Sketchnote Army Podcast

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

In this episode, Alan Chen, co-founder of Sh8peshifters, shares how his passion for drawing, comics, and film helps him blend sketches, human-centered design, and storytelling principles into clear, impactful visual solutions for his clients.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 Alan Chen?Origin StoryAlan's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Alan ChenOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Sh8peshifters websiteSh8peshifters InstagramAlan on LinkedInAlan on InstagramThink Visual! Sketch Lab courseBook: Designing TomorrowBook time with AlanToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Moleskin SketchbookStaedtler 0.3mm FinelinerZig Art & Graphic Twin Brush PenZig Kuretake No.22Small Post-card Watercolor padTombow ABT 725 (Hot Pink / Fuchsia)Copic Ciao RV02 (Pale cool pink)Copic Ciao W-5 (Warm grey)Pentel Aqua BrushKoh I Noor - Brilliant watercolor DisciPad ProApple PencilProcreateAdobe PhotoshopHunion KamvasTipsAim for your creative minimum.Practice on paper more than on digital if you can.Try to link your habits.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army Podcast You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the Podcast To 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 Alan Chen. Alan, thanks for coming on the show. It's so good to have you.Alan Chen: Thanks for having me, Mike. I've been really wanting to meet you.MR: You as well. We were talking a little bit about meeting on LinkedIn and how that platform seems like it's become very visual. I've asked a few people wondering, "Is it just me? Am I following visual-thinking people? And so the algorithm is feeding me visual stuff," but I think I got the sense that there's some kind of a change happening on LinkedIn where visual people are actually having an influence on that platform. Do you sense the same thing? Or what's your impression?AC: Yeah, I definitely agree, Mike. I probably am much less active on spaces like Instagram where, you know, ordinarily you think illustrators might be sharing their stuff. But you know, I use Instagram, maybe just kind of like a place for references, whereas LinkedIn, I actually have a lot of interaction with people. I share things and I see amazing work from other practitioners. So, LinkedIn is definitely the spot.MR: Interesting. Okay, it's not just me then. Okay. Well, let's get this thing rolling. With every one of these interviews, I'm really fascinated about you. I want to understand who you are. So let us know who you are, what you do, and then jump right into your origin story. How did you get here? What were the things that shaped you? What were the events that happened that sort of directed you along the path to what you're doing now?AC: Awesome. I love the questions. I guess at my core, I would describe myself as the dreamer. Somebody who has endless passion and ideas for all things, you know, related to stories and art. You can probably tell I'm a bit of a geek. I love collecting comics, books, and toys, and, you know, that stuff's all around me, as you can see. And that's kind of rubbed off on my daughter Aria, who is probably one of my biggest sources of inspiration. She, mind you also takes visual notes and she's seven. I'll show them to you some time.MR: Okay.AC: Now, whether it's drawing, painting, writing, or making movies or sculpting, I find myself deeply interested in telling stories. And that kind of relates to the work that I do. 'Cause I'm also the co-founder of Sh8peshifters, which is a small visual communication agency based in Sydney, Australia. I get to use a combination of illustration, human-centered design, and storytelling principles to help companies improve the ways they communicate the way they solve problems. And, you know, generally to help them better understand their strategy.Now, in terms of the origin story, everybody loves a superhero origin story, right? Not a superhero, but I love superheroes. Now, I think I've loved drawing for as long as I can remember. I was a big fan of the '70s and '80s films like, you know, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and lots of horror films as well. And I also loved Superman, Batman, and, you know, all the kind of comic stuff.And the thing is, I used to sketch from you know, being inspired by all of these things constantly. One time, you know, if I think back to when I was little, I was left alone at home, and I ended up drawing an entire story across my living room wall in permanent marker.MR: Oh, wow.AC: My folks amazingly, they didn't absolutely lose it. They were in fact, kind of supportive, and they left the drawings up on the wall as a bit of a permanent fixture for a number of years until they renovated. So, it was really cool. Yeah, they're very, very supportive. But on the flip side, at school you know, this was the, you know early mid-'80s, well, my teacher in kindergarten at the time, she was the opposite. She was very much against drawing in her classroom. She said, you know, "Drawing has no place in my classroom." And every time she caught me doing it, she would cane me.MR: Oh, wow.AC: She would literally smack me across the hand.MR: Ouch.AC: Yeah. It was pretty extreme. But you know, that was her way of