Sketchnote Army Podcast

In this episode, Andrew Park shares how he crafts connected narratives across space and time using a range of tools. As the creator of the RSA Animate whiteboard animation series, Andrew shares how he’s used visuals to enhance learning in business and education.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got? In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice. All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Andrew Park?Origin StoryAndrew's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find AndrewOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Hairy Hand ProductionsThe Visual Flaneur PodcastAndrew on InstagramAndrew on YouTubeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Whiteboard paint Red and black Office marker pens Staples Whiteboard Moleskine sketchbook Leuchtturm sketchbook Photoshop Wacom Cintiq tabletsTipsUse thinking visual German to go through ideas or solve problems.In a visual way, don't procrastinate, just draw, create.Don't be too precious with stuff. Find what works for you.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Andrew Park. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.Andrew Park: Thanks for having me on. It's a real pleasure.MR: We were chatting probably longer than I should have chatted with Andrew before the recording 'cause I'm a huge fan. So I'm excited to have you on. I think there's lots of fans who probably are in this podcast or watching the video that—and we were talking about that a little bit. The idea of when you do something that's notable, often you're blind to the impact on other people. I know that I am. I occasionally get these emails in, like, "Your book changed my life." Like, oh, really? It was just a book to me. So welcome to the show. And I guess we'll just start off, tell us a little bit about what you do for your day job. I guess I know you as the RSA animate illustrator or animator.AP: Yep.MR: Or both, I guess. Obviously, you do more than that, so I'd love to hear what you do.AP: Yeah, it's misnomer. Actually. I'm not a very good animator. I know the principles of animation, but I have a really talented team that actually bring my drawings to life. If I was gonna say anything, I probably would class myself as a cartoonist. Cartoonist illustrator. But then I'm a visual thinker as well. I know how to sort of join up concepts and, you know, build maps of things. A joined-up thinking cartoon is possibly, it's a bit of a mouthful, but that's kind. So in my day jobs, obviously, the RSA films were quite successful and it enabled me to build a company around the methodology. So in about 2008, we developed the methodology, the process. It weirdly hadn't existed before. There were a couple of little smatterings of it out in the world. I think they did, I think a UPS commercial used a whiteboard and had a guy drawing on it as a commercial, I think, early on.MR: Yeah, I remember that.AP: But the genesis of it was graphic recording or scribing. That's where I learned how to put my pictures together. And then literally had a camera over my shoulder. I think that hadn't been done before, surprisingly. And I think one of the innovations of that, and it wasn't me that came up with it, was actually RSA themselves. They sent me a video of someone taking notes in a journal for the New York Library, and they'd sped the hand up. It was really interesting actually. I thought that's the missing component, because I was trying to literally draw these things live, fast which wasn't really working. I had the missing thing in my brain that why can't I draw a hundred miles an hour? And I literally couldn't work out, oh, you can speed it up. It's video. You know?MR: Yeah.AP: So once I saw that, it all sort of fell into place. There's an author called Steven Johnson. Do you know him? Where Good Ideas Come From?MR: I need to find that book now.AP: It's really good. And he talks about ideas don't come as eureka moments. They often come as slow hunches. You know, they build, they bubble up and things percolate. And I think in terms of the RSA anime, that's kind of what happened. I've been working, scribing, capturing conversations live, graphic facilitation, graphic recording. And then when you then put a video component in that and think, well, how do I make that work?The hand from the New York video, New Library video was the, the kind of thing as a catalyst that made me think, here's how it could work. And then if you notice from the early RSA animates, they're really ropey, really rough, really handmade, if you like. And then as we've gone through, they've become more refined and more, you know, you just start thinking, oh, how, what can I do with these things? How can I—MR: Process, yeah.AP: So my day job now, is trying to talk about this stuff, extend it in the community. You know, people were interested in how visual thinking can help them. I work with companies and work with businesses to tell the stories. On the back of the RSA films clients came to us and said, "Hey, we want one of those. This seems like a really good way of telling our story." So yeah, over the last, ooh, 20 years now, building a company. I'm really proud of the team I've got. I've got some really fantastic visual thinkers and illustrators, animators that have taken it in their own direction. You know it's not just—I practice it in my way, but then the company has lots of different flavors of how that—MR: That's nice.AP: -kind of permeates the role. So, yeah, I'm really proud of those guys. There's some fantastic visual thinkers in Cognitive.MR: That kind of gives your clients a menu in a sense, right? So you can show them different styles. Is that something that they think about?AP: Yeah, I mean, there's a stylistic overlay that can go across the films, but if we're gonna talk about the methodology of whiteboard animation, it has the same DNA at its foundation which is showing information in space so that you can see the relationships between things.MR: Yes. Yeah.AP: Taking people on a narrative or a journey. There's lots of zooming in and zooming out.MR: Keeping the focus, holding the focus. Yeah.AP: Keeping the focus. I mean when we do plan stuff out, we are often—you know, you build the big map and you show a client the end state, it's really overwhelming for them. And then you say, don't worry, it's not gonna do that. We're gonna take you right into the beginning. And things draw and they build up in time. So what we have to do in the way that we work, is to have that end-state in mind when we build stuff. I suppose with Sketchnoting, you know, you are building it in time live, right?MR: Yes. Yeah. Typically, yeah.AP: Yeah, that's what you do. Whereas we would probably plan it to end up with that end-state, and almost then erase all that, and then go back to the beginning and—MR: Work backwards. Yeah.AP: -work backwards. Yeah. So that's how it kind of works.MR: I was mentioning when we first chatted before we recorded that the first thing I thought when I saw the RSA—I don't know which one I saw first. Probably Dan Pink, the first thing I thought was, wow, there was a lot of preparation that went into making this video that I don't know people necessarily realize has been going on. Because as an old print designer, like a graphic designer who did print production, everything I designed, I had to find a way to make that print on paper. And I learned the hard way when things didn't work. And I changed my process based on it. And I knew once I saw that, like, wow, okay, somebody did some serious planning, and exactly what you said, they kind of reverse engineered from state backwards.Okay, which, here's how it looks when it's finished. How do we piece this together in a logical way that holds focus and brings people through to the end? That was pretty immediately apparent. And I thought it was just like, wow, this is really cool. And I couldn't stop watching them. So as is true for a lot of people, right, it was a huge—I don't know, came outta nowhere, I guess, for a lot of people. And suddenly there's this cool thing and you can't get enough of it, which I guess is, was good for you, I suppose.AP: Oh, it was great. But like you say, you know, you sometimes don't know 'cause you can't see the wood for the trees. You are involved in it, you're working in it closely, and it's rare that you put your head above the parapet. I mean, obviously I knew early on the RSA when we put a first couple out, they said, these are really popular. They're more popular than the talking head videos. And we were like, oh, great, cool. Then we should make some more then.And then we continued. It was very much organic, let's make the next one and then the next one, you know. And then we started to—I think it was like the Dan Pink or the Ken Robinson RSA animates that just went bang. And millions of people watched those, which was really surprising. That enabled us to sort of think differently about—y

In this episode, Lindsay Wilson reflects on her evolution as an artist… from sketching playful portraits at 7 to the defining moments when constructive feedback reshaped her career path. She discusses her role at Ink Factory, hints at upcoming projects, and offers thoughtful perspectives on the intersection of AI and visual art.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got? In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice. All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Lindsay WilsonOrigin StoryLindsay's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find LindsayOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Ink Factory Studio WebsiteInk Factory Studio on IntagramInk Factory Studio on LinkedInLindsay on LinkedInInk Factory Studio on TikTokInk Factory Studio on Facebook Ink Factory Studio Chicago OfficeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Spiral bound sketchbook Sketching pencil Correction tapeTipsFind a community that's right for you, whatever your practice, and lean into it. Find feedback that could help you or give a direction on something that you could improve or work on, or even practice.Look for avenues to practice, or within the community.Warming up and giving yourself time to get prepared in that space whether you are sitting, standing, on a long day, or on a short day.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everybody, it's Mike, and I'm here with Lindsay Wilson. Lindsay, welcome to the show.Lindsay Wilson: Hello. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.MR: It's great to have you. I've been wanting to—the problem with having a show like this is the longer that I do the show, the more people I want to get on the show, and it's like impossible to get everybody all at once, so you just have to wait your turn, I guess. But [crosstalk 00:20].LW: Understood. Amazing, amazing. Happy to be here. And as we talked about in the preamble, have been following all the great work that you have been doing across the globe. I know you're going to the UK soon.MR: Yeah. LW: And, you know, just excited to be here and get to share a little part of my story.MR: That's great. Well, let's go ahead and get that started. Tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do, and then jump right into your origin story. Everybody's used to it now. The listeners know the origin story's coming. LW: Okay. Jump right in. Excellent. Well, I am Lindsey Wilson. I am one of the co-founders of Ink Factory. Some of you may know me as my—before I got married, Lindsay Rofe, but I go by Lindsay Wilson in a professional capacity. And as I said, one of the co-founders of Ink Factory, a visual note-taking firm located here in Chicago. Just about an hour—what would we be south, southwest, or Southeast of you in Milwaukee? MR: Yeah. Yeah.LW: But my origin story, woo hoo. I have listened to some of your podcasts, and I was like, how far back do we go here? And I'll just start at the beginning.MR: Yeah. Cool.LW: I was lucky enough to have parents in the military, and I was born in Germany, Heidelberg, Germany. And I share that with someone else that you've interviewed, Brandy Agerbeck. We were both born in Heidelberg, but soon transitioned to grow up in Texas, believe it or not, even though I consider myself to be a mid-Westerner, through and through, I have lived in Chicago longer than I have in Texas. But I grew up in Fort Worth, Dallas-Fort Worth area. And you know humble beginnings, I would say. And I know lots of people talked about if they were creative at a young age, and I have to jump in and say, yes, I love to draw. I feel that I came from some talented people. My father, although never practiced art, is very, very talented, as was my grandfather. So I get it through those genetics. But I was also encouraged to, and I know that maybe other people's experiences growing up didn't have maybe that much encouragement, but I was good at it. I was encouraged to do it, and it felt like I just followed that path. I'm sure I wanted to be a veterinarian at some point, maybe an astronaut, but when it came time to decide a major, I did go to study art at university. And I think one thing, when I was thinking about this story and what might be helpful to share, I wanted to share two poignant crossroads that I had in my journey to where I am now, and I feel like without those two moments, my path would be completely different. And as someone who starts out at university, we think everything is possible. And I had big ideas about what I wanted to be and really honed in on graphic design. And so, I went to a special university, Texas Christian University, that had an amazing graphic design program that you actually had to test into. So I had to take a whole semester where I had to prove myself worthy for this program. And fell in love with it. Absolutely fell in love with graphic design, spending so much time understanding typography, studying it. We didn't get into the actual technicality as far as like the programs and the technology that was available in 1998. We did everything by hand, and I loved it. I ate it up. I loved the whole process of working with my hands and laying out things, and again, studying all the key elements of typography. I feel like that shows up sometimes in my work. So when I talk about this poignant moment, I was on a trajectory. I was, you know gonna graduate, thought, you know, I'd already done an internship, I'd done all the right things, but my professor came to me in my senior year saying, "Lindsay, I think we need to talk about some things." And I'm like, let's talk. What do we wanna talk about? Thinking about, it's my senior show, or stuff like that. And he said, "You know, I think you're struggling." And, you know, of course, you know, that took a more serious tone.And my professor really sat me down and said, "You know, what I'm seeing with you is that you, albeit you're doing what's being asked, where I feel that your execution isn't where the other students are. However, your storytelling and your ability to define the purpose and again, the story of everyone else's work and the critiques," he's like, "You land the message like the other students are not, but their execution is better." So we had this whole conversation, and he basically was telling me, "I don't wanna let you continue down this path because I don't think it would be fruitful for you." And of course, I'm looking at him, you know, wind knocked completely out of my sails and thinking, well, what am I supposed to do now? I'm an artist. I'm a graphic designer. This is what I've spent the last four years doing. And we had a hard conversation. And, you know, he said, "I think I actually need to walk you across the building to our speech communication department." And what? What? I don't even know what you're talking about. So the reason I bring that up is because this person thought enough of me to tell me the truth and to tell me that this wasn't where, you know, he saw a trajectory for me, and how about this? And, you know, I did what every senior college student was due. I cried for at least two days. And then I said, you know what? I'm gonna dig in. And I ended up with a degree in speech communication and a minor in graphic design because I had essentially finished the program.And that was a moment in my life that, again, I could have packed up. I could have, you know, done so many different things, or I could have—he gave me the option 1to go back and remediate some of the classes, and that did not feel right 'cause, you know, I felt that my passion had been kind of tampered, but that gave me so much insight into another muscle that I have. And that is, again, what I didn't even know was possible, and it is that storytelling. So I learned to have a voice. I learned to be able to really ask questions and understand some of those nuances and how humans communicate. And I think it primed me perfectly for what I do. Although we aren't there yet, 'cause I didn't even know I would get there.So we continue on. I've graduated, I made the decision that maybe I would go into advertising. And what felt right for me was Chicago. So I packed up, moved to Chicago, didn't have a job, but I had purpose, and I had gumption. And I showed up and thought, okay so this is fast forward 2003 you know, that I could just land in Chicago and find a job. Well, thankfully, somebody pointed me in a direction that was like, "Lindsay, if you don't find anything, this avenue might just be perfect for you." And I don't wanna be a broken record 'cause I know that you've talked to other people before, but I come from the MG Taylor model. So I landed as a knowledge worker with Cap Gemini Ernst & Young back in those days for people like Kelvy, Christopher Fuller, Brandy Agerbeck, Alphachimp, both Peter and Diane. These were all people that they were my mentors, some of them I never met. I only heard their names and saw their work. But essentially, I ended up becomi

