I did some graphic recording this Saturday at The Product Summit, here in San Francisco. At the lunch break, I tweeted the completed visual from the morning. As you can see from the screenshot above, live graphic recording greatly increases engagement on social media, as well as during the event!
Lettering vs Writing: What's the difference?
Lettering is really just drawing letters. Each stoke of every letter is carefully and deliberately drawn. How the letters all fit together and how things look as a whole are given lots of thought, too. And when you get done, you get something that's just fun to look at. Lettering is about aesthetics.
Writing is pretty much done without thinking much about the letters. Some of the letters may not even be legible, while others may be very poorly formed. Not much thought is given to how the letters fit together or how the words look on the page. When you get done, you just hope others will be able to read it. Writing is about communication.
Just some random pineapple facts above in some different lettering styles.
Creativity: Unfinished work
Here's a sketch I did in high school. I never finished it and I have no plans to. But I hold onto it because I like it. And I had fun doing it. And I learned a lot from it. So, it really doesn't bother me that poor girl still doesn't have a foot!
When it comes to creativity, there is no rule that says you have to finish everything you start. Just be sure to hold on to those unfinished projects, though. A quick glance at one may be all it takes to get your creative juices flowing again when you get stuck.
Visual Thinking Practice — Patterns from Repetition
The brain loves patterns! Drawing simple patterns actually helps you become a better visual thinker and pattern finder, even when things are more abstract. And it helps you to more quickly find the simple patterns in more complex ones.
Try this:
Duplicate a black and white pattern design four times. Choose four colors, plus tints or shades if needed. Color the background the same on all four images. Then use the other three colors to color the main parts of the design, making each of the four copies different. Then put them all together and see how your original simple pattern suddenly becomes much more complex.
I did this one in Photoshop and flipped some of them horizontally to make things even more complicated, yet the original design is still quite simple.
See this previous blog post to see how to make this pattern and this for an exercise with color.
Visual Templates: Visual evaluation and group consensus
Most people think coming up with ideas is what creativity is all about, but evaluating them is just as important. And it's equally important evaluation waits until you're trying to decide which one of your many ideas to use. If that final decision is made in a group, consensus can be hard to reach.
A simple visual like this one can make the whole process much more simple, enjoyable, and engaging. Everyone can see at a glance how bright the group as a whole thinks that idea really is.
Visual Thinking Practice — 2 Minute Letters — Lowercase G
For some quick and easy visual thinking practice simply choose a letter and see how many different ways you can make that letter in 2 minutes. Be sure to decide upper or lowercase before you get started. And remember, you don't have to like everything you come up with, just don't scribble anything out! Keep all your ideas visible because they might be useful later.
My 2 minutes with lowercase g are above (drawn on a whiteboard).
Visual Thinking Practice: See it clearly
Ideas can be abstract or invisible and that makes them harder to work with. Visuals help make them concrete and (obviously!) visible. Then they're much easier to work with and evaluate.
Try this easy exercise:
Take a black and white design you drew a while ago.* Imagine the entire image fully colored in at least 4 different colors. Try to see the entire image with as much detail and as vividly as possible. Take your time and wait to get a really clear picture in your head before moving on. Then, color the image in as you pictured it. Odds are, you'll probably change your plan a bit as you go along. When things become visible and tangible, it becomes much clearer what works and what doesn't.
*Check out the previous post on Visual Thinking Practice: Thick & Thin Lines and Concentric Shapes to see how to make a design like this one.
Live Graphic Recording: Leaders for Change 2014
Last Friday, I did some live graphic recording at Foster Youth in Action's Leaders for Change conference. Leadership teams from ten different groups each presented a little about their group, their accomplishments, and their goals.
This was recorded on one 4'x8' panel. Since unity and collaboration were a big part of this event, it was really important for each group to be represented in one final image. Fortunately, space allowed for a larger image, but that's not always the case!
Alternately, each group's presentation could have been recorded on a smaller panel (around flip-chart size). Smaller images can then be displayed together at the event and pieced together into one final digital image, if desired.
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.
Visual Thinking Practice: Thick & Thin Lines and Concentric Shapes
The brain loves patterns! Drawing concrete, visual patterns like this actually helps you get better at discovering more abstract, non-visual patterns.
Here's one to try:
Pick a starting place on whatever you're drawing on. Draw four round shapes, with each line starting at that central point. You should have a clover shape or something like the letter x. Then go around the shapes you just drew, again starting at the same central point for each line drawn. Alternate thick and thin lines for each set of lines draw around that central point. Continue until the entire page is filled (going off the page for some) or stop and embelish the background, like I did above.
That's it! Now you have a simple, symmetrical, geometric design that's helped your brain become a better pattern detector and visual thinker!
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*Concentric is a math term that describes shapes with a common center.