kind of communicating to me like, "Nope, don't do this". I was pretty lucky because in Year 1, my teacher was super supportive. She was a bit of a cool hippie kinda lady. She was like, "No, no, Alan, you express yourself. You keep drawing. Do not stop under any circumstance." So I'm very lucky that I had some people around me who kind of were really supportive.But I think, you know, when it comes down to it, I reckon all of this began because I recognize that I learn a little bit differently than other people. So when I hear things, when people share ideas, and when they speak, I have imagery instantaneously appearing in my mind. So I can see words as images instantly.But on the flip side, when it comes to me communicating those things in written format or in in more detail, it used to take me a long time to formulate these things. And I think at the time, my teachers would often describe me as being slow, or, you know, having head in the clouds, or they thought that I was not listening. But the opposite was true. I was listening and I was just trying to formulate my ideas.So I think, you know, these days we might call somebody like that being neurodivergent. It was almost like, you know, some form of dyslexia. I'm not exactly sure. I've never been diagnosed about it. What I used to do was, I would draw what I would hear, and I would sketch and take notes at the same time. Which we now call Sketchnoting.MR: Yeah.AC: You know, it wasn't so appreciated back then. And maybe because I was drawing it in my textbooks as well as my workbook, any surface that I could draw. And I was like, okay, this works—MR: Fair game.AC: - this is fine. Huh? Yeah, it's fair game. That's exactly right. So yeah, that's kind of where the visuals and the note-taking stuff actually began. But then, you know, fast forward a decade or two later, I studied fine arts at Sydney University for a year. But then I quickly left that when I found out about this place called Enmore Center for Design, which is a really cool design school here in Sydney. And I ended up studying there for three years. And I loved learning about type and layout. You know, and I learned how to use imagery with all of that.But to be honest, I found graphic design work kind of dull. It just didn't do it for me. What I really loved was probably the things that were linked to my childhood, which was, you know, making movies. I always wanted to make movies. And I applied to study at the Australian Film School, and I was really lucky to get in. And then I can say I found my passion, which was storytelling. The moment I was in there, I knew that this was the right kind of thing.And I guess you can tell, because it led to, you know, over a decade of me working in the film industry. I started off as a storyboard artist and a concept artist. So I did a lot of you know, rapid prototyping and illustration for directors and producers you know, who just like spouting ideas really, really quickly. And I just had to do things in a way that was fast and clear and concise.And, you know, then I moved into concept art for Hollywood films. You know, this is like designing cool things. I mean, I got to work on, you know, superhero films. Like, you know, the first two Wolverine films with Hugh Jackman, I was designing costumes and superpowers. That was kind of a bit of a dream job for me.MR: I bet. Wow.AC: Yeah, it was a lot of fun because, you know, you get to draw things that don't exist, right? And you're like, this is awesome. I think what that did for me was it helped me understand the fact that no idea, no thought was too complex. Nothing was off limits. I could draw anything you know, as long as I put my mind to it. So that was a lot of fun.But I think one of the things about you know, working in these creative industries is I constantly was seeking something new. So it was like, if I wasn't storyboarding or doing concept art, I'd be then doing pro

In this episode, Deb Aoki reflects on a childhood immersed in manga and anime and how this experience, combined with her journalism background, amplifies her visual storytelling skills.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 Deb Aoki?Origin StoryDeb's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Deb AokiOutro## Links
Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Deb's WebsiteDeb On BlueSkyDeb on LinkedInDeb on TwitterMangasplaining on TwitterTangible UXExample of Picture books Deb did with Juniper NetworksManga Class for this SemesterMangasplaining PodcastMangasplaining Substack NewsletterOkinawa - Mangasplaining Graphic NovelToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Jetpen Zebra Mild Liner highlighter PensJetpen Frixion Erasable markersPigma Micron PensNeuland MarkersSharpie MarkersMuji Traveler's NotebookThe Sketchnote IdeabookMoleskine NotebookDotted or Blank sheet Notebooks by the StackMaido Stationery[Maido-in-a-box] https://usa.kinokuniya.com/featured-stationery-maido-in-a-boxSekaido Art Supply in TokyoLOFTTokyu HandsTraveler's Factory Shop for Stationery and Travel GoodsTraveler's NotebooksTraveler’s Factory Online ShopTraveler's Factory Shop Locations in JapanTipsThink 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.