In this episode, Ted Shachtman talks about his discovery of the Mental Atlas Method, an imaginative new approach designed to strengthen memory retention. He explains how the method works, why it’s different from traditional techniques, and even guides Mike Rohde through a live trial so listeners can experience the process in real time.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got? In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice. All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Ted Shachtman?Origin StoryTed's current workSponsor: ConceptsWhere to find Ted ShachtmanOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Ted on LinkedIn(https://www.linkedin.com/in/ted-shachtman-70930b239/)The Mental Atlas Method(https://www.mentalatlasmethod.com/)CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everybody, it's Mike Rohde again. Got my friend Ted Shachtman here. Ted, how are you doing?Ted Shachtman: I'm good. How are you?MR: I'm good, man. It's good to have you. So, Ted is a very unique guest for the Sketchnote Army podcast in that he is someone who has discovered and has been developing this concept called the Atlas Method. Is that the right way to describe it? TS: It's the Mental Atlas Method, but yeah, typically we just call it the Atlas usually.MR: Yeah, yeah. After a while, you just sort of, the thing. You know, the thing we do. And so, I'm gonna have Ted talk about what he does in his origin story so he can say what it is. But I've experimented with this technique. And it's a way of improving or retaining memory, or I guess both those things. And I found it really fascinating. And I thought for visual thinkers to have expanded memory is always a good thing because in the work we do, where we're trying to take information, complex information, process it, make sense of it, and then put it on a board or on a screen or on a page, is really hard. And anything we can do to expand our capacity, our cache, our whatever it is that we're using to process this is a benefit for us. And then additionally, the way that we're going to do a little demo, it actually gives the capacity for you to not have to draw anything, if you wish to. I think that would be a fair way to frame it, think? TS: Yeah.MR: Okay, so with that, Ted, tell us who you are and what you do.TS: Sure. So as said, Schachtman. I am an educator and software engineer, and cognitive scientist. I went to Vanderbilt University for elementary education and cognitive studies. I've been a teacher for the past three years, and I'm also getting a master's in computer science. So the story with the Atlas was, in around November, and I asked myself this question, which was, how do I become the most general smart person? Like, almost like by the time I'm 50, how can I become just the best leader, CEO, researcher? And I kind of just embarked on this question and led me to a bunch of research, just kind of explored different paths, started visualizing things, talking while I was visualizing. And then the end result after about like eight months of constant work and research is the Atlas Method.MR: So that leads me to the next question, of course, is tell us a little bit about the Atlas Method and how you developed it, in with the framing of an origin story like a superhero.TS: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, I personally have a really, really bad part of my brain that takes what I'm currently thinking and writes it to long-term memory. You know those games where everyone goes around in a circle and is like, okay, name your name and something you eat, like your favorite food. I'm terrible at that. I'm really bad at watching lectures. I have to watch a video six times. And I wanted to get rid of that because I've always been pretty creative. And I was always looking for some technique or something that would allow me to, I guess, learn faster. And so, the actual origin story is I started talking out loud and visualizing at the same time back in October or November. And I would be analyzing some lecture I watched. And I noticed that as I was visualizing the lecture and talking out loud, it would really start to make more sense, like doing both of those things at the same time. And just happenstance, I would take another lecture I watched and be like, man, I want to compare between these. I would switch from like visualizing one to visualizing the other, and it would just be awful. Like I'd have to like go like, urgh! Like going from one to the other. And one day, I just tried putting them in the same space, like visualizing one video here and the one video here, like right next to each other. And it felt so much easier. It felt like I was able to hold both in my mind at once. And this kept going. I would analyze around two at a time. And then one day I was like, all right, well, I want to get a third. I put a third one in there, and it worked. I stayed at three, and then I went to four. And then I remember I had about nine full videos, like nine full 20-minute lectures all in the same visual space, and it was somewhat different than it had been before. Like, I started noticing connections between all the videos that I didn't typically find. And it stayed at this point. I'd visualize where 9 or 10 at a time. But I always had this idea that was, surely, I can't keep going, right? Surely nine, like it's impossible. I was like, what am I doing? MR: Set boundaries.TS: And then I started reading a lot of research. I started reading a lot of research that essentially said when people switch visual contexts, they lose so much information, and when people are searching from the same context, they can hold so much. Like visualizing someone's hometown, for instance, they can hold that whole thing, but as soon as you go hometown and then like a college campus, they incur so much cost. It's almost like it's hard to think of when you do that cost. And so, the origin story, how this all started, is I was on a call with my friend Ben, and at this point, I've been telling him like, you know, my cognitive science ideas. You know, just techniques to try to improve this process, and he wasn't super into all of them. He would be like, "Okay, that's a fine one." And I told him the following idea. I said, it seems like if I actually stored everything in one big space, meaning not just nine videos, but every single video I watched, every concept I'd want to think about, in one big space, it seems like that should be more efficient, all the research points to that. And I was waiting for him to say, all right, sure, maybe, but, you know. But he didn't. He paused for about 10 seconds and said, "You know, Ted, that's not a bad idea." And I just kept going with it. So essentially, the journey is exploring the following question. What if you take your hometown, like Memory Palace, like a method of loci style, and you're building these huge interactive visuals and doing a voiceover on top of them, like describing what you see, the patterns you notice. And you just keep putting these huge visuals all around your hometown. And you don't stick with nine. You go higher and higher and higher. And so, I kept practicing this. And so, the real origin story, where I guess this technique became not just a way for me to remember things, but kind of the Atlas as it is today, is I was reasoning about one of the videos, and I noticed a pattern about one of them. And as soon as I noticed that pattern, my visual attention just zoomed, snapped over to another one. And it felt like automatic. It almost felt like if somebody says, say you're looking at a wall of food in the grocery store, and someone says, find the cheese, and your eyes just go to the cheese. Except this happened with a really complex pattern. And I was like, that was weird. And I added more videos to the Atlas, and it kept happening. And then I sat with a hypothesis. I did the following experiment. I visualized my bathroom and then said, find the sink. Found it, visual attention snapped there. You guys can try to follow along. I said, find the shower curtain. And that was fine. And then I visualized my hometown. Like my whole hometown, I said, okay, find the front door to my friend's house. Find the apples in the grocery store. And it snapped, just like that. And I thought to myself, it doesn't seem to be any different to my visual system, whether I'm searching among my bathroom or whether I'm searching among my entire hometown. And this snap that I would get between simple objects like the apple in the grocery store or the shower curtain felt exactly the same as the snaps I was getting between these incredibly complex videos and the patterns in these complex videos. And so, I really sat there and I said to myself, this seems preposterous, but the logic says that I should be able to scale this up. And as I scale this up, the snapping will work just as much, and I'll probably find a lot better patterns. And it turned out I was right. So it wasn't an easy journey. Many pitfalls, many weeks of me doi

In this episode, Cara Holland shares her move from social work to graphic recording and the development of graphic recording training in response to a need she identified at the beginning of her journey.She discusses how her art has evolved through various stages, provides insights into AI, explains why the unique process of graphic facilitation has yet to be fully captured by technology, and reflects on the story behind her book.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got?In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice.All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Cara HollandOrigin StoryCara's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find CaraOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Cara's SubstackVisual Edits NewsletterThe Journey Of Tiny ThingsGraphic Recorder ClubGraphic Change AcademyCara on LinkedInCara on IntagramDraw A Better Business BookToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Neuland graphic boardNeuland roll of white paperNeuland markersLeuchtturm small notebookMicron PenCopic marker penFountain penWater colourProcreateAffirnityiPadTipsBe clear on what it is you're trying to achieve. Don't overproduce or overcomplicate what you're doing.Ignore the rules.Find a community, pull from each other and find ways to collaborate.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike Rohde and I'm here with Cara Holland. Cara, how you doing?Cara Holland: I'm doing good, thanks. How are you?MR: I'm doing well. So Cara, talk to us about who you are and what you do.CH: I'm Cara Holland. I'm based in the UK, and I'm a graphic recorder and a trainer.MR: Okay, and talk to me a little bit. I think we all in this audience know what a graphic recorder does. Tell me about the training part. I'm curious about that.CH: Well, I guess there's quite a lot to it.MR: That's what I thought.CH: It's probably, in one way or another, about 50 percent of my time. We have an online academy called the Graphic Change Academy, and we train people to do what I do.MR: Okay, got it. Yeah, because I mean, when you say trainer, that could go in a lot of different ways, right? You could be an athletic trainer.CH: Sure.MR: You could be all different, but obvious it makes sense that you would teach the skills you know well and help people enter the business right because graphic recording and graphic facilitation and those sketchnoting are tough to do. They demand a lot of you as a person.CH: They do. They do.MR: Primarily, you are listening. I would argue that listening is way more important than your drawing skills, personally.CH: I agree. Yeah, I agree.MR: And we're not trained to be good listeners. We're trained to flip our screens and listen for two seconds and move on. So it's gotta be kind of an intense thing, but I suspect a fun thing, right, when you see people learning and then applying those concepts.CH: Yeah, it's great. It is great. I think it comes from being in the business myself and in the early stages of my career, feeling that lack of training and feeling like I wanted somebody to give me some hints and some direction. And it sort of came out of that place really, a need that I had that I found hard to fill.MR: Interesting. Huh, and so do you tend to focus on a certain student kind of profile or you're open to anyone who comes to you? And maybe in that case, who are the kind of students that come to you? What are their backgrounds?CH: It's really varied. And so, we've trained people in 92 countries so far.MR: Wow.CH: So it's really widespread. And we have a suite of courses. I guess people come for different reasons and there are different courses to suit. The two big courses are be a graphic recorder and be a graphic facilitator and they're two distinct courses. So people come with different desires for both courses.MR: Got it. I would think that if someone who is a facilitator now but doesn't do the graphic part might be more interested in the graphic facilitation side of things. Where maybe graphic recorders are someone more entry level who just wants to get into the business. Is that a wrong kind of assumption?CH: I would say that you're right probably on the graphic recorder side, it tends to be people who want to be graphic recorders, although we get quite a lot of in-house people who are wanting to draw more in their workplace. And then the facilitators are really, really varied. So teachers and educators, community workers, people doing that kind of engagement piece on whatever topic they're in who just want to be facilitating more creatively.MR: Yeah, integrating the visual component to some degree or another, right?CH: Absolutely. It's all about the visual.MR: Yeah, because I think, you think about a graphic facilitator, that is a really hard job. Like graphic recording is hard, graphic facilitation can be even harder because not only are you wrangling a room of people who may be squirrely, but then you're attempting to take the things that they're saying and make sense of them and then put them on the wall and then, you know, get a reaction and then obviously move them toward a goal or something, right? That's a lot of things to hold in your head and your body and get people moving forward.CH: It is a lot of things, but I think the beauty of graphic facilitation in the way that I interpret it, and obviously there's different interpretations to what even this language is, but how I interpret it is there's a lot of pre-creation. And so, if you can create the right template, if you can have the visual assets around the room that support whatever it is you're facilitating on your subject matter expert niche, then those visuals carry you an awful long way.MR: So, it's a lot to do with framing and preparation and research and understanding and strategy, those kind of things.CH: Yeah, definitely.MR: Like before you ever walk in the room with the people, you've got to have a pretty clear idea of where are we going to go with this? How are we going to get there? What are the elements that we're going to use to achieve it, right? All those things.CH: Exactly. What will you need as a facilitator to have been successful in that session? What do you need out of those people? And how can you use visual tools and visual assets in the room to help you achieve that in the most effective, painless way?MR: Right. I've done a little bit of this, I guess it would be facilitation when I worked for a financial services company as a contractor. And I worked on a whiteboard and we had developers that sat around the table with product owners and business analysts. And they, we took a feature by feature and designed them on those whiteboard. And I would just listen to what they said and draw what they were saying and then add my own commentary and notes to it. So it was in a sense, facilitation.I think the good thing about it that I saw was, and I tell this to colleagues now whenever I work and do something like a mock-up even or a wireframe, is at least we have something to argue about because the worst thing that could happen is this illusion of agreement where we all think we agree on something and we actually don't agree and we all have 5 or 10 different, slightly different variations of the concept and by visualization, it can be really made clear like, that's what you mean? That's not what I think. Okay, well let's hash it out and maybe we have to work through some stuff to get alignment, right?So ultimately the goal there is alignment, which is a long way toward your solution so that you are all aiming at the right thing. Because if five people are doing all five different things, you're have to have another meeting to clarify that.CH: Absolutely. Yeah. The power of working visually is like getting it out of your head, isn't it?MR: Yeah, yeah.CH: And if you get it out of everybody in the room's head, you can see where you're misaligned is, you know, is magic.MR: Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Those sessions were really popular. We did them every Monday and developers told me they always look forward to them. Honestly, I've told the story before. I did them because I was the bottleneck. I was one designer with 50 developers, product owners and business analysts all breathing down my neck looking for mockups. And so, my solution was, well, I can't hold up the whole team for my mock-up, so the other solution would be, let's just whiteboard wireframes, and worst-case scenario, we'd take a picture of our final solution with notes, and the developer could build it, and then come to me and say, hey, I built this thing, what do you think? And then I could react to it, right? That eased a little pressure. So that was a really practical. I think what I liked about it, it was very practical, it wasn't esoteric in any way, it was very practical, and it solved the problem, so.That was pretty fun. So it's really important for me to get origin story. So we know you're a graphic recorder and you're a teacher, a trainer,

