strong, Bold Lines Make a Great Big Difference!
I spent the earlier part of Halloween this year in a plane, flying back from a job in Milwaukee. I didn't quite finish this doodle, but you can clearly see what a difference strong, bold lines make. No need to have a big broad tip marker to go big and bold, though. This doodle was done with a regular ball point pen I bought in an airport snack shop. If you keep adding to a thin line, eventually you get a thick one!
Seven Simple Skulls
Another great way to practice your visual thinking and creative thinking skills it to experiment with drawing something a number of different ways. The key word here is EXPERIMENT because you probably won't end up liking everything you come up with. Like in my skull experiment above - the one in the middle kinda has an alien thing going on!
31 Spunky Pumpkins!
If you want to think more visually, you've gotta practice! One great way to is to take a few minutes everyday to think how you might represent something visually. If you're super organized, you might make a list of things and tackle one every day. Or, you could just choose something that catches your attention or whatever random things pop into your head.
Last October, I worked on traits of creative people - a different trait for each day in October. At the end of the month, I ended up with 31 Spunky Pumpkins! You can check out the whole set in this Flickr Album.
Grab that quote!
Great speakers often pepper their talks with catchy, memorable phrases that are highly quotable, and in turn, tweetable. Somtimes, those juicy gems are clearly a planned part of their presentation. Other times, they're spontaneous responses to audience comments and questions. Either way, grab those great quotes when you can! Often too quick or abstract to illustrate in mere seconds, snappy quotes are just right for some strong, fancy, and fun lettering.
Whitespace: Why Some Graphically Recorded Images Have More Than Others
Every graphic recorder, illustrator, artist, etc. has their own style and preferences for the amount of white space left on the page. But when it comes to live graphic recording, two other things determine the amount of white space far more than style alone: Time and content.
The two generally (but not always) go hand in hand. Longer talks and presentations generally cover more content, and more content means there's more stuff to fit on the page. That, in turn, leads to less white space. The reverse is true, too. Shorter talks cover less content, which means there's less to fit on the page, resulting in more white space.
Take a look at the images above. Both were created at the same conference. The one on the left was created during an 11 minute presentation. The one on the right was created during an hour long presentation. See what I mean?
What Does 3 Days of Live Graphic Recording Look Like?
Ever wonder what to expect from 3 days of live graphic recording? Each event is different, as well as the reasons for having the event graphically recorded, so no two events turn out exactly the same. But this Flickr album will give you an idea of what can be done. It represents three full days of live graphic recording on flip-chart paper for the Shop.Org Summit in Seattle earlier this month. Images like these are great for social media!
Get 'em Excited - with Visuals!
Get people excited about your event weeks in advance with some friendly visuals. Visuals like this are ideal for social media and are highly sharable. They also set a very fun and festive tone before anyone sets foot on site. And, if a graphic recorder will be capturing the event live, pre-event visuals give folks a taste of what's to come.
Check out the whole 10 image pre-event set for the Shop.Org Summit, held in Seattle last week.