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army Podcast You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the Podcast To 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 Deb Aoki. Deb, it's so good to have you on the show.Deb Aoki: Oh, thank you, Mike. It's good to see you.MR: You too. Deb and I have been kind of bouncing into each other on the interwebs for a while, and eventually, we met each other in Paris of all places. Good place to meet somebody. At the International Sketch Note camp in Paris in 2019, which I was thinking about that, today. That's pre-pandemic. So that was like—DA: Yes.MR: - the world before. The before times. So really different.DA: That's true.MR: - mindset and everything a little bit. But anyway, so Deb is just a multi-talented person, and we're gonna talk with her about who she is and her journey and sort of get some lessons from her as well and chitchat about all kinds of stuff, I'm sure. So let's start out, Deb, tell us who you are, what you do, and then how did you get here. What's your origin story from when you were a little girl to this moment?DA: Oh, gosh. That's interesting. Well, I think the best place to start is I'm originally from Hawaii. I grew up—I'm a third-generation Japanese-American, so I was surrounded by Japanese culture, but I kind of don't speak Japanese fluently. I can read and speak some.MR: Okay.DA: But, you know, the nice thing about it, about growing up in Hawaii, I was surrounded by things like manga and anime much earlier than a lot of other people. And so, the nice part about that is that as a young girl, I got to read a lot of comics for girls from Japan.MR: Oh.DA: And in all those comics, it would kind of give you this sense of, "Oh, this is the comic artist you love, and here's how to draw like her, or you can be a comic artist too." So I got a lot of great tips from that. And, you know, like, it fueled this dream of becoming an illustrator or comic artist from a young age. And when I've compared notes with other peers at the same time for American comics, comics for girls were going away or almost faded out.So I was really lucky in that, you know, my love of comics came that way and was sustained that way. So I've always loved to draw, but, you know, comics part is the part where you know, sometimes you draw for yourself, but with comics, I found out early on you're telling stories and you share those stories with your friends and they're like, "Oh, I wanna see more. I wanna see more."MR: Mm-hmm. So you keep making more.DA: Yeah. So it's kind of fun. It's a good way for people who normally don't, you know, to talk about themselves be able to kind of put themselves out there.MR: So I wanna break in for a minute and assume maybe there's somebody who's never heard of Manga or anime. Maybe they've heard them, they're not exactly sure. Like, what are they and are they the same thing? Are they different? And give us sort of a baseline to that.And then probably, I guess the last thing is obviously comic culture, manga, anime culture in Japan is very different than any kind of culture in the U.S. In a lot of ways in the U.S., comics are seen for little kids, and they're dismissed. Where I think in Japan, they're revered and it's kind of an art form, right? So talk a little bit about that too.DA: Oh, well, the simplest way to put it is manga is the comics, like, you know, the paper page, you know, panels and word balloons. And anime is the animated version, like the cartoons.MR: Got it. Okay. That's easy to remember.DA: Yeah. And so, you know, a lot of times a lot of the anime is based on the original manga stories, but there's also anime that is original, like the Miyazaki works are all original stories created just for that.MR: I see.DA: So there's no manga that came before it with pretty—yeah. In general. So, but I guess the way to think about it is one of my agent friends in Japan explained that the movie industry, the entertainment industry in Japan is not as big and well-funded as it is in, you know, the U.S. So their best storytelling talent goes into manga.MR: Really.DA: The editors the writers, the artists. And manga artists compared to, say American comic creators like a lot of who work for the big companies. And the big companies here, they work for hire. Meaning if you draw Superman's story, you get paid per page. And that's kind of it.MR: I see.DA: You know, that's someone else's character. You get to play in that playground, but you didn't create that playground and you don't own that playground.MR: Yeah, I know, for sure.DA: Whereas in manga, what they encourage is every creator comes up with their own characters and story and world, and they just run with it. From beginning to end, volume one to volume, hundreds, whatever it is their characters, their story, their vision, and usually they are. So they own it, you know, from beginning to end. One of the other key differences is that manga artists—well, not all of them are super successful. Some of them are, you know, top tax bracket people in Japan.MR: Wow.DA: So the scale of the business is so different. And that manga is for everybody. There's manga for kids, manga for, you know, business people, manga for housewives, manga that explains how to, you know, manage your money or run a business, manga about dealing with parents or Alzheimer's, you know, silly manga, funny, you know, serious stuff, historical manga. I tell people, it's