In this episode, Nishant Jain shares his transition from being a neuroscience PhD student to the Sneaky Artist who translates the essence of everyday life through quick, expressive drawings of people in public spaces. He reveals how stories, laughter, and reflections became his loudest form of storytelling.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got?In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice.All this for just $20. Buy the videoRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Nishant Jain?Origin StoryNishant's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find NishantOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army PodcastNishant's Sneaky Art newsletterNishant’s WebsiteNishant on IntagramMake (Sneaky) Art BookFind Nishant on his book tourJohn Muir Laws Sketchnote Army Podcast EpisodeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Lamy Safari fountain penStillman & Birn brown sepia toned sketchbookMoleskin sketchbookiPadApple PencilTipsCarry a small sketchbook.Give yourself permission to be curious.Get started as quickly as possible.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with my friend, Nishant Jain. Nishant, it's so good to have you on the show.Nishant Jain: Hi Mike, thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to talk to you.MR: Yeah, we've been talking for not quite a year, probably six months, but we've been aware of each other longer. I've been a subscriber to your Sneaky Artist Substack for a while.NJ: Mm-hmm.MR: And I think our meeting story was we were at—what's the name of the event that John Muir Laws puts on? The Wild Wonder event.NJ: Yeah, Wild Wander Conference.MR: And I think, was I doing something, or you were doing something, and I said, "Oh, look, it's Nishant Jain" And you're like, "What?" And you knew who I was. It was a funny moment, I think.NJ: Yeah. I think it was your talk, and I was curious about sketchnoting, and so I jumped into it.MR: Okay, got it. Got it. And for those who are not aware Wild Wonder is an amazing organization. You can go back—I'll put a link into the John Muir Laws interview from years ago. He's a super fascinating guy. If you listen to that podcast, you'll want to grab a sketchbook and a pen and go outside and sketch birds or something. Seriously, he's very, very exciting and inspiring person, and they run a workshop every year, I think around September. And they just have amazing people, and you can learn so much, and it's worth going to.After that sponsorship by Wild Wonder Foundation which I'm happy with sponsoring because they're great. So that's how we met. And then we just started connecting and chatting, and you were a great advisor to me in my Sketchnote Lab startup. You gave me a lot of mindset around the way you handle your Substack, which helped me a lot. That really accelerated the way that worked, and I think the way I think about it, which has been encouraging. So, thank you for that.NJ: Mm-hmm. I'm glad to hear that.MR: I think you do a lot of things, so before I assume what you do, coz I don't know, even if I know, tell us who you are and what you do.NJ: Sure, sure. Okay, so I'm Nishant and I gave myself this job title a few years ago of Sneaky Artist. It turns out you're allowed to make up job titles completely from scratch.MR: Oh, yeah.NJ: I was delighted to discover this, but I'm not just an artist, although art has become my primary medium of expression. I'm a writer, I'm also a podcaster, and as one has to be in this independent career climate, you cannot just be one thing. Everybody is multi-hyphenate. So as an artist, what I do, it's a practice that I did not think would make me an artist. I did not start this practice in order to become an artist. I just did it as a distraction technique. I just did it as a way to maybe learn to draw a little better.I was trying to be a cartoonist and I was trying to be a writer. And before all of this, I was an engineer. So I completed a master's degree—I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering. I've worked on race cars. I've worked on human prosthetics. And then I started a PhD program in neuroscience to become a neuroscientist working with stroke patients. But through this whole journey of education, I really, really—if you asked me, I would have said what I want to be is a writer. All I wanted to be was a writer. All I wanted to do was write political satire, write humor.And that's what I was doing every evening. I would do my studies, I would do my assignments and my projects and then for an hour or two hours, whatever time I'd get, I'd be writing stories. I wrote scripts for standup comedy. I tried open mic standup comedy. I wrote for television shows in India. I wrote a blog. I had a web comic of political humor for years. And I tried to express myself with everything that I could, you know?And for someone like me who isn't educated in these things, who isn't in the network of these things, the internet was a big boom. Immediately I started putting my work online first as a blog and then when Facebook came along, then Facebook, and then images became a thing on Facebook, so I pivoted to comics. So, I was very naturally agile around the medium of expression. For me, very quickly it became that you have an idea and then that idea can be expressed in lots of different ways and sometimes it is dependent on you to figure out what is the best medium to express this idea. Some things are better as a joke, some things are better as a comic, and some things are better as short stories.So quickly this became something for me to figure out and I became very excited by being able to do this as well. The freedom of the internet to let us express ourselves in any way we want and hopefully build an audience. So after a couple of years into my PhD program, I finally decided to commit to a life of creativity. I quit my PhD program. I moved in with my girlfriend, who's now my wife, and I started writing this big novel that was inside my head.And after years of writing and writing, it was such an amazing rush to be able to do it full time, but I would get about 30 percent into it and I would hit a block. And so, I would start again from zero and then again 30 percent and a block. And I wrote five drafts this way. The last draft I wrote by hand with a fountain pen thinking maybe just writing by hand will somehow unlock something special. And I kept hitting this block.And I was so frustrated and I was so mad at myself and I felt so many different feelings that I just in—there was this one day that I just grabbed my notebook and I grabbed my pen and I went out to a café and I decided that I was just done with words and words were just not working for me and I need to spend some time away from them. So I got a coffee and I started observing these people around me.I was an immigrant in North America. I was in Chicago then—and I'm fascinated, but Chicago is my favorite city in the world. I was fascinated by the people around me. These, you know, just the way people live their lives in America is so different from everywhere else. So I started observing them. I gave myself this room to observe them because I needed to distract myself. And I started making quick drawings of them.The drawings were quick because A, I am naturally impatient and B, I didn't know when they would leave. I thought they might just get up and go, so I need to draw very quickly. And finally, because I was very self-conscious of doing this very strange thing, I was trying to look at people and draw them and I didn't want anybody to see me do this funny thing, so I thought I'd be very secretive about it. I'll keep the book in the palm of my hand, and I'll draw very quickly, and nobody will see me do this "weird thing." This became the origin of Sneaky Art.MR: Right.NJ: I started calling it sneaky art because I was being sneaky and trying to get away with a sketch, an embarrassing sketch that wasn't very good and that you're not supposed to do. Like it just felt wrong. What a strange thing to want to do as an adult. And I realized this is a lot of fun. I finished a drawing in an hour, and it didn't look all that great, but I felt so proud of it because it just felt like a wholesome one hour had been spent, observing and translating, and it just felt good.So I came back to do it the next day and the next day and the next day and before I knew it I was on this journey to discover new things to see new people. I would go to different parts of Chicago, different neighborhoods and just sit in new cafés, watch these people and try to come away with something new. Did I do something today that I didn't do yesterday? Am I able to draw something today that I wasn't able to draw yesterday?And it began with this humble idea that I just want to be able to maybe draw slightly better comics. Maybe I'll learn how to draw nice backdrops and settings and, you know, like make a person look like a person. My comic so far for five years, I'd been published in newspapers and things, but s

In this episode, Katya Balakina shares her incredible journey from drawing in her early years to becoming a journalist in Russia during a hard time for the country. She shares her discovery of graphic recording at art school and winning an art contest, which gave her the confidence to pursue art full-time. In this discussion, Katya offers valuable tips and insights from her career as a graphic recording artist.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got? In the Reflective Travel Sketchnote Workshop Video, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice. All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Katya Balakina?Origin StoryKatya's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find KatyaOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Katya on LinkedInKatya On InstagramToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Neuland Markers Procreate Adobe FrescoTipsStop overthinking. You are good enough.Simplify your work.If your drawing can be a photograph, you are not pushing.You are doing everything right.It's good to remember that you are not going to one day just create a perfect board.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everybody, it's Mike Rohde, and I'm here with Katya Balakina. Katya, it's so good to have you on the show. Thanks for coming.Katya Balakina: Hi, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. That's very exciting.MR: Yeah, I've seen your work around mainly on—not Instagram, I think LinkedIn, actually. And really liked how clean and simple, and clear your work was. We were talking about this before we started recording. How did I find you? I'm not totally sure. I suspect it's the algorithm on LinkedIn that sees other graphic recorders and visual thinkers and puts them in our feed.KB: I guess.MR: I'm not totally sure, but I'm really happy I did because you seem like a really fascinating person with really nice work, and that's the kind of person that fits really well on the show. So, thank you for being here.KB: Thanks so much, Mike, and thanks for your kind words about my work. and I guess I didn't waste my time on LinkedIn if it helped you to find me.MR: Yeah, for sure. For sure. So, the way this podcast works is we first understand who you are and what you do, and then we go right into origin story, sort of bring us back from when you were a little girl and your experiences that brought you to where you are. I think in those origin stories, which I love we can learn a lot about you as a person and how you got where you are, but also, I think it can be beneficial for listeners to think, oh, I'm so different. I can't do that. And then you hear the origin stories and think, oh, wow, you know, Katya actually has a lot of similarities to me, and she's doing it, so maybe I can do this, right? So that's the thinking around origin story. Let's just jump right in. Tell us who you are, what you do, and then go right into your origin story.KB: Sure. As you mentioned, I'm on LinkedIn, so I do graphic recording, visual notes scribing. I dunno the right way to call it. They're just old terms we use.MR: Yeah, yeah.KB: I've been doing that for, I would say, about eight years. Maybe I can say 10, but exclusively more than eight. I've been working as a graphic recorder here in the States for last two years. And before that, I used to work with Scriberia. Your audience probably knows about that company.MR: In the UK, yeah.KB: In the UK. Yeah, they're very inspirational. Their work, I would say it's what defines word scribing and graphic reporting for many people. And a lot of people start learning about scribing from like Googling Scriberia stuff. And before that, I graduated art school back in Moscow. And that's where I learned for the first time about graphic recording from my art teacher there. So that's kind of my journey from just hearing about graphic recording and being full-time graphic recorder here in the States.MR: So, I'm kind of curious, going into your origin story, when you were a little girl, did you always draw since you were little, and then you managed to just keep drawing? Or did you pick up drawing later in life? When did that start for you?KB: Sorry, I missed the second half of your question. Can you repeat that, please?MR: Okay. It was, tell me a little bit about when you were a little girl, have you always drawn, or is it something you learned later? How did that happen for you?KB: I think it happened naturally. I've always drawn, and I have one of the first photographs of me with like a box of markers on the floor. I think I was less than 1-year-old.MR: Wow.KB: But since I was born and grew up in Russia in the late '80s, early '90s. Very challenging time, transformational time. Russia was relatively like poor state back then, so I have all those like black and white photographs that look like from I don't know, '20s in America. So yeah, people are having a hard time to believe that those are from my childhood. But yeah, I have like an old black and white picture of myself with markers. Yeah, I have been into drawing and doodling my whole life, but I guess I hear a repeat story of many people who were into this kinda like creative stuff that my parents had an idea that it's impossible to sustain any kind of like, normal life being, I don't know, a doodler whatever, an artist. I don't know, what word would they use back then.So I grew up with the idea that I do love drawing, but I cannot do it as something real in my life, so I have to find something else. And I became a journalist because I also loved writing. I used to work like a kid journalist for a local newspaper in our super tiny city. I grew up in a very rural area. And so, that was like, I dunno, I had 10 readers maybe, but I was super into it, and I was making illustrations for the newspaper and writing text. So since I thought art is not gonna be helpful for my future career, I decided to become a journalist. And I spent 80 years being a journalist in Russia. I used to work as a radio journalist, but then—my Google keeps showing me weird notifications. Sorry. Let's hope it's—MR: That's okay.KB: Yeah. Let me click something here. So yeah, by 2012, it became kind of dangerous to keep being a journalist in Russia, so I had to make a decision between am I staying in that field being a journalist, and being ready to get assaulted or whatever could happen, or should I compromise and only be like a good journalist talking about good things, or I should choose something different. And I decided to quit journalism and pursue art career because by that age, I would say I overgrew fears that art is not good to sustain like a normal life.MR: You felt like then at that point, you could actually make artwork, probably as a journalist, and being aware as you grew, you probably realized there were things you could do that were different than journalism.KB: For sure. Also, that happened that around that time I used to work as a journalist in Perm. It's like a regional city in the middle of Russia. And around the time I was a journalist there, the city had an art contest. I accidentally won. I didn't have plans of winning. My friend told me, "Hey you might wanna try." And I tried and I won. And it gave me a huge, like, self-confidence boost that I can actually do something with art.MR: Wow.KB: And yeah, by the time I quit journalism, I had like a very shy idea that I can do something art-related. But I didn't know what, I started thinking about illustration. I moved to Moscow started art school there. So I have a degree in editorial illustration, but again, I don't know, I felt that I cannot express myself fully with editorial illustration. And I kept putting little notes next to my drawings all the time. Some kind of like speech bubbles or little descriptions, funny descriptions.And I remember my teacher used to say, "Remove from your illustrations. You are in art school. You have to express yourself with visual tools. That's it." And I just couldn't get it. I kept putting words. And I remember when he told me about—Victor Millime is my art teacher's name. He told me about scribing. I was like, that's it. I see illustrations. I see little text next to it, feels like something that exist just for me. What do you think? How did this origin story?MR: That sounds interesting. So, now you've discovered graphic recording through your teacher who kept trying to lean you away from putting words into your illustrations, and you realize, like, okay, I can't stop her, so maybe she needs to go in that direction.KB: Yeah. I talk to my art teacher every once in a while, and I constantly thank him for that discovery in my life. Because also the first ever experience of graphic recording, of scribing I had when I was in art school. We did one of like TEDx Moscow events. That was the first ever scribing I did. And when I realized that it's something I absolutely love doing, but it took me another three, four years to start doing it as my work. Partially because I moved abroad, I left Russia, and I started working

In this episode, Dan shares how his childhood love for drawing led him to discover surprising parallels between visual thinking, biology, and organic chemistry.He reflects on his journey from the analog days of graphic design to the digital era, drawing comparisons to what is currently happening in the AI space. Dan also reveals the origin stories and ideas behind his bestselling books and how they came to life.Sponsored by The Reflective Travel Workshop VideoHave you ever wanted to create travel sketchnotes from an experience you’ve had, just using the photos and memories you’ve got?In the Reflective Travel Workshop Video Replay, I’ll guide you through my process for creating travel sketchnotes and then help you reflect on your own photos and memories so that you can make travel sketchnotes of your own trips, too!This 2-hour recorded video includes a set of downloadable, printable sketching templates and a process to kickstart your own travel sketchnoting practice.All this for just $20.https://rohdesign.com/travelRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Dan RoamOrigin StoryDan's current workSponsor: ConceptsWhere to find Dan RoamOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Dan's websiteDan on LinkedInDan on IntagramBack of the Napkin 2.0The Back Of The NapkinBlah Blah Blah: What To Do When Words Don't WorkShow & Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary PresentationsDraw to Win: A Crash Course on How to Lead, Sell, and Innovate With Your Visual MindPop-Up Pitch: The Two-Hour Creative Sprint to the Most Persuasive Presentation of Your LifeCreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Dan Roam, the Dan Roam calling to us from his studio. You can see he's got whiteboards and he's got paintings. He's drinking tea, it looks like.Dan Roam: Absolutely.MR: So welcome to the show. Thanks for being here, Dan.DR: Mike, it is always, always a pleasure. You and I've been talking for a long time, and every time we get to, I enjoy it. So this is fabulous. Thanks for having me.MR: Same here. Same here. So our history is in 2016-ish, I recorded a podcast with you, and I lost it. Something happened with the audio, and that's bugging me for like forever. And so, having Dan Roam on the show is like a huge get for me. So I feel really excited to have you here. Even though you know, I've been on your sessions and stuff and we've done stuff together. Like, it's always bugged me that I lost this, and we had a really good discussion, which I can't prove. So now we're just got to do it again.DR: Oh, we'll just do it again and we'll take it into completely different way. And the other thing, Mike, just if I might, is just the fact the nature of our careers and our passion is so interwoven, if you will. Like we keep popping up.MR: Yes.DR: I just keep seeing you everywhere. It's like, hey, there's Mike, you know.MR: Same thing with you.DR: Yeah, exactly. So it's a pleasure.MR: So, the couple things I wanted to talk about were your books, of course. I'm kinda curious about your painting.DR: Hmm.MR: But we always sort of start the show off with origin story. So I think we all know what you do, but you can start with what you do and then go right into like how did you end up here? Like as a little kid, what drew you into this visual thinking stuff? I think we're both also user experience people. So maybe that had some impact. I'm really curious about that trend. Like how did you get here?DR: Wow. Well, that's a fantastic question, Mike. And what a great place to start. And the simple, simple answer is, I actually drew something out in anticipation of this.MR: Nice.DR: As a little kid, you know, there I am like everybody else, I'm looking at the world and it's awfully confusing.MR: Yeah.DR: People are telling you to do things and here's how to act and here's what to learn. And a lot of it was very confusing. And I've spent everything, this is the entire summary of what we're gonna talk about. How can I figure out a way to go from that to that so that things are clear. So, like every kid I drew a lot, but like many kids, I never stopped the drawing part. So I've learned to draw badly really, really well. And I'm sure that people who follow you probably have similar types of stories.MR: Yeah.DR: Like the visual thinking side, the visual storytelling side. Maybe can I have, you know, mom, dad, school teacher, maybe could I have a few less words and maybe a few more pictures. And so, that's really the origin story. Nothing particularly unique there. But I would add one thing, Mike, if I could, because that kind of powered me up through university, but I had this kind of critical catalytic moment when I was at university, maybe my second year of school. So I was studying out here in California in Santa Cruz, and I thought that I wanted to be a doctor at that time. So I was on the pre-med track.MR: Interesting.DR: So I was taking biology and lots of chemistry. And if anybody's ever taken, you know, organic chemistry back in the old days, pre-digital, anything, you know, you'd build everything out with these models of molecules. And so, organic chemistry was entirely visual. And as a model builder, which I've always been to plastic models, airplane models, that kind of thing the idea of trying to understand what the professors were teaching us about these fundamental concepts of how do atoms bond to create these molecules, And you can model it out. Because there are very specific rules of how each of these different types of atoms is gonna bond with the other ones. So that was really cool. And so I'd be in chemistry class and learning that.And then I'd go over to painting class 'cause I was also taking painting, and our professor would be talking about you know, fundamentals of really good composition. And he'd be talking about the golden mean and the Fibonacci numbers. you know, you don't have to paint that way. But if you look at the works of Leonardo, or if you look at the works of Michelangelo, if you look at really, really outstanding classic beautiful artworks, the Parthenon, they seem to follow these kind of beautiful harmonic mathematical formula.And I thought, wait a minute, this is crazy. I'm over there in chemistry, and they're teaching me like visually, how things fit together so that they work. And now I'm over in art, and they're teaching me ways to visually put things together so that they work. And it's like these rules are the same. Isn't that amazing? And so, I kind of created this path happily, as I mentioned, I went to a school called Santa Cruz, part of the UC system, down on the beach in California.MR: That's Santa Cruz.DR: And at Santa Cruz, even in the 80s, or especially in the 80s, it was a pretty funky school. And they were like, hey, design your own major. So I designed one that was an intersection between fine art and biology slash chemistry. Because I really found that, you know, an interest—and you can imagine my parents, I get a degree in painting and degree in biology, and you're functionally unemployable. Like what are you gonna do with that, other maybe than do scientific illustration? Which was a potential path.MR: Yeah, that's true.DR: But I did not really have a talent at that, which is a side note as to why. And so, what I did instead is I became a consultant. I had worked my way through school doing graphic design, like basic, fundamental pre-digital pay stuff, like Exacto knives, wax machines, Galley of type on paper.MR: I've done that.DR: Like all that. So that was a skill that I had. So I was able to get a job with a newspaper in San Francisco. And I was working in the advertising department, like doing longhand analog advertising design. And I realized I was really interested when I would talk to the advertisers to custom build for them an ad, you know, for their furniture store, for their car wash, or so for their dance party or for their theater production. Talking to the people who are buying the ad to find out what is it that you're really doing? Like what? That's cool.You know, what is your theater production, or tell me about the strategy behind your car wash. Like how does that overlap? Because I really wanna make an ad that's going to appeal to what you're trying to achieve. And long story short, Mike, that became really the career path, is talking to people who have an idea, asking them what they're trying to do, and then translate it using these visual skills and, you know, abasta, that's the story. So does that make sense?MR: Yeah, that totally makes sense. That's really interesting. You talk about this connection between painting and biology and you know, debating if you should be a medical illustrator. So I mean, what did your parents think when you went through this whole degree and then you're doing, you know, like layout at this newspaper, like where they bummed out? Obviously, it's worked out pretty well, but what did they—and maybe the lesson I'm asking for is sometimes you make these decisions to go and do things that don't always make sense in the moment, but if you still have a vision for it, that it makes sense in the long term.And then the other thing that I was commenting to someone on Substack the other day where they talked about, they did this weird job that if you thought about it, it would make no sense in your future career, but in the context of looking back, it totally made sense. And I have one of those experiences too. I was a wash rack kid at a car dealership. So I got to

