Visual Thinking & Graphic Recording: One Main Image

Graphic recording involves taking notes with a lot of pictures. Sometimes, especially with shorter presentations, there's simply no time for a lot of pictures. A lot of pictures may not be needed, either. One large central image can be mighty powerful. And it may be all you need.

There's more than one picture in the graphic recording above. There are some musical notes, a couple of light bulbs, and some simple people at the bottom. Then there's a big face in the center, towards the top. Notice how that face really grabs your eye?

If you're pressed for time, pick one thing to draw. Draw it big and bold. That alone will make your notes or poster much more visual. That one drawing will catch people's eye and bring them into the content more than just words alone.

Visual Thinking & Lettering: Design, Don't Write!

Fancy lettering is great. Simple lettering can be great, too. If you think about each letter as a part of a design instead of just a plain old letter.

One way to turn simple letters into a design is to switch up the sizes. Make some of the letters bigger than normal. Make others smaller. Switch up upper and lowercase, too.

The only rule here is that whatever you end up with is visually interesting. And you'll most likely want to be sure people can actually read the message, too!

Visual Thinking & Drawing: Label It!

There's a huge difference between drawing to create great art and drawing to think or communicate better. But there's a lot of overlap, too.

Some of those overlaps have to do with the way the brain works. Like when it comes to labels and titles of things. Your brain likes to keep things neat and tidy, so it matches up new information with something similar it's already seen. That helps your brain to keep track of things better.

When abstract things are labeled, your brain has a better idea what to do with them. Take the drawing above. Right now, it's untitled. It's ambiguous. But what if I told you it's a picture of 2 chairs? Then your brain immediately sees the chairs. But if it was titled something like "My Sleeping Cat" or "Flowers at Sunset", your brain would wonder why. The image looks nothing like those things, so your brain will search the image for clues, trying to believe it really is a picture of a cat or flowers.

So when drawing to think or communicate, labels can be very helpful. If you draw something that doesn't quite look like what you were trying to draw, just label it. Then there's no doubt people will know exactly what it is.

The picture above was created in a college drawing class. It's an abstract representation of two chairs.

Visual Thinking & Drawing: Make Some Posters!

Visuals set the stage before people even walk in the room. When people are greeted by a fun and friendly poster, it makes them feel welcome. And puts them in a more positive mood. They know, before anyone has said a word, that you've put some thought into the gathering...and this gathering might actually be fun!

Your visuals don't need to be super elaborate. Simple can be fabulous! Just stick with one main image and a short title. If you need a subtitle, make sure it's short and put it on the bottom, under your image. Add some color and you're set!

Visual Thinking & Creativity: Take It Apart!

One of the great things about visual thinking is that it helps you see the big picture. If you're trying to see something common in a new light, it might be more helpful to take that big picture apart. Visual thinking can help you do that, too.

Say you want to build a different kind of snowman. You'll need to change something about the way you usually build a snowman. In the visual above, I drew a regular snowman, but he's not quite put together. That way, it's much easier to see all the individual parts. And look at them individually. And think about which one you may want to change to create a whole new snowman.

That's not just for snowman. It works with pretty much anything. Seeing things visually like that just makes the whole process faster!

Visual Thinking & Creative Lettering Design: Capital C

I'm really big on creative lettering. That's partly because I like to draw letters. When doing graphic recording or illustration work, I've found lettering appeals to pretty much everyone. If there's too much text (regular writing) people lose interest. If there are too many pictures, people get lost. Fun, fancy, creative lettering is the middle ground between pictures and text.

I did some creative lettering practice a little while ago. I set a timer for 2 minutes and drew as many different capitol c's as I could in that time. (I may have gone over a little, I don't remember!) Here's what I came up with - plenty of different ways to draw a common letter!

Graphic Recording: What to Do With Your Boards After Your Event

One of the great things about graphic recording is that it's big. Really big. Often 8 feet long by 4 feet high. To put that in perspective, a Smart Car is almost 9 feet long and about 5 feet wide. That's just about a foot bigger than a lot of graphic recording work!

Graphic recording literally gives you the big picture. So why not make the most of it! Like the creative folks at Tech Liminal in downtown Oakland, CA. As you can see in the photo above, they hung their boards right on the wall. That way, every one who comes in can seen what they've been up to. And for those working there, creative inspiration is just a glance away.

The two graphic recording boards above were created live at The Product Summit a few months ago. Each board is 8 feet long by 4 feet high.

Visual Thinking: Creative Lettering Design

Visual thinking is about communication. It's not about art. But sometimes, visual thinking and art do overlap a bit. Especially commercial art or graphic design.

Sometimes, whatever you're thinking about may not be so visual. Or you may not have time to draw something that truly conveys the message. Or it might take a more complex image to get the real meaning across. Or you may be working with others who didn't understand the picture you first drew. That's where lettering comes in.

Most people think visual thinking is all about pictures. And lettering doesn't really matter. But every mark on the page becomes part of the visual. That includes the letters! If you draw the letters, instead of just writing them like you usually do, they take on a whole new meaning. And look. They become as much of the message as the words themselves.

Whether your message is big and bold or soft and dainty, make it obvious with your letters!

Tracking Progress

Setting goals is one thing. Reaching them is quite another!

You're much more likely to reach your goals when you track your progress. Doing that visually helps you see the big picture at a glance. It also keeps your goals in the front of your mind so you're less likely to forget about them.

That's what performance dashboards are for. They're like the dashboard in your car in the way you can see at a glance how things are going. But they're for tracking progress towards your goal, instead.

Here's a performance dashboard I created to help me track how often I stretch throughout the day. All I have to do is put a dot by the time of day when I stretched. At a glance, I can see if I've been remembering to stretch or not.

A performance dashboard like this is super simple, yet so much more specific than just saying, "I need to be sure to stretch throughout the day."

Visual Thinking: Graphic Recording

There's more than one school of thought when it comes to graphic recording. Some say to use as many pictures as you can. Others say to capture as many words as you can. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle, I think. Well, really, I don't think about it too much. I just do what makes the most sense. Whatever captures the idea best. And visually makes the most sense.

This is a graphic recording I did for practice quite a while ago. It's pretty heavy on the words. Not so many pictures. How the words are arranged on the page and the different colors and sizes make it much more visually interesting than regular writing.

As you can see, amazing drawing skills aren't needed to create visuals with impact!