like manga is like movies. It's just a way to tell stories and what kind of stories can be almost anything.MR: Hmm. That's really fascinating. And I love that it's so diverse.DA: And it's fun.MR: You know, it's almost like a whole publishing. It's like we think about paperback books or nonfiction all wrapped up. It's the same thing except as visualized and the creator own it. Yeah, in some sense.DA: Actually, I went to internet too 'cause one of the things that I found is that—I teach classes in drawing for business people. And I've done this in U.S., India, and Japan. And the thing that I found fascinating is the people I taught in Japan were so visually literate from the get-go. I almost didn't have to teach them much at all. The Indian one, anywhere may be second, but the people I teach in North America seem to be maybe the least comfortable.MR: Yeah. Interesting sort of resistance in a way, right? Yeah. Resistance to that visualization, which is, I guess sketchnoting opportunity sort of brings that to them. But it's more of an opportunity in some ways. Huh. Well, I've sort of derailed you with that, but I thought it might be helpful for someone who maybe is not into that to know, like, they've heard those words, but what do they mean? And it's kind of nice to have some context into—DA: Oh, sure.MR: - how you grew up and now you understand that culture, that very visual culture that Deb sort of grew up in. Let's continue with your story. So you're a little girl, you're surrounded by this manga and anime, and then how did that influence you? And like, were there big moments where you had to make choices where you kind of went with the flow and you ended up in a place like, "Hey, look where I ended up?"DA: Yeah. I guess that's kinda weird. 'Cause I started drawing comics—I used to just draw comics for myself and for my friends. Then I moved from Hawaii, then I moved to New York, went to art school for a little bit. And I would write home letters to my mom and I would have little drawings of the things that I would see, like the things that people would say to me like, "Oh, you're from Hawaii." You know.Or things I would run into like, "Oh my God, I can't find, you know, Japanese rice at the supermarket, or why spam is so expensive here." You know,

In this episode, Jimi Holstebro discusses identifying gaps, pursuing education to fill them, and seamlessly integrating acquired skills into his work, all while enjoying the process.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 Jimi HolstebroOrigin StoryJimi's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find JimiOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Jimi's Website for ArtJimi's Website for WorkJimi on InstagramJimi on LinkedInJimi on FacebookToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Thick paperNeuland brush tip markersAcrylics PensNotebookiPadiMacWacom CintiqClips Studio PaintProcreateTipsDon't limit yourself to gadgets.Just do it.Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.It's not about being good at drawing. It's about conveying ideas.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 Jimi Holstebro. Jimi, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you.Jimi Holstebro: Thank you. Thank you for having me.MR: It's an interesting name that you have, and I think you gave me a hint as to your name. Why don't you reveal to the listeners how you ended up with Jimi when you live in Denmark?JH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mostly because my father was a huge Jimi Hendrix fan, so they chose to call their firstborn son, Jimi. Actually, will be calling me Jimi today, but then it's Jimi with, you know, like a soft J and it's pretty darn hard both for Dens and for everybody else to understand the "Yimi," so we go with Jimi.MR: Interesting. Yeah. Cool. Well, and so, tell us a little bit about where you live and what you do.JH: I'm living actually smack in the middle of Denmark, in the part of Denmark that's called Jutland. Which is the mainland. You know, there's a lot of island seals. Funen and then we have Jutland. And in the middle of Jutland, there's this city called Viborg. It's a small city with 40,000 people living there. It's a beautiful old city with the—what's it called? One of those very old churches we have in Europe, which have been, you know, a trade city, an important city where the court is. Also, the old court from that part of Denmark.So beautiful, beautiful city with some lyrics and it has a good football team. It has some handballs, it has stuff. Actually, I ended up here because I moved here with my children's mother back in the day when she started in school as a nurse. They have a nursing school here. Originally, I come from the top of Denmark, the top of Jutland at a city by the sea called Frederikshavn. So, actually, my childhood was in a small fisherman's town called Frederikshavn.MR: Wow.JH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Back there I was like, you know, a little in toward kid—ah, that's not really true, but in toward in the way that when I came home, I sat down and then took out all my pencils and my markers and start drawing, listening to music, and just sat drawing all afternoon and reading comic books. I think maybe you heard that kind of story before about people interested in