In this final episode of The Sketchnote Army Podcast season 16, we’ve compiled the tips from nine great visual thinkers into a single episode. We hope these tips inspire and encourage you on your visual thinking journey. Happy New Year!Tips from: Emily Mills, Joran Oppelt, Kelvy Bird, Javier Navarro, Blanche Ellis, Peter Durand, James Durno, Diana Ayoub, and Justin Hamacher.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover: The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature How vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes and How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at https://sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroEmily MillsJoran OppeltKelvy BirdJavier NavarroBlanche EllisPeter DurandJames DurnoDiana AyoubJustin HamacherOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Emily’s websiteJoran on LinkedInKelvy's websiteJavier's websiteBlanche's websitePeter’s websiteJames' websiteDiana on LinkedInJustin on LinkedIn1. Emily’s TipsKeep on experimenting.Try something outside your practice but still creative.Be careful when sketchnoting becomes work then find something else to supplement that joy factor.2. Joran’s TipsOwn the problem.Break down the big thing into smaller digestible pieces.Ask for help.3. Kelvy’s TipsExperiment and try new tools/approaches.Preserve a sense of mystery and beauty in your work.Prioritize self-care both physically and mentally.4. Javier’s Tips Don't be obsessed with perfect illustrations. Work around your strengths. Improve your craft one step at a time. Ask clients a lot of questions before the onset of a project. Prep a lot. Always remember that it is all about the audience. Train your mind to be visual 24 hours.5. Blanche’s TipsTry different ways into the same activity.Keep experimenting to find your style.Keep a Sketchbook with you always.Only show the kind of work you want to do.Don't underestimate the background of being an entrepreneur as an artist.Appreciate the part that you do well.Drawing on public transport.6. Peter’s TipsCreate custom color palettes for each client/event.Manage self-negative talk and nerves through preparations and rituals.Approach your work as a gift to share rather than something to be self-conscious about.Being positive and supportive of each other's work.Look for inspiration from artists and eras that are not closely adjacent.7. James’ TipsSlow down to speed up.Abandon the idea of perfection. Practice, but practice makes proficient, not perfect.Learning the rules, principles, and elements of what makes a good art.Listening to understand.A drawing is not just what we intend it to be but also how it's understood. Make sure that we get it right in terms of what we pack into a drawing.8. Diana’s TipsJust doodle. Just let yourself go with the pen.Keep a sketchbook on you all the time.Talk to people. Find a community, a group of people who inspire and motivate you to think outside the box.Join the Think Visual Meet-up.9. Justin’s TipsDraw where you aren't conventionally permitted to do so. Push your boundaries of drawing. Have the easiest materials possible that you will use.Try to have you and your tools as close to each other as possible to develop that relationship and open those channels of expression and communication with yourself.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

In this conversation, Justin Hamacher delves into how drawing became a powerful tool for learning and recounts his remarkable journey through teaching, punk music, and Jungian analysis.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover: The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature How vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes and How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at https://sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Justin HamacherOrigin StoryJustin's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find JustinOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Justin on LinkedInJungian workJustin's Upcoming book:The Visual JungJustin's Art WorkMemories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G.JungKnowledge In a Nutshell by Gary BobroffEgo and Achertype by Edward F. EdinderInner Work by Robert A. JohnsonJung and Shamanism in DialogueToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. 0.5 Steadler fine liner marker pen Fabriano pad Neuland markers Copic markersTipsDraw where you aren't conventionally permitted to do so. Push your boundaries of drawing. Have the easiest materials possible that you will use.Try to have you and your tools as close to each other as possible to develop that relationship and open those channels of expression and communication with yourself.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey, everyone, it's Mike Rohde, and I'm here today with Justin Hamacher. Justin, good to have you here.Justin Hamacher: Hello. Very happy to be here.MR: So you're an interesting guy. We've been connected for years and years, and you popped back up in my life recently. You've come from the design background a lot like me, but you've done a shift, which I found was really interesting. And it seemed like it could be really fascinating to bring you on the show, not only as a designer and what you're doing now, but you're also a visual thinker, and you've done something interesting in this new direction you've gone by integrating visual thinking into the training that you've taken. So rather than me try to explain it, 'cause I don't know the details, tell us who you are and what you do, and then if you'd like, go right into your origin story, like from a little boy, how did you end up to this moment now?JH: Oh man. How many hours do we have? Oh, I'll do my best. I'm so happy to be here. This is a wonderful base for the community to learn about individuals and how they use visual thinking.MR: Yeah.JH: It's striking to me how relegated it is by the educational system and by our employers and other places, really into a background or kind of novelty identity. For some of us, it's the way our brain works, you know? And it's so hard to have to put things into writing or words or other things without being able to be visual. So I'm really happy this is taking place. Let's see. So, I'll just kind of pop back to when I was little, and then we can work our way forward. Is that okay?MR: Yeah. Sounds great. Yeah.JH: Okay. So, one of my very first memories, I swear I'm not gonna talk for hours, I was just joking, is I remember being in preschool and drawing a bird and sitting there and not knowing any other kids. Actually, it was kindergarten because I knew the kids in preschool and, you know, feeling some anxiety, and the room seemed really big and there was a lot of other people around me, I didn't know. I wasn't afraid, but I was a very extroverted kid, you know, but cautious and a little shy.And I was drawing this bird, and I knew how to draw feathers on a bird. If I look back at the bird now, it's rather comedic, but at the time, for other little kids, they thought that was really cool. And I remember this one little boy coming over and he didn't know me, but he saw me drawing and he said, "Whoa, you can draw feathers on a bird. Oh my gosh." And he knew the other kids 'cause they'd gone to preschool or something. He ran over and grabbed like four kids and brought 'em to the table where I was sitting alone. And they were all like, "Would you show me how to draw feathers on birds? I wanna draw feathers on birds. Oh my gosh."It felt so good to be expressing myself in a way that was personal. I wasn't holding up the bird feather drawing or something, but to have it resonate with people and to have people wanna learn and share. And then I was able to look at what they were drawing and stuff. It was just a really wonderful start to kindergarten.So, you know, I knew from being really young, my main identity was an artist. I drew a lot for myself. Scribbled on the interior walls of my closet in my bedroom as a little kid. My mom didn't know about that until we moved when I was around 10, and she was like, "Oh my God, what did you do in here?" There's just, you know, a whole cosmology on the interior. Yeah, it was just scribbles and stuff though.Yeah, so going through school, it was not easy. I went to parochial schools, so little Catholic grade schools, and they hated drawings. I'm not, you know, universally gonna say they all did, but most my teachers specifically would tell me to stop drawing and to take better notes and to write down what was being said exactly as it was being said. Not to elaborate or have an imagining come off what I was recording.And that was really stifling because you as a creative guy myself, as a creative guy, other creative people, you have lots of ideas and you wanna kind of suss out the tendrils and see where they go and what they might become. You don't have to follow all of 'em, but that's how you keep your mind alive, you know? So that was really challenging going through all parochial school and pretty much continually being told, "Don't imagine, don't do those things."I do remember in third grade, there was a big contest for the grade school. The grade school is called Our Lady of Fatima in Seattle, Washington, Magnolia. If anybody out there happens to be from that grade school, what's up. We had a contest for the city of the future. And it was all the students in each grade, eighth grade, seventh grade, sixth grade, fifth grade, you know, down to first grade.Each student was gonna do a drawing. And then the class would elect one big representative drawing, and then we would make a big drawing and put it on the exterior of our classroom door. Then the teachers would walk around and vote on which class they thought did the coolest one. I was in third grade, and my thing was a city of the future that had, you know, sky cars and floating houses and gardens where people could eat and solar stuff.It was good surprisingly 'cause most kids like to draw battleships and Star Wars kind of stuff, but for some reason, I laid off that and I drew this. Well, it won for the class, and then it won for the whole school. I remember that feeling so good to see seventh and eighth graders walking by our little third grade classroom and looking at the drawing and being like, "Wow. All right, who did that? Oh, Justin, you did that? What's up kid? Like, dah, dah." I was like, "Oh, man, this is—"MR: Good job, man. Yeah.JH: Yeah. This feels good. Some of the other ones were battleships and, you know, big space wars and stuff. I think the teachers wanted to go with a more holistic kind of view of the future. Maybe we could share it with our politicians or something. Anyway, so yeah, grade school, high school, coming more comfortable with an artist's identity, but, you know, at the same time really kind of becoming not—well, there were moments of misanthropy, but like, just, you know, angry at the society and becoming a punk rock musician out of that.Then my identity in Seattle after college was a punk rock musician for like 10 or 15 years. But in college, I majored in woodblock printmaking. My parents wanted to kill me, but I was inflexible on that point. They made me promise to minor in something they saw some utility in.MR: Something practical.JH: Yeah. So, English and psychology were the minors. Then fast-forward to life, just young musician, art teacher teaching kindergarten art, which was fricking awesome and my favorite job of my entire life. It was just wonderful how broad their imaginations were. And also, the little boys and little girls, they hadn't quite been pushed into emotional regulations associated to gender.So there were some really caring little boys that would give each other hugs when they came to class. It was just great. It was just like such a free wild little group of people. Did that for a few years. And then, let's see I was having trouble paying my bills. As you can imagine, traditional woodblock, printmaking in the year 1999, not really—MR: Hiring per demand. Yeah.JH: No. Also, it was really hard to get access to presses, like to do litho. There were a couple good places in Seattle, but those presses are huge, and they're expensive, and I didn't have the money to join those membe

In this episode, Diana Ayoub, co-founder of Sh8peshifters, shares her tech-infused upbringing, journey into sketchnoting, and efforts to build a vibrant visual thinking community through regular meet-ups.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover: The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature How vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes and How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at https://sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Diana AyoubOrigin StoryDiana's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find DianaOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Diana on LinkedInDiana's InstagramSh8peshifters websiteThink Visual! Sketch Lab courseBook: Designing TomorrowAlan Chen's EpisodeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Zig dual-tip brush markersTombow dual-tip brush markers ProcreateAdobe PhotoshopHuion TabletsNotionTipsJust doodle. Just let yourself go with the pen.Keep a sketchbook on you all the time.Talk to people. Find a community, a group of people who inspire and motivate you to think outside the box.Join the Think Visual Meet-up.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Diana Ayoub. Diana, it's so nice to have you.Diana Ayoub: Thanks for having me, Mike.MR: Yeah, so Diana is coming to us all the way from down under, and she works with someone who was on last season's Sketchnote Army Podcast, Alan Chen. They are the two superheroes that make up Sh8peshifters with an eight. Where the A should be, there's an eight, is that right? S-H-8-P-Eshifters.DA: That's Right.MR: Yeah.DA: Yeah.MR: Yes. You're probably one of the dynamic duo, I guess, going with the superhero theme, I guess. I don't wanna belabor it too much, but anyway you guys make up Sh8peshifters. You do amazing work. Both Alan and I thought it would be great to have you on the show since he was on last season, to kind of talk about your perspective about visual thinking in the world, in Australia, and with the clients that you work with, the students that you teach, but first, let's get started and learn who you are and what you do at Sh8peshifters.DA: Yeah, thank you, Mike. I'm very lucky to work with Alan. He's actually the reason I started this journey of drawing and sketchnoting again. But I guess going back to who I am, I'm a designer and illustrator, and I originally come from Lebanon. I studied my bachelor in graphic design in Lebanon. When I was growing up, I wasn't really pursuing drawing too much. It was more like something that I did in my textbooks in class. I just doodled while the teacher was talking, I guess to focus.I found that if I had a pen in my hand, I would focus more, but I never really pursued it as a hobby or anything. I just really enjoyed it. What I was really more into was technology 'cause I grew up in a very tech-savvy family. My dad was a software engineer. My mom teaches middle school students' computer and information technology. I taught myself Photoshop when I was 13, and I just really loved exploring software and, you know, doing animations and all these little things.I ended up doing graphic design and I worked in graphic design, web design for a while in Lebanon. And then I felt like I was kind of, let's say stuck creatively. I felt like I was being more like an operator for clients, just doing whatever they wanted on the software. So I decided to leave, and I pursued a master's in design in Australia. That's when I was introduced to a much bigger world of design in terms of design thinking and human-centered design. I realized that there's a bigger world out there of design where I could have more impact than just behind my screen, and I really fell in love with that again.At the same time, that's where I met Alan, who's now my business partner, but I was lucky to have him as a mentor for a few years. We collaborated on lots of different projects. We went into education together, so he was already teaching, obviously, and I started teaching as well. And then we headed an animation and design course together at a college for a couple of years. And we were working on lots of creative projects together for a while there.And then even after our paths kind of separated, he went into consulting and I became the head of the design course at a different college, we kept working and collaborating together on different creative projects. I guess, eventually we decided we'd like to do that full-time, and that's how Sh8peshifters came to life. Now, yeah, we work on Sh8peshifters, which is a visual communication agency where we love to help teams have more impact through the power of visual storytelling.MR: Yes. I think I saw something just last week on LinkedIn, a little video that was shot of you and Alan helping two authors, I can't think of their names now, writing a book. I think it was something like Design for Tomorrow or something like that. Was like, samples of you guys working. You must have been aware enough that you would shoot things while you were working so you could at the end, put this video together. It was really cool.DA: Yeah. Thank you. Actually, that video was created for an application for an award, which we won.MR: Ah, okay.DA: The book is called Designing Tomorrow.MR: That's it. Okay.DA: Yeah, and it was launched at the beginning of the year. It's an amazing project that we were very, very honored to work on, and we won the Good Design Award for Communication Design on that project. Actually, you can see the award right behind me.MR: Oh, there we go. Nice.DA: Yes, it's very recent, so we're very proud of it. I think what was amazing about the process was the collaborative aspect. We really love to work with the client collaboratively, and the way this project was created was not very typical of a book design process where the authors write the whole book and then send it off to the designer. What we did was we were working in parallel with them, so we would meet every couple of weeks, and they would've written two more chapters.MR: I see.DA: We would go through the chapters with them and live-sketch the different concepts, and they'd kind of have live input into it. Sometimes they'd even go back and change the words based on what we were discussing. So it was a really amazing co-design process. I think that's why the book I feel like it's quite powerful and impactful because of it.MR: Seems like it would be very well integrated, right, because it's not just a manuscript which you then convert individuals, but it's actually the visuals and the words sort of evolved together so that they became much more a unified whole in a way.DA: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It feels like they complete each other quite well. Sometimes if we were developing—there's a lot of practical tools in it as well, so we were developing quite complex things and trying to make them very simple and easy to use by different people. And so, it was definitely complimentary. The content and the visual storytelling in it is quite complimentary.MR: That's really cool. That sounds like that would be the kind of a project that you would do at Sh8peshifters where ideally you would be in this collaborative mode with your clients to produce something. Obviously, not every project can be that way. Sometimes you just get last-minute stuff that you need to solve, but I guess, that would be like your ideal client kind of client, if you could get one, would that be fair to say?DA: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think we try to at least pitch that to every client. Unless it's a live graphic recording where we're doing a live event, and we're just listening and synthesizing. Over the past couple of years, especially, we've been really pushing that because we feel like it's—first of all, the clients really involved, and they feel quite happy with the experience, but also it reduces the amount of feedback around and back and forth with the clients. So it's very effective, and it saves time, and it's quite like a really good way to work.As I mentioned before, I really love the human-centered design aspect and the design thinking principles. And this is a way for us to bring that into visual communication. It really produces much more effective outputs because it's exactly what the client wanted because we're basically creating it with them.MR: Yes. Yeah, so I suppose if someone comes to you and says—a client comes and says, I want something like this book that you just did, well, you would have a pattern for how that works and then say, this is the way we operate those projects, or does that work for you? And then, you know, bring them through that process in the same way. Interesting.DA: Yeah, exactly. Yep.MR: Interesting. You kind of hinted a little bit, you originally started in Lebanon taking graphic design. Can you tell me a little bit more, like, go back eve

In this episode, James Durno shares how growing up around art-focused environments shaped his creativity. He delves into developing diverse artistic skills, mastering spatial thinking, and examines the potential impact of AI on future generations.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is James DurnoOrigin StoryJames Durno's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find James DurnoOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.James Durno's websiteJames Durno on LinkedInJames Durno on InstagramToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.One-millimeter B lead PencilsPolymer EraserNeuland markersCopic MarkersFabriano paperPaintTipsSlow down to speed up.Abandon the idea of perfection. Practice, but practice makes proficient, not perfect.Learning the rules, principles, and elements of what makes a good art.Listening to understand.A drawing is not just what we intend it to be but also how it's understood. Make sure that we get it right in terms of what we pack into a drawing.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Everyone, it's Mike Rohde, and I'm here with James Durno from down in South Africa. Well, I guess it depends on your perspective, right, James? You might be up and maybe us in the Northern Hemisphere, maybe we're down, right? If you think about the way space works. Welcome to the show.James Durno: Good to be here.MR: James, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.JD: I'm an artist. I call myself a visual communicator because I communicate visually. I'm a visual thinker, but I come from a fine art background and illustration, cartoon, and commercial art background. I think that what defines my work largely is the fact that because of all of the different influences, I've kind of developed an offering and a way of working that's at the intersection of all of those different disciplines. My focus is largely on the kind of interdisciplinary osmosis that happens between fine art, drawing, painting different mediums, and then drawing those into the graphic recording and the visual communication space.I don't define myself as a graphic recorder as such although that's what I do. I think in terms of visual language and disciplines and a range of mediums and how I can pull those all together into something that's exciting and different from the norm. Then what comes me beyond that is actually, I'm a husband and a dad.MR: Excellent.JD: And a human being, you know, beyond and before that.MR: Always important to remember that. I think that's the most important thing we can offer, for sure. The word that struck me when you started to describe what you do is almost like a conductor of a symphony. So you're the one, you know, telling the symphony how to represent this piece of music in a sense except that it's your different disciplines kind of all coming together in this one pursuit of capturing what's happening in that moment. Would that be a fair way to describe it?JD: I think it's a fair metaphor. Also, I think if you think more in terms of jazz than say classical music or popular music, it's about on-the-spot kind of being able to reinvent oneself in real time. It's kind of also like cooking as well. It's about a range of ingredients and not really working according to rules at a certain point. Like, the master chef doesn't work according to a recipe, but understands the principles of flavor and texture and color and the harmony of the dish and what works.I think that goes for art as well. There's certain principles that we have. I mean, we're jumping straight beyond origin story and all of the stuff that would kind of be at the beginning of this conversation, you know, straight into the middle of things. But if one looks at graphic recording, sketchnoting, the whole broader area, and it's got multiple terms, and they're not exactly the same thing. I mean, sketchnoting and graphic recording people call them the same thing.But sketchnoting, in terms of how I would understand it in kind of the working in a notebook versus a large-scale events drawing, or a strategy session. They may happen in the same space, but they're not necessarily the same thing. I think a lot of visual practitioners, awful term, but they have it—a lot of visual practitioners' kind of look at the practice as it kind of sprung fully armed like a theater from the head of Zeus.MR: Yeah.JD: Like, it happened. It's this new thing and everybody speaks visual thinking and visual practices if it's a new something, whereas it actually draws on multiple different disciplines. So it owes a debt to fine art and to drawing into architecture. It's kind of narrowed down and simultaneously broadened into different tribes that are quite strangely siloed. There's a—I'm trying to articulate what I want to say here.MR: Yeah.JD: This is where you're gonna have to pull me back into the thread of conversation before we go too far off at a tangent. But you've got people that think in terms of metaphor. Those that are all about visual storytelling. You've got those that are all about icons. And they seem to think within that very siloed mentality whereas the exciting spaces where those overlap and where one can draw on all of those. If there's a moment for working in metaphor, that's the moment. If it's something that lends itself to visual narrative and a narrative thread, then sure.If you're wanting to use an iconography then great. You know, but they're different things. So for me, my focus, and to go back to the conversation around my background as an artist is the principles and also the metaphor, or the conductor or jazz, or the master chef is the principles of art, a balance, harmony, proportion, volume, unity, sort of tonal value, contrast, line, movement, depth perspective. Give me a few, help here.MR: I think you've covered most of them.JD: That those are not rules. They are something that is intrinsic to art, to design, to architecture, to the arts in general. Those are things that we need to internalize, that we need to then draw on and forget about. One learns those, and then we need to actually have them sort of embedded in ourselves and then draw on those. I don't know if that's—MR: No, I'm tracking with you. I think about coming back to the concept of jazz. And so, as a jazz individual, you know, you're always improvising in the moment, right? But I think you always think about a jazz typically is some kind of an ensemble, maybe three, maybe four people, and each one of those individuals is doing something. Now, in your case, I'm guessing that you do this work solo. So in the sense, it's like the knowledge centers are like the different music. So there's a bassist and a drummer, and a someone on keyboard and someone on saxophone, let's say, right?Those could be considered your different, maybe the strengths or the areas that you need. And at the right moment, you know, the saxs is important or at a different, you know, maybe the foundation is the keyboard. So it's always there. That could be some other aspect. So you're sort of bringing them and leaning on each one at the right moment to kind of make things happen as a rough maybe not perfect metaphor for what you're doing, but I totally understand that. Yeah.JD: It's a very good metaphor. I think for instance in a graphic recording, in a live capturing as a visual summary, one is tracking a linear process. Once there's a beginning to the day and there's an end to the day.MR: Yes, yes.JD: It's not entirely linear because certain content will conglomerate over time. It'll build out. A drawing will develop a certain gravitational pull that can hold other information around that. So rather than visual redundancies, one will backfill those visuals. At the same time, some of it will be information drawing. Other ones will be an image that lands that's strong enough to hold a lot of information. We can kind of zip file and pack information into that picture as a holding device.So we've concentrated and distilled a whole lot of stuff into one image that is a powerful visual. That's quite different to just information drawing, but then what does that visual communicate? How is it understood? How is it perceived by an audience? What is the quality of the line? How alive is it? How engaging is it? You know, what are the emphases, et cetera. So there's so many elements to that.And then what is the overall vision, the harmony of the actual picture, how balanced and harmonious is it? How readable is it? And then what is the comfort, in terms of the actual viewer or the audience, how well can they actually engage with it? And is it so cluttered or so messy or so detailed that it's inacces

In this episode, Peter Durand explores the power of using a pen as a creative thinking tool, the beauty of embracing iterative processes, and how collaborating with professionals from different fields has deepened and broadened his artistic perspective.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover: The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature How vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes and How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Peter DurandOrigin StoryPeter's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Peter OutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Peter on LinkedIn Ye Olde Website Peter on Instagram Show Your Work Book by Austin KleonToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Moleskine paperNeuland marker pensSharpie gel pensiPadApple penProcreateMuralTipsCreate custom color palettes for each client/event.Manage self-negative talk and nerves through preparations and rituals.Approach your work as a gift to share rather than something to be self-conscious about.Being positive and supportive of each other's work.Look for inspiration from artists and eras that are not closely adjacent.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Peter Durand. Peter, thanks for being on the show. It's so good to have you.Peter Durand: Thank you, Mike.MR: Well, let's just get right into it. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.PD: Well, first I wanna thank you for giving me the heads-up that I should dress in stealth mode with the black shirt and black cap. You know, this is the Captain America disguise.MR: That's right.PD: Yeah. Well, my name is Peter Durand. I go by Alphachimp, and that name emerged way back at the dawn of the internet when I was just starting off. I'm an artist. I went to art school. I was a squirmy kid sitting in math and science class, having a rough time tracking what the teacher was saying 'cause My mind was always in cartoon land, and I was always doodling and drawing.MR: Oh, yeah.PD: And it was only much later thanks to this book called The Sketch Note Handbook, that I realized I could have been using that the whole time to be a neuroscientist or PhD in physics. Yeah, I was an artistic kid, visual learner, and fortunately had parents that always supported that. Was surrounded by nothing but support to, you know, follow that direction. So, went off to art school in St. Louis, Washington University. Studied painting, printmaking 2D design, 3D design, but landed in illustration as a major and visual communications 'cause I wanted to tell stories. I really liked reading and comic books and graphic novels.And I think at that time, my real dream was to be whoever the dude or dudette is, who makes the illustration on the other side of a National Geographic foldout map. My grandfather was a geographer, so we grew up with a lot of maps and stuff, but I always liked the reverse side of those foldouts because they had little vignettes of watercolor paintings and, you know, it was like a full giant poster-size, graphic novel squee education thing. So that was my big aspiration when I went off to school.MR: I suppose it's easier to get paid as an illustrator than as a fine artist. At least regularly. Although maybe there's a few—Banksy maybe can defy that logic, I suppose, with his work.PD: My father was a lawyer, so I was actually born in Kenya because he went off to law school in the '60s after being in the Marine Corps. And he practiced law for one year and was super bored. And unfortunately, it was up near you, Mike. It was in Madison, Wisconsin.MR: Okay.PD: So he was in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was bored. He was like, "I don't think I wanna do this." Somebody had given him a brochure that he threw in his drawer for this thing called the Peace Corps.MR: Yes. The Peace Corps.PD: And so, he was in the first wave of the Peace Corps in the '60s and was working with magistrates and lawyers in countries that had just gained independence. So through that, well, he met my mom, who's also American, and they moved to Kenya. And so, I was born in Kenya, and he was using drawing and cartooning in his classes because he didn't have law books. I don't think.MR: Yeah, yeah.PD: So there's a picture of him over the right shoulder, his ear, his, you know, jaw, his shoulder drawing a cartoon. And so, now when I teach, I show a picture of that from 1965 in Malawi, and then this pretty much identical picture of my ear, same shaped head drawing is like, you know, this is—MR: Wow.PD: I'm just carrying the lineage forward.MR: Well, the person that I work with who supports me in doing transcripts and the show notes for this podcast is Esther. She lives in Kenya. So that's pretty cool. It's a cool connection.PD: Yeah.MR: Yeah.PD: Yeah. And then for me, it's gone full circle. About 10 years ago I went to Kenya on a project as a graphic recorder and visual note taker. And was working with a group that was studying the effect of climate change on women and girls and visiting a lot of different locations. And at that time, I don't think there were any, you know, professional graphic recorders, sketchnoters in Nairobi that I was aware of. I've just recently reconnected or connected with several that are there. So it's been great to see how this practice is put into use all around the planet.MR: Yeah. I have a feeling like graphic recorders, visual thinkers, sketchnoters, a lot of times we fly under the radar. I'll kind of include myself. You know, that I think people are there, but you don't always know about them. And I think that's one of the things that IFEP is trying to do in connecting more professional graphic recorders and facilitators so that there is that community.And I think the sketchnote community is doing the same. That's part of the international Sketchnote Camps job. We run a Slack thing for Sketchnote Army where people can practice and chat with each other. we share activities and whatever's coming up as a way to kind of tie the community together. So I think there's always, I guess, more work to do in that area to help us be aware of like who's where because you know, we can help each other for sure.PD: I know going to one of these gatherings is like being a unicorn at the Unicorn convention where you're just like, "Hey, wait, I'm used to being the only weird one in the room, and now they're all bunch of us."MR: "These are my people." That's what I said.PD: Which is a combination of like excitement and like, "Wait, I wanna be special again." I was just on a call right before this conversation with an artist who had just learned about this field, you know, she's maybe mid-career, and was so excited. I gave her my philosophy, and it's to build on what you just said, Mike, is that the greatest competition that we have, if we're doing this professionally, is nobody knows what to call us.MR: Right.PD: That's number one. Like, nobody knows what Google.MR: Describing it. Yeah.PD: Like, guy who draws while people talk and has a little book. You know, they don't know what to call us. And then the other is just, if somebody has a negative experience. So if a client does, you know, try out a sketchnote artist, story boarder, you know, whatever visual part of the spectrum, designer, and they have a negative experience. That's really bad. So it's up to us—MR: You gotta overcome that.PD: You've been a big part of this, just, you know, helping people raise their awareness, their basic skill set, being super generous with your time and knowledge, and that just makes everybody smarter, faster, better, stronger, and have more fun.MR: Well, that's the hope anyway. You know, I kind of increase the awareness is part of what I like to do. And we can certainly always improve that. Always looking for opportunities. Well, this is cool. So this is what you do professionally. I know you do teaching, you have Rockstar Scribe, at least it used to be your teaching program. Is that still true? Is that something you offer?PD: Yes. Yeah. It's gone through, you know, it's ups and downs. As you know, you go into it thinking, "Oh, this is gonna be so much fun, and I'm gonna make so much money." But actually, you produce a product that you have to take care of, right?MR: Yes. Yeah.PD: And so, all the marketing and reinvention and everything. So sometimes I get tired, you know, and I'm off doing other things. But just recently with my friend Christopher Fuller in California, he's a long-time superhero of graphic recording and facilitation, we did a course in Houston, called Learn Describe, and it was basically us just kind of like bringing our toys over to each other. And it was like, "Ah, here's my Legos mashed up with your GI Joes. Let's make something cool." For me personally, that's the real pleasure