drawing. They have like, you know, hours and hours of reading comics and then trying to draw it themselves.MR: Yeah, I had that history myself, you know, living our best lives as kids, right?JH: Yeah, exactly. So that's kind of it. You know, normal school we have in Denmark. We also have, you know, like we have just a primary school, and then we go to some sort of high school. And after high school, I went to—actually, I started to read to become a teacher.MR: Mm.JH: Yeah. But when I was doing that, I applied to get into to the art academy. Actually, I got in. It's not something you just do. There's a lot of a lot of people trying to get in, and just few getting in there. Actually, I got in there and got my master's degree in fine arts.MR: Really?JH: Yeah. Back in the start of—middle of 2000-something. Yeah, '05, '06 or something like that.MR: Did you have a specialty in the fine arts? Was there an area that you focused on?JH: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it was mostly drawing and graphics. You know, like old-school graphics. What is it called in English? I don't really know. But when we have paper, you put on rolls.MR: Oh, yeah. Printing. Yeah, lithographs.JH: Printing. Yeah, printing of course. Yeah, yeah. Stuff like that. I did that a lot. So always been very, very interested in the line, in the black and whites, working a lot. Also, you just show me you have one of the books I made for Neuland, which is also, you know, just a line. Very, very simple. I'm a huge fan of that, so just drawing, just black and white. And I love it.MR: Interesting. Interesting.JH: Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of it. Then just started my artistic career from there.MR: Interesting. And so, tell us a little bit about what you do now?JH: Yeah, actually, the last decade I've been independent, let's call it graphic facilitator because that's the word people understand. Actually, I'm not very fond of it anymore, and I'm referring more and more to myself as just being [unintelligible 05:14] but I draw because that's what I do.MR: And I think everybody understands it too, right?JH: Yeah, yeah. They do now because when I think graphic facilitation popped up in Denmark like 12, 15 years ago or something like that, and some people started doing it, and I actually quite fast got a grip of it and heard of it and tried it. And got a lot of jobs all of a sudden because it was also in the time when the social media, especially Facebook started rolling, everybody had an account, and everything that went on there was interesting.So when people saw it, they kind of just called me or wrote me, "Can you come and help us?" But before I got there, I kind of stopped with art school in the middle of the 2000s. I didn't live from doing art, but it's kind of difficult. I think it's the same story in United States because when you're an artist, you are pretty much dependent on people liking your stuff.MR: Right.JH: And even though I have a master's degree, you know, it's not like being an engineer who's coming to tell you, "When we build this bridge, we need these materials." Everything has to be mathematically calculated to fit so the bridge won't fall. And when I come with my theoretical ideas about art and tell people it has to be like this because my reference is compared to other artists, blah, blah, blah. You know, people just say, "But I don't like it. I don't care. I don't like it."MR: Yeah.JH: And the internet wasn't—you know, there were no social media. So when I tried to sell art, you know, I had to drive around showing people my stuff and try to get into galleries or art shows and stuff like that. It was kind of difficult actually. So actually, I went back to teaching. Started teaching again and actually quite, quite fast got into managing. I started at a small school and they asked if I would like to manage the school. So actually, I ended up doing management for 10 years.MR: Wow.JH: Yeah. And in the area of special needs.MR: Oh, okay.JH: Get kids and youth with special needs. And, you know, that was interesting because they didn't learn like, you know—MR: In a traditional way, right?JH: Traditional way. And actually, I used the comics very much and the understanding of that, you know, the way it's sequenced. The sequential build of a strip was much easier for them to understand when they had to read text or understand connections with things.So that kind of opened up something for me in terms of, you know, "Okay, this is interesting in many ways. What if we do it in other terms and also did it with the people I managed." In some ways started to, you know, using all of this. And then graphic facilitation kind of you know, popped up and then it started to make a whole lot more sense to work with stuff in this way.And, meanwhile working as a manager, I think maybe I have a little, I dunno, may maybe I have a little HDHD—ADH—ADHD, something like this because I've always been, you know, very, very busy especially while working always taking some kind of—still keeping on educating myself. Because actually, I have a degree in management, I have a degree in facilitating, and I also have a master's degree in communication.MR: Wow. Wow.JH: I read a lot. You know, I read a lot and kind of built on. It became obvious for me because it's nice to have a master