In this episode, Blanche Ellis shares how dyslexia led her to discover graphic recording through a chance encounter. With a background in literature, music, and art, her work focuses on capturing the emotional essence of ideas and stories to build connections and understanding.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Buy me a coffee!If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffeeRunning OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Blanche EllisOrigin StoryBlanche's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Blanche EllisOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.WORK Blanche's website LinkedIn InstagramPERSONAL Instagram Spotify YoutubeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Strathmore 400 sketchbooksWatercolorsSoft pencilsTextured paperNeuland MarkersMolotow MarkersiPadProcreateAdobeTipsTry different ways into the same activity.Keep experimenting to find your style.Keep a Sketchbook with you always.Only show the kind of work you want to do.Don't underestimate the background of being an entrepreneur as an artist.Appreciate the part that you do well.Drawing on public transport.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Blanche Ellis. Blanche, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you.Blanche Ellis: Thank you, Mike. No, really nice to be here, and I'm looking forward to our conversation.MR: Yes, me as well. We've run across each other I think on LinkedIn. I saw some of your graphic recording work. I thought it was really unique and interesting. Wanted to have you on the show. So, let's just begin right at the beginning. Tell us who you are and what you do.BE: Okay. I am a multidisciplinary artist. I've always done quite a number of things, often at once which I think happens a lot to creative people. I'm a visual artist. I had my own practice of painting and drawing, and then I use graphics to facilitate the flow of ideas for other people and with organizations and workshops. Mostly with graphic recording, also a little bit with animation, a little bit with—or quite a lot with behind-the-scenes graphics. So not live, but working from conversations, documentation of sorts. And then I'm also a musician, and I'm a songwriter, so I spent quite a lot of years doing that in multiple forms as well.MR: Wow.BE: It all kind of wraps in and, you know, a bit of poetry, a bit of dance, a little bit of anything you can think of really is on my name.MR: Wow, that's really fascinating. So, I'm curious, you touched on a musician. Are there certain instruments that you like to play? Are you more of a vocal artist? Tell me a little bit about that. I'm just kind of curious.BE: Yeah, no, the voice is definitely my home. The voice is my first instrument. Singing harmonies is possibly the best feeling that I know in the world. Instruments, yes, I don't consider myself a great instrumentalist, but I play guitar, I play banjo. I used those, you know, to do songwriting and I perform with that. I even used to be in a band for a few years playing the washboard. Doing harmonies and playing the washboard.MR: Really?BE: Yeah.MR: Wow.BE: But mostly it's guitar and banjo.MR: Interesting. It sounds a little bit like Americana or bluegrass or something along those lines is the style I think of when I hear those instruments.BE: Mm. Yeah. Well, quite folk. So, I think—MR: Folk music, yeah, that's the word I was looking for, folk.BE: Poets with guitars, I think, is a good description. A lot of the music that I love, you know, Jenny Mitchell and Annie Cohen.MR: Yeah, of course.BE: That whole crew and the Ballad writers. So, storytelling for me is a large part of it. Like the music in itself and the rhythm and the physicality of that that goes beyond words, but then also the storytelling element is very strong, close to my core.MR: We've touched a little bit on using music and vocals for telling a story. So I would guess that maybe that's what's drawn you to this, you know, if we come back to the focus of the show, which is more visual thinking. Using those same techniques, but with a different part of yourself to either live capture what you're hearing and express it, or like you said, taking recorded bits or research or those things and turning it into something that encapsulates or consolidates that information. Is that a fair way to guess at how those things are working in the way you work?BE: Yeah, I think there's a really strong connection there, narrative seeking, which think of as, in a way, pulling on threads. You can do it through music, or you can do it through visuals, you can do it through writing, kind of pulling on threads and weaving. That's the feeling of it. And so, thinking with visuals is definitely something—I was the doodling kid in class always. Let's see, I dunno, before I even knew that this existed, Sketchnoting, graphic recording, I took some speeches or books that were really affecting me and turned them into—not exactly comics, 'cause I didn't have that style, but yeah, visual vignettes that for me, communicated that idea and opened it up in a new way. So, I think that's kind of connected.MR: And again, in a form that's in a way a story, right? You're telling the story of the thing that's impacting you. So again, here we are back at narrative again. It's sort of this core that draws you.BE: Yeah, and they both have an emotional element because you've got the bare facts, and you've got sort of just putting things down. But I guess I chose things that affected me. So at the time, what was it? One was a book, it was actually a book by a Finnish architect about space and how we designed space and how we live in it, and the multisensorial nature of space actually, in contrast to how everything in the modern world is designed.A lot of space is designed visually without considering how it would feel, how it would smell, how it would, you know, the enveloping senses. So anyway, that book, and then I felt very strongly about that. And the other one I can think of was like a speech by Neil Gaiman about—I think it was one of those, what are they called when everyone finishes university in the States, and they give a commencement speech or something.MR: Yeah. Commencement.BE: I dunno what it's called, but there was a really beautiful one that sort of captured that. And yeah, there's emotion to the song and there's emotion in the weight of the line. That is something in the narrative that can't be stripped back to bare facts. It's another layer.MR: Interesting. That's fascinating how these all fit together. You mentioned too, that you have a lot of things going on at the same time. I feel the same way. I suspect other listeners to the show feel similarly. I lately have gotten into making pizza and sourdough bread, and I see the same things involved in that as well, like being willing to start something and get it moving, but then you have to wait until it's ready. You can't rush sourdough bread in bulk fermenting, right. It takes five hours or whatever it takes to get to the place where then you can work with it. In some ways, the work that we do is a little bit like that sometimes, I guess.BE: Yeah. Actually, it's really well described, and it's a really good learning that maybe took me years I think when I moved into doing it professionally was, I sort of thought that the work was when I had my pen on the page, you know, pushing the lines forward to the final piece. And it took time to recognize the value of the reflective work of taking in the information, letting it move around, making lots of trials and experiments. There's parts that work well under pressure and there's other parts, it’s just that they're gonna take as long as they take to get to the right point.MR: Yeah. That's pretty fascinating. So it sounds like professionally, at least, it sounds like mainly what you would do is the graphic recording, graphic facilitation. Is that a fair guess? Or where would you say the core of your work is? Maybe that's the way to say it.BE: The core of my work has been graphic recording more than facilitation, although that's something I'm kind of sidestepping more into now from a different angle. But much more listening and digesting and giving back the information. The facilitation, I think happens mostly behind the scenes, or as I think of graphic facilitators, maybe as someone who's standing up and leading the workshop. I love to work with facilitators because then I think you really get the best outta the visuals because you can arrange, you can do interactive pieces, and create a more whole experience. So a lot of facilitation behind the scenes, and that's been part of it as well, learning to guide clients, guide people who want visuals, but they don't quite know what t

In this episode, Javier Navarro, a former fashion designer, shares how his fashion experience adds a unique style to his visuals.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:https://rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Javier NavarroOrigin StoryJavier's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find JavierOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Javier's websiteDrwaing Your Mind InstagramJavier on InstagramDrawing Your Mind LinkedInJavier on LinkedInToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Moleskine PaperWindsor & Newton PaperPentel fine tip brush penNeuland markersPantone Tria markersiPadProcreateTips Don't be obsessed with perfect illustrations. Work around your strengths. Improve your craft one step at a time. Ask clients a lot of questions before the onset of a project. Prep a lot. Always remember that it is all about the audience. Train your mind to be visual 24 hours.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with my friend Javier Navarro. How are you doing, Javier? It's good to have you here.Javier Navarro: Hi, Mike. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for the invite.MR: Yeah, no problem. We crossed paths—I'm trying to think where we did it. Was it through some workshop that I did? I can't remember which one 'cause I did a couple really close together. Was it the bullet journal one or was it something else?JN: It was the lettering one. MR: The lettering one.JN: I remember the lettering one very well because I was really looking forward to that one. So yeah, it was the lettering one. I know your work from before, and I've been admiring your work for a long time, but that is where we started contact. Yeah.MR: Yeah. That was sponsored by Sketch Effect, which I don't think they have—they didn't record it, but there are some tidbits online. I think if you go to Javier's social LinkedIn and such, you can find it, which we'll talk about later. But anyway, that's how we came across each other, and I started looking at your work and thought your stuff is really cool. I need to talk to this guy and bring him into the community, so people can find him and be inspired and maybe chat with him and be aware.That's the fun thing for me, is discovering new people. Just when I think that I've talked to everybody, I just know that there's another person, 10 other people that I haven't talked to yet. So it's a never ending quest in the podcast to get new people and try and fit as many as I can in a season. So, welcome.JN: Thank you.MR: Why don't you jump right into, tell us who you are and what you do, and then you can go right into your origin story. Tell us how did you get to the place where you are from when you were a little boy.JN: Yeah. Like you said, my name is Javier Navarro. I'm a London-based visual storyteller, and I've been working in—visual storytelling is an umbrella term that I feel comfortable with. It's encompassing, like graphic recordings, sketchnoting, digital visualization, you know, there are many names to what we do. I've been doing this for the last four years. My journey is quite a long one. I'm a former fashion designer. I've been working for 10 years in fashion, 10 years in homewears, and basically drawing since I'm four years old.Illustration has been part of my professional journey all the time in different shapes and forms, but I came to graphic recording quite later, and I will get deeper into that. The thing is that during the time that I work in product design, I fulfill the whole process. I've been working with all kinds of companies, like corporate, startups, design strategy, creative strategy, training in research. So I fulfill the whole creative process and I think that informs and helps pretty much my practice as a graphic recorder as well because having been on the other side for so many years, I can understand team dynamics, team's struggles, and things like that.Even as a kid, I've always felt really, really comfortable drawing all the time surrounded by people. By that, I don't mean that I was doing graphic recording as a kid, but I never felt like—you know, there's people who felt kind of ashamed or tense around people looking at them over the shoulder, like, "What are you doing?" So actually, it was quite calming to me. Having people talking around on me when drawing, not necessarily about what was happening around me, but drawing all the time.Then what happened is that after this very long journey in product design, fashion, homewears, et cetera, around 2020, and that is a really relevant date for everyone as we all know. But maybe a year before that, I started realizing that I was done with product design. I didn't feel like it was contemporary. it was not contributing with anything in particular to the world, and there was no point in making more products. I was a bit of disappointed with the sector. I didn't feel it anymore.Then I started working for a nonprofit organization, and I was part of the branding department. Here in the UK, nonprofits are really powerhouses. They really take social responsibility, they make a difference, and they're very big. They pride themselves as big companies so they're really big structures. I was part of the branding department for the London branch for this particular nonprofit. Then, when we put the strategy for the whole year, the communication strategy, at some point, my manager at that time, she knew that I knew illustration, that I have done some visuals. She asked me, "Can you put together visually our strategy for the team because we need to share from the London branch to the national branches, to all the branches from this organization." And then I put, what, now I know is my first rich picture.The thing is that prior to that, I sometimes tried to work as an illustrator, but I always found that my ego was not in the right place. I was judging myself too much, or I felt judged by others, or maybe I was petrified of the blank page. I don't know. But the thing is that drawing with a purpose brings something different for me. When I realized that that was a thing, and there was a format where illustration, innovation, and service meet, for me, there was not turning back. It's like, "Okay, guys, I found my thing. This is what I wanna do for the rest of my life." I didn't know there was such a container. I did illustration before. I used illustration to develop product, but it was not the same thing.This was January 2020. Then we know that March 2020, the lockdown. Fantastic year to start a new job, new product, intersect or mail it. So proud. I say this with a lot of respect because I know that it was a really hard time for everyone. It was terrible to be at home. I know many people suffer, many people passed. I know it was very hard, but for me, it was an opportunity to train because after that I realized, "Okay, this is what I love. I need to learn about this." I got myself an iPad. I read a lot of books, yours being one of them. I mean, your books I read as well. So I got myself informed about what was this? Because I have to pull a lot of stress to find out what is this about?The great thing is that at that time, there were many, many talented people, very skilled, very experienced, bored at home with lots of time on their hands, very generous, extremely generous. Making lots of workshops, very open to meet other people, to make connections. Then in parallel, I was training myself in graphic recording as a craft, but also planting those little seeds of contacts and here and there, making some connections. When the world reopened, eventually those connections blossom, and they converted in actual projects and things that I could actually work with.MR: Wow.JN: That was a bit of the journey and this is where I am now.MR: Wow.JN: Very grateful by the way.MR: I'm kind of curious, going back to your fashion part. You talk about, it's really important for you to think—you talked about visual storytelling. Do you feel like that stories are told in fashion design? Is that something that we maybe miss? We just see, you know, the new seasons clothes are out, and the new color is burgundy. I dunno. And we just assume that there's like this machine that runs and just produces clothes, but would you say that in fashion there's a little bit more to it that we don't see that's more story oriented or maybe that isn't there, and it's frustrating. What's frustrating for you?JN: The thing is that I know, I understand, and I've been there that fashion from the outside looks like a very superficial and vain thing to do. But if you think about it, each and every one of us have cloths at home. We choose them from a very conscious place, whatever we want to be in fashion or not. But these are all anthropologically, it's a lot of information. If you walk on the street, you'll s