of fine arts, but then you're an artist and people, you know, they kind of expect you to be, you know, like a heavy camper with brushes and paint on your clothing. It is not always serious. So I had to somehow put some aspects to my CV that kind of made me have some weight when I talked about communication.That became obvious for me in the last decade or something. So built on with my education, meanwhile working both with management and then the switch to working with the graphic facilitation so that I kind of, you know, had some weight when I told people about why visual communication was actually working and how it worked and stuff like that. Yeah.MR: Interesting. So you sort of built that in.JH: I'm sorry. Yeah. And I build that in. Yeah, yeah. Sorry.MR: No, yeah. I was just gonna say, i

In this episode, Claire Ohlenschlager, an avid doodler, shares how she developed her sketchnoting practice, found a thriving sketchnoting community, and awakened her passion for teaching.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 Claire?Origin StoryClaire's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find ClaireOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Claire on InstagramClaire on LinkedInClaire on TwitterClaire's Faces WordpressZentangle MethodThe Noun ProjectLettering with FriendsToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Hobonichi A6 Techo PaperTalent PaperUsem Note CardsTWSBI Fountain penSailor Fountain PenPlatinum Pigmented Fountain InkArtline FinelinersCaran d'Adche Coloured PencilPop up Pencil CaseiPadAdobe FrescoProcreateTipsPractice, 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.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 Rohde, and I'm here with Claire Ohlenschlanger. Claire, it's so good to have you on the show.Claire Ohlenschlanger: Thank you for having me. It's a very honor.MR: Well, I've been trying to get you on the show for a while, and just timing and other things haven't worked out, but we finally have you, and I'm excited. You're someone who's been involved in this community for a long time, and it's always good to hear the perspectives of people who have been in the community for a while.And it might be interesting for us to chat a little bit about that in our discussion too, and see, how does the community remain the same and maybe how has the sketching community changed a little bit? Obviously, we have new people coming in all the time, so that changes the community, which I think is great. But before we get into that, let's first start and let us know who you are and what you do.CO: Well, I'm Claire Ohlenschlanger. I live in the Netherlands in the Hague. A very small country. I work at the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, where I work at the Teacher Training College, languages department. I've been a teacher, I think this is my 34th year. Secondary education and now higher education.MR: That's really cool.CO: Yeah. I think it's the best job. It's hard work, but very rewarding.MR: Oh, yeah. That's true.CO: Yeah.MR: I really admire teachers. The more that I teach, the more I admire teachers because I see how hard the work is. I enjoy it. It's really satisfying, but it's really hard work, and when you get a really good teacher and you see it, I appreciate it. I know how hard it is to do it well. So, thank you for doing all this great teaching for many years for many different people. I'm sure that people appreciate you for that.CO: I think it's a very—it keeps me young. I was just saying that to my colleague because you work with young people, it kind of keeps me young, I feel, but it's very nice to see people grow and to help them progress and help them when they're kind of stuck. In the pandemic and the years after, a lot of kids have been stuck.MR: Yeah.CO: And so. It's extra challenging, but it's very rewarding at the moment. Very frustrating sometimes as well.MR: I suspect. Yeah.CO: Yeah.MR: So, I'm really curious how—so we know that you're here, you've been teaching for a long time. You've moved all the way through secondary to higher education, but how did you begin? As a little girl, you know, on your own—you do sketchnoting and visualization, right? Probably in your work, but also personally. How did you get here? Starting as a little girl, were you drawing all the time? what's the story and how did you end up where you are?CO: Well, I wasn't really drawing. I was always writing. So I was always making sure that I wrote in nice letters. And of course, I'm from pre-computer, so we had to do all the writing. And I also, as long as I can remember, I would always want to write with fountain pens and not with ballpoints or felt tip pens or maybe sometimes pencils. What I would also always like doing is add color to what I was doing so that what I wrote also looked nice. But not like we sketch these days, but I did spend a lot of time making things nice to read again.I would also do a lot is doodle. I'm not a very good drawer but am an avid doodler. So Lots of my notebooks, I still have a lot of them, have all these little doodles all around what I wrote. Actually, when I started, I couldn't stand messy pages because I would always spend a lot of time on making it—that's what people always say, "How can you write things down straight away, so neatly." But I think