In this episode, Kelvy Bird shares how her artistic background influences her visual approach to scribing ideas and how it becomes a powerful tool for facilitating deeper understanding within groups.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Kelvy BirdOrigin StoryKelvy's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Kelvy BirdOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Kelvy's websiteKelvy's BookOtto Scharmer BookOtto Scharmer BookBill Isaacs BookToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Neuland Outliner inkEagleCell Graphic boardsChalk markersMoleskine paperProcreateiPadTipsExperiment and try new tools/approaches.Preserve a sense of mystery and beauty in your work.Prioritize self-care both physically and mentally.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Kelvy Bird. Kelvy, it's so good to have you on the show.Kelvy Bird: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure.MR: We've been trying to get you on—I think I've been trying to get you on, you may not know this, but for the last couple of seasons and it finally worked out, so I'm excited. You do some really cool stuff. You're really unique, I think, in the visual thinking space with the way you approach things and the way you think about things. That's my perspective, is you're really unique. And so, I wanted to bring that to other visual thinkers who may not know who you are, right. It's such a wide community that there's little pools and spaces where you may not know things, so it's always good to reveal that, to make you known. I'll just turn it over to you. Let's first hear in your own words, who you are and what you do.KB: Well, first, thanks so much. When you said I'm unique, I had a little bit of like, "I am?" That made me happy. Anyone who's watching the video, I have to apologize for my particularly summer feral 90-degree look, but for those of you listening, I hope you'll be spared. I'm Kelvy Bird. I grew up in the Hudson Valley in New York State. Just about an hour North of New York City. My whole family was from the city originally. I grew up near the woods.And a big part of my origin story, those people who do know me have probably heard this many times, is that my parents split up when I was three, and so I grew up going between households, between rule sets, between cultures. They were very culturally—well, I mean, not so much culturally different, but there were a lot of differences between the households at that time in the '70s. Both homes were in the woods, and so I have a strong continuity with nature. Also, that led to my probably keen sense of observation. When I'm in spaces I'm always kind of at the edge of a system before engaging with a system just from a very early childhood, you know, a safety mechanism of—MR: It's what you operated then?KB: Yeah. I mean, it's like, you wanna know that—if you're unsure of environments, you know, you kind of check it out before you really immerse yourself in them. That's really lent itself—well, I probably became ascribed in some ways because I have that natural inclination to observe. I studied art and art history at Cornell in Upstate New York and graduated, I think like '88 or '89 in the Reagan years when there was like, you know, "What could you do as an artist?" You could work in a gallery or a museum to feed your art or you could live in the woods and make candles. What I had planned to do was, I envisioned a really quiet slow life for myself. Which has been very much the opposite of what unfolded.MR: Of course.KB: At some point, so I was making art and then I was out living out in the Bay Area after school and I was doing collaborative art, and then I met some people who—Chris Allen, who was working with Matt—well, was working with an on the board for Matt and Gale Taylor and of MG Taylor. And so, he kind of got me connected into their work, and that was my introduction to scribing. I was working with them for a few years before I really started to be comfortable scribing. I did a lot of sketch noting, I guess now we would call it, thanks to you.MR: Yeah.KB: And you know, time to really learn my visual vocabulary and my method of processing information. Then learn from people like Christopher Fuller and Brian Kaufman. Francis Gillard was in the system then and alongside Peter Durand. Peter and I kind of came up together in that space.MR: Okay.KB: Yeah.MR: He's one of the other guests in this season.KB: Oh, cool.MR: So we can hear his story. You're gonna be in with him. I'm kinda—KB: There's—oh, go ahead.MR: I was gonna say, as I understand, I know I don't have a cursory overview of scribing in that space. My story was I started discovered the Sketchnoting 'cause it just made sense. Then as I got into it and started practicing it, stumbled into the whole scribing community. Like, "Wow, these are my people. I mean, they work on a large scale, but like the principles are the same." And as I understood over time, it seemed like there were two schools that you tended to come from. It was either MG Taylor or David Sibbet's space. That felt like the two, maybe there were more, I don't know, maybe there's some different ones in Europe, but in the U.S., those tended to be the two schools that you would come from. I think like Brandy Agerbeck, I think she's MG Taylor trained, right?KB: Yes. Yeah.MR: They're probably similar, but I'm sure there's probably cultural differences that are a little different.KB: The contemporary scribing with David Sibbet—I've written a little bit about the history, and I did some research for my book. Somewhere out there, there's a history and other people have expanded on it and brought it to be more current, but it originated in the '70s in the Bay Area with David and his colleagues. Then Matt and Gail were also working with this method in Boulder, Colorado with Jim Shannon, who was one of the first people to scribe in their context. The biggest difference I think is David and The Grove use visuals as part of a facilitative. They facilitate while they're drawing.I think now it's become maybe people who learn from them more graphic—I shouldn't speak for this because I don't really know, more like graphic recording. Then with MG Taylor, the scribing was embedded in a range of facilitated methods like music and documentation, the environment, how the chairs were set, how the room was set, how walls were set up for people. The whole scribing was one element of many domains of facilitation.MR: Almost thought of as an experience, like a whole experience and considered that way.KB: Yeah, yeah. It was a more immersive maybe. Also, it wasn't just the scribe scribing, the participants of these large-scale design shops, they're called, are all scribing. People while they're working, are using big walls to draw on. It's very social in that regard where it's immersive and social.Yeah, I should just say—one thing I didn't mention and is just after working with MG Taylor, I was living in the Cambridge area in Massachusetts and got involved in dialogue and systems thinking and human dynamics and the presencing work. And so, my scribing has taken a particular turn in that direction because of my experience post MG Taylor, you know, it all sort of weaves in, but yeah.MR: Interesting. Well, so you're a scribe and you do scribing for companies mainly, I would assume, and organizations?KB: No, mostly I'm scribing for—oh, sorry, you were still going with your question.MR: No, no. I'd love to hear who do you scribe for? Who are your main customers?KB: Now since the pandemic and even before, I was trying to focus more in educational context and less business. I haven't scribed in a lot of big business context for a while. Maybe a few companies here and there, but not like back, you know, 20 years ago. Then with the pandemic, even before I realized that the impact of flying on me as an individual and my own body system, and then also just what it was doing, contributing to for the environment and others, I didn't wanna fly, so I'm not flying anymore.That has really shifted work. So I've gotten more digital and clients have included. I go on site for stuff in Boston. I do a lot of work with MIT and I've been teaching locally at some of the various schools like Babson and Handover. I have a project at UMass here close to where I live and the Presencing Institute still, of course, you know, I work with them when we're doing things on site, but it's really reduced. Oh, I've done a lot of work with the UN in the past year or two, it's been all digital.MR: Interesting. That's an interesting shift because I think there was a huge shift and the pandemic forced it on, I think on a lot of people. It sounded like you were a little bit ahead of that curve. You were alrea

Joran Oppelt reflects on his journey through music, marketing, spiritual community-building, and visual consulting and how they’ve shaped his unique perspective. He offers an inside look at the latest developments at The Grove and thoughts on emerging AI trends.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes, andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Joran OppeltOrigin StoryJoran's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find JoranOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Joran on LinkedInJoran's EmailThe GroveIllustriousBooksToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Neuland markersBell/malletDevice tote bagMuralProcreateZoomSessionLabiPadTipsOwn the problem.Break down the big thing into smaller digestible pieces.Ask for help.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Joran Oppelt. Joran, so good to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.Joran Oppelt: Yeah. Joran.MR: Joran. Joran.JO: Yeah.MR: I need to practice it, Joran.JO: Yeah.MR: Well, it's good to have you on the show. It's interesting because we crossed paths, I think on LinkedIn. I saw we've been following each other for a while, and I saw that you joined The Grove, which immediately ticked off flags in my head, like, The Grove, you mean, David Sibbet, The Grove? And sure enough, it is. For those who don't know The Grove and David Sibbet are legendary, I guess in the work that they've done in the visual thinking field. Probably a lot of what you count on as normal and routine was pioneered by David and his company back in the '70s, maybe even earlier. Welcome to the show. I would love to hear more about what you're doing there, and you can jump right into your origin story if you like as well.JO: Sure. Yeah, I'm now a senior consultant at The Grove, and I began this career in this field as a graphic recorder, so starting analog on Phone Core, you know, at an innovation consultancy in Florida 10 years ago. That's where I first discovered The Grove. My boss pulled out a Vision Journey template, and I was like, "Wow, really? We're just gonna draw a picture of an arrow going into the sun, and it can be that simple," you know? Of course, it's not that simple. There's a lot more that goes into visual consulting, but now, after having spent five years there and three years leading a consultancy of my own and now landing at The Grove, it does feel a little bit like `coming full circle. Yeah, it's just an honor and a privilege to be able to work alongside the team there at The Grove, so yeah. I'm thrilled.MR: I bet. That's really great. That's great. I think it's really exciting to see that they're continuing to invest in young talent to come in and lead the organization so they can continue to be relevant in business and in the world. That's cool.JO: Yeah. If you could consider of 48 to be young, then they continue to invest in young talent. Yeah, absolutely.MR: Well, I mean, you know, David is getting up there now. I think he's close to or is maybe is retired now. I'm not sure.JO: He is retired. Yeah, he just turned 80 and he's retiring. Gisela Wendling, his partner is now the new CEO of The Grove, and yeah, she is my boss. David's not my boss, so.MR: Wow. Wow.JO: Yeah.MR: Wow. That's pretty cool. Well, I'd love to—JO: We're definitely leading into like Grove 2.0 territory.MR: That's really cool.JO: You know, it's definitely, this is what the Grove looks like post David Sibbet, so it's an exciting time. And, you know, Gisela's got a real bent toward organizational development and that level of strategic consulting, so it's gonna be really fun to see what the organization can do and deliver in the future.MR: I think it's really important to reinvent yourself regularly. I know that that's been the case in my career, and I suspect individually it's important, but also organizationally important to reinvent. Which is speaks to what Gisela's thoughts around probably reinvention of the organization that you provide a different perspective in the company that you work with. That's pretty cool.JO: Yeah.MR: Well, I would love to hear how you got to this place. Maybe going back even to when you were a little kid, did you always draw, was that something that was part of you, or like, how did all that work?JO: I always drew, yeah, like sharks and dragons, sharks and dragons over and over and over. I drew comic books and I would staple them together, you know?MR: Me too.JO: I mean, that was my happy place. You know, I was at the dining table with a big stack of blank paper and pens and a stapler, and that was where I would draw books. It's funny, flashback to, what was it five years ago? When I discovered a Mural as a visual whiteboarding tool. It had been in our tech stack at Ridge for so long that we were like, "Well, we have these things like Proposify and whatever, and this thing called Mural, but we never used it." But then the pandemic hit and we were like, "Let's take this Mural thing off the shelf and see what it does 'cause we've gotta convert everything we do in person to virtual."When I opened up my first Mural and discovered it was just a blank, basically a big limitless sheet of paper, I was like, "What can I do with this?" Then I had the light bulb, "Oh, what can't I do with this?" Right? I started kind of gamifying our workshops and my background in graphic design and art direction kinda came back online. I was like, "Okay, this is like being able to design the room and decide where the furniture is and what's on the walls all at the same time." Creating those virtual experiences with whiteboarding tools, it took me right back to my happy place at the dining table with the blank paper and pens. So, Mural's been a real godsend and a real area that I specialize into.I'd say the origin story though, for me, feels more like there is this moment that I feel defines me as a facilitator, and that is trying to bring two sides together all the time. Bring different perspectives in alignment. That was my birthday party, I was probably eight or nine, and I had just moved to yet another small town in Midwest, Wisconsin, and thought, you know, I got these four or five good friends of mine, guys I used to hang out with. And now these new four or five guys that I'm hanging out with, and man, I'd love to hang out with 'em together on my birthday. I thought this would be a brilliant idea. I thought it'd be great. I thought they'd get along like Gangbusters.We get a Holiday Inn and got all these kids in one or two rooms, and it didn't go as planned, you know? I don't know if they were vying for my attention or loyalty, or if it was the competitor cities or schools that was at play, and people were acting out. I remember getting outta the elevator and one of my friends went like this and smacked my grandmother in the face. There was just stuff happening. It was like making the whole experience was going sour. Then we got in the pool, there was a swimming pool inside, and we'd ordered Domino's Pizza, and we had two liters of Pepsi and there were arcade games along the side, just behind like a little half wall centipede with a little track ball.I would jump in the pool and swim for a while, and I'd hop out and I'd grab a piece of pizza and I'd drink some Pepsi, and then I'd run over to the arcade game and I'd play Centipede, and it would electrocute me, I'd get these electric shocks from playing the game, and then I'd jump back in the pool, and then I'd hop back out and I played the video game, get electrocuted again. It was just this happy moment that I remember when all the guys were happy and finally getting along. I think that kind of defines the first time I successfully facilitated a group experience was this. Maybe it was the electricity powering me up in that moment from the video game, but I feel like that's the superhero origin story for me.MR: Was there something you did to bridge that gap between those two groups of friends? Was there some moment where you gave them an ultimatum or did you just work it?JO: No, I stopped trying and I started swimming. That's all it.MR: This is what we do in our group. We swim and we play games, and we eat pizza and drink Pepsi.JO: Yeah, and get electrocuted.MR: That's what we do, so if you wanna do that, you do what I do.JO: Yeah.MR: Interesting. Interesting. That could be a really interesting modern party for adults, right? Where you recreate that moment, maybe on your 50th birthday or something like that, with all those same friends.JO: Oh, that'd be a trip. Yeah.**MR: Interesting. Where did it go from there? You're now 8, 9, 10-years -old. What are the threads that you saw going through grade school and high school and college? Did you see those threads? Did you go in different directions?JO: Well, yeah, there are eras. There are these defining eras