that's from when I was very young. I've always been like that. I've never been a drawer. I've developed into a sketcher.MR: Interesting.CO: Very simple.MR: Definitely an interesting perspective. Tell us a little bit more about that.CO: How I came to sketching is I think somewhere around 2010 or so. You know, every so often you have a seven-year itch. And I think I was having a seven-year itch, and then I decided to go back to Uni to start studying again. So I went to do an educational master's. And as it happened, on one of the first evenings after class I was walking home and I passed our bookstore, and our bookstore had a workshop on mind mapping that was just about to start. So I figured I'd sit down.And it was a very practical workshop. So we got a large piece of paper and some pens, or actually I probably had a pen. I always have pens in my bag, so I think I probably had the pens. And then he was telling us about how to mind map, and at the same time I was mind mapping. And that was actually my first-time taking notes of what I was hearing.And that worked so well for me that everything I did in my master's, I started off mind mapping. I mind map everything I heard on my lectures, but also the books and the articles I read. And gradually I found myself needing pictures and visuals. And then of course, I started because I was intrigued by the fact that it was helping me so much to, you know, remember and to retain the information.And while I was getting feedback, people telling me, "Oh, it looks so nice, and can I make a copy of it?" Et cetera. And so gradually, I found myself needing pictures. So I started looking into it, and that's how I came across your book. And then I thought that was really interesting. So then I looked into that, and then gradually I turned my mind maps into sketchnotes.So actually, quite often when I sketchnote, it has the order of a mind map that works from the top to the bottom back up again. And I noticed that the mind maps, how I started this is, I can still find it in my notes. I use a lot of colors and a lot of arrows and what you would do in mind maps. I think it's probably originates from that.When I did Uni, that was also when I was introduced to social media because I'd never even heard of social media. So I had to make a Twitter account to have a personal learning network and, you know, broaden that. So when I found your book, I started looking for you. And then of course I came across hashtags. And that way I got sucked into the community.Today's Doodle, I think Sketchnotes in Real life or Today's Doodle in Real Life, that's how I met Rob, Rob Dimeo, who started off and showed me you could make sketches in actual pictures. In the meantime, I bought an iPad. So I was kind of playing around with that. And that's where I met a lot of the Sketchnote community.And I was also intrigued by that because around that time, a lot of people my age were saying, "Oh, what are you doing on social media? Social media is scary. Lots of ugly things happen on social media." And I was just getting inspiration after inspiration. So that intrigued me as well. And then I started traveling. I like traveling.Then I started thinking, well, I'll just ask who in this community lives in whichever city I was going to. And then I found out that you could also meet up with sketchnoters that you met on internet in real life. And they were actually very nice. And that's right.Where I sometimes try to tell my friends that if you chat with each other and you have a common ground, like sketchnotes in our case, then eventually you also get to know people, you get to see their sense of humor, you see sense of humor in how people draw. Talking about something that you have in common also is binding. So meeting someone in real life then is as if you've known that person for a while.MR: Yeah.CO: That's what I really love about our community. It actually feels like I have friends all over the world. I've met some. You know, I've met you, I've met people at the International Sketchnote camps. I've met people outside of the camps, but in the cities, they live in, or shown people around the Hague here in the Netherlands. And you always have something to talk about. If you don't feel like t

Pierpaolo Barresi shares how he’s always dreamed of creating something significant. He founded Yobi Scribes, an Italian company that uses creativity, art, games, and communal enjoyment to help achieve business objectives.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 Pierpaolo Barresi?Pierpaolo's Origin StoryPierpaolo's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find PierpaoloOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Yobi Scribes WebsitePierpaolo on LinkedInPierpaolo on InstagramToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Uni-posca MarkersGROG MarkersiPadWacom TabletAdobe IllustratorTipsHave fun.Do what you know.Give thanks.