In this episode, Emily Mills shares insights she’s learned in illustration, visual facilitation, and business in this live interview recorded at the International Sketchnote Camp in San Antonio.Sponsored by ConceptsThe Concepts Sketchnote Workshop video — a unique, FREE, hands-on workshop video where I show you how I use the Concepts app to create sketchnotes on an iPad Pro with an Apple Pencil.In this one-hour, eighteen-minute video, I cover:The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power featureHow vectors give you complete control of brushes and sizing as you create sketchnotes, andHow vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.The workshop video includes answers to common questions about Concepts.Watch the workshop video for FREE at:rohdesign.com/conceptsBe sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Emily MillsOrigin StoryEmily's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find EmilyOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Emily’s WebsiteEmily on InstagramEmily Mills LinkedInSketch AcademySketch Academy InstagramSketch Academy YouTubeThe Art of Visual TakingEmily Mills; Sketchnote Army Podcast S06 Ep 02Emily's Travel SketchnotesArt Tool kitMaria Coryell-Martin; Sketchnote Army Podcast S13 / EP04ToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Travelogue Drawing bookMoleskine sketchnote bookU Brand Felt pensTombow Mono twin pensTombow dual brush pensZebra Midliner brush pensNeuland fine tip pensiPadAdobe FrescoTipsKeep on experimenting.Try something outside your practice but still creative.Be careful when sketchnoting becomes work then find something else to supplement that joy factor.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production, and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike Rohde and I'm here doing the Sketchnote Army Podcast live in front of a studio audience with Emily Mills, who actually appeared at least on one episode. We have to verify the archives and see how many she's been on it. Maybe two others before, but welcome back, Emily.Emily Mills: Thank you. Glad to be back.MR: So when you were on, I think it was pretty earlier in your career, maybe not at the beginning, but it was pretty early in your career. I think you maybe were independent at the time.EM: Mm-hmm.MR: And that, I think you worked for a company for a while. Instead of doing it this way, let's first say who are you and what do you do.EM Yeah. My name is Emily Mills. I'm an illustrator, and that's the big umbrella term that I use now because I do a lot of different types of illustration, and I think for me, sketchnoting falls under that. So if I meet Joe Schmo on the street, I'm an illustrator, and then once I get to know you, then it's like I'm a book illustrator, I'm a graphic recorder, I'm a sketchnoter.MR: You can kind of refine into those sections.EM: Yeah, little buckets.MR: Got it. How did you come to that decision about umbrellaing underneath Illustrator? Did it go through some iterations?EM: Yeah, a lot of trial and error, because my background is in graphic design. And so, for a while, it was like, I'm a creative, I'm a designer, and then I stopped doing design and I had to refine the language. It's always an ever-evolving process. I'm sure it'll change in a year or two.MR: Got it. We talked about it in the original episode, but it would be fun to hear, now that we have got new period of time that you've been doing this work, your origin story, how did you get into this? And then bring us up to the current day. But you can go all the way back to when you were a little girl if you like, and sort of—EM: Crayons on the wall.MR: Yeah. Any kind of key moments that have sort of led to where you are now.EM: Yeah. So growing up as a kid, I really liked that. I started cartooning. I was very inspired by The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes. I really liked Garfield. Just pretty much anything in the newspaper I was a huge fan of. And so I drew comics, cartoons. Growing up I had a little strip called Sheepish. I had a strip called Busted Wheel that was like a Western theme one. I had one about dingoes. I was really into animals. And then when I hit middle school, my school was kind of new, and so they started a school newspaper. And so, I did the school newspaper cartoon from eighth grade, actually, all the way through college.MR: Wow.EM: So my background was, I just like drawing, I like characters, I like creating stories that are very short. And then, studied graphic design in college because that was around the 2008 crash, and everyone in my life was saying, "You have to get a job." And I was like, "But I wanna do art." So studying graphic design was like my way of doing both. And studied the graphic design, went to graphic design career, but I still kept cartooning. In my office, whiteboard door, I would draw a little cartoon every week.Had a coworker that remembered that when he had left, he went to work for a video studio. They hired me to do a whiteboard video. I'd never heard of that or done one, obviously. And so, they brought me in to do that. We ended up doing two or three of those, and I kind of put that in my portfolio. Then a company saw the whiteboard video, and they were like, "Hey, have you ever done sketchnoting?" I was like, "I don't know what that is." But it was, kind of like a cool moment because by the time I had hit college, newspapers were basically no more. So my dream of becoming a newspaper cartoonist when I grew up were kind of dashed.MR: You sort of lived that life through your high school and college years.EM: Yeah. So it was like, "I'm gonna be a cartoonist for the newspaper when I grow up." And then it was like, "Oh, newspapers don't exist, so I don't know what to do anymore. I guess it's just graphic design." So when someone told me about sketchnoting it was like, "Wait, I can be a cartoonist for real, like when I grow up, it's like another avenue?" And so, I was excited about that. My style's more illustratory and less stick figures, more characters just because that's where my background is. But worked for a company for a short time doing graphic recording, and then went out on my own. And I've just been doing that since 2016.MR: Great. And I think I've seen you kind of refining the work you've done from that moment you went independent. In a lot of ways, I feel like you've narrowed your focus a lot because I think when you started, you were doing graphic design, you're still taking contracts for that, but I think you've narrowed it down to fewer things.EM: Right.MR: What would you say it would be your strengths areas that you sort of would lead with or you consider are your strengths that you do now?EM: I really like graphic recording at live events. So whether that's a virtual graphic recording gig on my iPad, or it's in-person at a giant eight-foot board. I really enjoy the live events. I think I just am the most experienced with that. But I also really enjoy book illustration doing—now when people hear that, they think kids lit. And that's not what I do at all. Like, I'm actually not a very whimsical, cute illustrator. And so, I don't do kids’ books. I just do adult business books. But I really think I do have like a cartoony style, but it lends itself well to business ideas. I really love illustrating "boring" things and kind of creating the life in it.MR: Making them more interesting.EM: Yeah.MR: Or revealing the interesting nature of the concepts or ideas.EM: Right. And so those are the two areas that I like to lead with. Like, "Oh, let me illustrate your live event." And if you don't have a live event, maybe you have an article or a blog or a book that I can illustrate for. I recently just took a workshop on visual facilitation because after doing live events for almost 10 years, I've learned a lot about meetings, and I've seen a lot of meetings run very poorly and I'm like, "You know what? I think I could learn to do that." And having the people skills to facilitate a room is a skill set that I don't have, but I'm excited about maybe stepping into.MR: Well, as someone new to that space and knowing graphic recording and sketchnoting and those things, how would you separate the skills needed for graphic recording, live sketchnoting with now facilitation from your perspective?EM: I think it's a spectrum. On the far left, you have straight-up illustration-like art. And then on the far right, you have facilitation, which is like, just writing. And I think in the middle is where it gets confusing. I would say sketchnoting is probably more on the left-hand side because of course it's ideas, not art, but we still like to add color and shapes and creativity. Then as you move towards the facilitation and on the right, you lose the art, but you can still be visual without having the art.MR: Do you think with facilitation, it's a little bit more of people skills that you're learning?EM: Definitely.MR: Because you own the visual skills, that's not an issue, you're confident there.EM: Yeah. The workshop I took was three days long, and the first day and a half was really focused on graphic recording. And a lot of the students in the class hadn't done it, so that was their first time for me, it was actually—MR: You had that advantage. Yeah.EM: It was a helpful review. I actually did learn a few new things, but the last day and a half was all facilitation. It was reading the room, learning how to deal with "problem children," and

In this special episode, Professor Michael Clayton, the lead organizer of ISC24TX in San Antonio, Texas, talks to Mike Rohde about the event on August 2-4, 2024.Hear more details about the event, the venue, and the city of San Antonio and what to expect if you attend, including continuing education credits for educators!Running OrderIntroProfessor Michael ClaytonISC24TX historySan AntonioSponsorsOutroLinksISC24TX Website(https://isc24tx.com/tickets)ISC24TX Tickets(https://isc24tx.com/tickets)ISC24TX Agenda(https://isc24tx.com/agenda/)ISC24TX Travel & Hotel(https://isc24tx.com/travel-hotel/)CreditsProducer: Mike RohdeTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

In this final episode of The Sketchnote Army Podcast season 15, we have compiled the tips from nine great visual thinkers into a single episode. We hope these tips will inspire and encourage you on your visual thinking journey.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings — any time you like. You can nudge the curve of a line, swap out one brush for another, or change stroke thickness and color at any stage of your drawing — saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need — large or small. Never worry about fuzzy sketchnotes again.Concepts is a powerful, flexible tool that’s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH “Concepts” in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroMaggie AppletonAlejo PorrasAlina GutierrezPierpaolo BarresiClaire OhlenshlagerJimi HolstebroDeb AokiAlan ChenJulian Raul KücklichOutroLinksMaggie's WebsiteAlejo's WebsiteAlina's WebsiteYobi Scribes WebsiteClaire on InstagramJimi's Website for ArtDeb's WebsiteSh8peshifters websiteJulian's Website1. Maggie Appleton’s TipsExplore GIFs.Play with Midjourney or DALL E.Explore interactive essays or long-term visual essays.2. Alejo Porras’ TipsShow up consistently, be present, and care about what you do.Be kind to yourself.Be curious about people to learn how to make them feel appreciated and loved.3. Alina Gutierrez’s TipsPush yourself to try something new so it doesn't become boring.The more people are engaged with creating the visuals, the more impact it has on them.Give yourself grace if you are starting. Don't compare yourself with those who started way before you did.Give yourself realistic goals.Listen to a TED Talk or a podcast to try taking live notes. Challenge yourself to add new icons as you progress. Look for something you're not an expert in and take visual notes of that. Leave your comfort zone and get exposed to different tools. Find inspiration from other artist's work.Do the first line, even if it means signing your piece before you get started.4. Pierpaolo Barresi’s TipsHave fun.Do what you know.Give thanks.5. Claire Ohlenshlager’s TipsPractice because with practice, you develop your way of visual thinking. White spaces don't matter. It's not really about the tools, so don't go around buying a whole set. First, try it out before you invest in lots of tools that you are not going to use. Words will help you find the icons and the pictures. Metaphors will help sometimes.6. Jimi Holstebro’s TipsDon't limit yourself to gadgets.Just do it.Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.It's not about being good at drawing. It's about conveying ideas.7. Deb Aoki’s TipsThink of drawing as a form of alphabet and writing system versus an artistic system.You don't need to learn how to draw everything in the world. Just the stuff in your world.Be visual with fun, low-stakes things.8. Alan Chen’s TipsAim for your creative minimum.Practice on paper more than on digital if you can.Try to link your habits.9. Julian Raul Kücklich’s TipsWork with shapes, mix them up, and find new ways of combining them.Shift from noun to verb. If you find it hard to draw something, it's often easier to draw a verb that goes with it.Always carry a pen and some thread. If you need to draw a large circle, that's the easiest way to make that happen.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

In this episode, Julian Kücklich shares his journey—from childhood, where drawing was an innate talent, to academic pursuits and his discovery of design. Julian discusses how creativity and innovation provide visual solutions that blend storytelling, graphic recording, and visual strategy effortlessly.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings, saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Julian Kücklich?Origin StoryJulian's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find JulianOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Julian's WebsiteJulian on LinkedInJulian on InstagramToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Neuland markersBlack FoamboardBlack CardboardPOSCA Acrylic MarkersMOLOTOW Acylic MarkersPentel Brush PensAmsterdam NotebooksiPad ProApple PencilProcreateConceptsTipsWork with shapes, mix them up, and find new ways of combining them.Shift from noun to verb. If you find it hard to draw something, it's often easier to draw a verb that goes with it.Always carry a pen and some thread. If you need to draw a large circle, that's the easiest way to make that happen.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer Subscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Julian Kücklich. Julian, it's so good to have you on the show. Julian Kücklich: Great to be here, Mike.MR: Yeah, I've seen your work so much. Again, to guests I've talked to, LinkedIn seems like the place I'm finding really fascinating people posting things. And I've asked people, and I can ask you too, is there something going on in LinkedIn or is it just that I've trained the algorithm to give me what I wanna see? Do you have a sense of what's going on there?JK: Well, I think, you know, LinkedIn has become much more popular in Europe in recent years. When I joined LinkedIn, which was 10 years ago, I was just reminded that it was my LinkedIn anniversary maybe three, four weeks ago, it was hardly used. People in Germany especially used a platform called Xing.MR: Yes, I remember Xing. Yeah.JK: Yeah. And so, that seems to have dropped off the radar and people are doing much more on LinkedIn. So that might be one of the reasons that you see more content from creators in Europe at least on LinkedIn now.MR: Hmm. Interesting. I'm sure the algorithm must have something to do with it, but anyway, if you are listening and you're not on LinkedIn or you haven't really paid attention there, go check it out. It seems like there's lots more graphics. I think in a way, it's got a nice blend of visual capability. So like visuals attract people, but it crosses over with business. So, people who are looking for either some kind of impact or I guess getting work from it, it's a natural place to be if you're a graphic recorder professionally.In my case, I just like to share what's going on, and I do some teaching so that it opens the opportunity for people to find out about classes I might be teaching. But it definitely seems to be more visual. Anyway, that aside, Julian, tell us who you are and what you do, and then let's jump right into your origin story right after that. All the way from when you were a little boy till now, tell us like, what were the key moments, what were the things you did as a kid? All those kinds of things.JK: All right. That's gonna be a long story.MR: Good.JK: Just to get us started, I've been working as a graphic recorder for about 10 years now. Well, actually it's a bit longer, but I went full-time freelance in 2014, so it's almost exactly 10 years ago. Well, you know graphic recording is becoming less and less important in my business. I do a lot of strategy mapping or strategic illustration as I like to call it. So I work with clients on visual representations of their strategy or their goals or their values.And those often have a basis in graphic recording. I often like to kick off these processes with workshops where I do graphic recording, but then I take the results of that back into my studio, and then I work on the illustration and fill up the details, and then make changes. So it's a longer and more involved process than the pure live graphic recording that I did for the first, you know, six or seven years of my career almost exclusively.MR: Hmm. Interesting. A question that sort of pops into my mind as you talk about this. So do you find, so typically graphic recording, at least traditionally is a large board, foam board, paper, something, and it's in a room, so people are kind of immersed in it in a sense? So when you go back and do the strategy work, do you find it's important to reframe it in a more consumable size?This is a very specific question. So in other words, do you come back with a report that's A4 printable or, you know, something like that? Or does it come back as a large board again, but maybe more like, you know, you boiled the stew and then now it's a really tasty kind of a thing?JK: I must say I find it really hard to produce something that's printable on an A4 paper because there's usually so much detail that—you know, a lot of that gets lost when it gets printed in such a small size. So I try to encourage my clients when they share it, either view it on a big screen or print it in a large format so detail is really there and they can, you know, focus on specific areas of what they're interested in at that moment.I think size is really an important and often undervalued aspect or quality of, you know a graphic or an illustration. It really adds to the quality if it is large and if the viewer can actually immerse themselves into the graphic.MR: Right. Yeah. It seemed to me like that would be a curious, with this opportunity to compress, there might also be a desire to reduce size, but it sounds like that's not the case. Maybe it's slightly smaller, but still, quite a large scale because I suspect in that strategy work and the amount of information you're taking in, it would be difficult to fit it in a small size. You need the space to really represent all the components and the interactions and interrelationships, I suppose.JK: Absolutely.MR: Yeah. Interesting. Anyway, so that's just a curiosity as we—I guess in this episode, it seems like I'm interrupting you to kind of ask for more details, which I guess is okay, but continue.JK: Perfectly. I guess the next question is how did I get there?MR: Yeah.JK: And that's really a very long and complicated story because I didn't start out as an illustrator or a graphic artist like a lot of other graphic recorders do. In my experience, you know, they either come from a visual background or from a coaching background, and I have neither. I started out studying German and American literature in university. And then I kind of switched over to media studies and I did a lot of research on video games.MR: Hmm. Interesting.JK: Actually published a lot of papers on video games and gave a lot of conference presentations on video games, and actually did a PhD about global production networks—MR: Wow.JK: - in relation to computer games. So, you know, that was a big part of my life up until my mid-30s. And then I had a teaching job in Berlin actually teaching game design. And then I decided that you know, academia wasn't really my thing. I mean, I liked the teaching, but I didn't like the bureaucracy. I didn't like the hierarchy. I didn't like the way, you know, you had to ask a thousand people before you could do something.MR: Yeah, yeah.JK: So I then started to look for different work. And what I found was a job in an NGO which was doing training for journalists in mostly the Middle East. But then when I joined in 2012, they were just creating a platform for North Africa, for Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. So the Arab Spring countries as they were known at the time.MR: Yeah. Yeah.JK: And so, I was able to join that team that built up that platform and work as a kind of technical editor. And I think the roots of my visual practice really are in the process that we then followed in creating a magazine. It was an online platform, a journalism platform, but we wanted to have something printed. So we started making a magazine called Correspondence, bilingual English and Arabic.And the process of actually conceptualizing that magazine is where I started taking visual notes. And you know, pulling all these ideas together and seeing how they would interact and what would be visually appealing. It was just a way for me, well, first of all, to make those meetings more interesting for me. But also, I noticed when I shared those visual notes with my colleagues they really liked them.And they really thought that the process of putting this magazine together became much more engaging in a way than just, you know, having minutes of those meetings. And then coming to the next meeting and working on the same stuff. So, you know, I mean, for me, it was really the first time that I saw that you know, my doodling would make a difference.And I did always draw. When I was a child, I used to draw in my notebooks. In school, I used to draw in my school books although I wasn't actually allowed to, but, you know, it was really what I