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 Pierpaolo Barresi. Pierpaolo, how are you doing today? It's so good to have you.Pierpaolo Barresi: Yeah, nice to meet you, all the people. Nice to meet you again, Mike. Super nice, sunny day in Bologna. So I smile more than rainy days.MR: I can relate to that. Living in Milwaukee, we're in the middle of a snowstorm now. So hopefully, I'll be happy after I'm done shoveling today. We'll see. Anyway, well, so Pierpaolo is one of the principal creators of Yobi Scribes. We've continually bumped into each other all over the internet and through friends like Mauro Toselli, and it just seemed like it was time to have Pierpaolo on the show and learn his story and hear what he does and all those things. So, Pierpaolo, let's start with who you are and what you do.PB: Yeah. I am a South Italy guy. I started from the bottom, from the very bottom of Italy. I'm a young boy now. I am more or less 40 years old, and I'm the creative director of Yobi Scribes. Yobi Scribes is a creative crew of artists, designers, scribers, sketchers, knowledge workers, a lot of competence and super nice people is in Yobi. And we are in Italy active, from more or less 10 years.I started as a self-employed, just me. But my idea from when I was a young boy is to create something bigger, is to share with the others. If you ask me, which is your art? My art, my talent is to connect people and to create things together. So this is my short story.MR: Great. And so, it sounds like you have quite a variety of skills that you offer to companies and individuals, one of which is scribing, right? Like graphic recording, graphic facilitation, sketchnoting, but it sounds like even more than that. Tell me a little bit more about what Yobi Scribes does, and then also where does this name Yobi come from? What does it mean?PB: There is an interesting story behind the name Yobi. As Yobi Scribes team, we do mainly scribes and graphic recording, is our core business. The machine is moved by the scribes. We also do graphic design, illustration for internal companies. So we work mainly with the internal part of the companies. We also do videos. We do also some facilitation and creative skill boosters. We love to call this in this way.We try to connect objective with creativity, reaching objective through creativity, through art, through games, through having fun together. So scribing is the last part in some way because everything comes and join into the scribes, but we try to support and help the company in a bigger way.MR: That's really cool. So the name Yobi, what's the significance of that name?PB: Yobi comes from stupid research on Google Maps. We were looking for a short name that was memorable, that was connected with our background. Two of the founders have a huge important hip-hop and graffiti background. So we come from this kind of mood and field. And Yobi, "Yo" is one of the--is like Ciao in Italian. "Yo" is for the black people and also the Italian people in the U.S. say "Yo."We find that this national park in Papua New Guinea close to New Zealand, just moving the mouse around Google Maps like that looking for a name. And when we see this name, we say, "Whoa, this is the name." We found that the next step is to have a company journey altogether in Yobi, it's not so close to Italy, but one day it is in our objective.MR: So it is an actual place then in Papua New Guinea sounds like?PB: Yes. Yes.MR: Interesting.PB: I think it's a gross place. It is not the beautiful place over there. If you look on Google Maps, it is not the best place of the region of the nation.MR: Sure.PB: Sometimes people tag Yobi on Instagram from the place, and we see the stories. It is the end of arrival. Just not so beautiful. But for us, it's wonderful.MR: Interesting, interesting. So, I have a funny little story about Google Maps, if you'd like to hear it.PB: Yes. I want to hear it.MR: So my son, now he's 21, but when he was a little boy when he was, I dunno, eight or nine years old, we had set up a computer for him to play games on Thomas The Train games and such. One of the games he wanted to always play was Google Maps. At the time, they had an application that you could search around the world. It started with a globe, and you would zoom in. He sat behind me in my office at the time I sat on the other side.He was home from school one day, and I hear him going, "Woo, woo woo." And I'm like, "What are you doing, Nathan?" I turned around and he said, "I'm playing Google Maps." And you just see this globe floating in space. He thought that was the funniest thing, was to make this the earth shake, like, you know, like crazy. So that was pretty funny.PB: We played the same game.MR: Really? Yeah, exactly. That's how you ended up with the name. That's great.PB: Yes. So the names come from this creative research.MR: Yeah, exactly. That's great. That totally fits with your whole way of being, right? So that makes total sense. So with Yobi Scribes, tell me how you got to that place. Now, you're doing this thing. How did you end up there? Where did you grow up? Did you grow up in Bologna or have you travelled? Were there things that happened that sort of directed you bit by bit toward the life that you have now? I would love to hear that story.PB: Super. I born, as I told you, in South Italy in a small town close to the sea--in front of the sea. I studied at Classic Lyceum for my high school. Then I moved to Naples. It's a longer travel story. Then I moved to Naples to study law. I studied two years law. Then I recognized that not mine, and I changed and move from Naples to Bologna.MR: Okay.PB: In Bologna, I start to study anthropology. And after my degree in anthropology, I was a little bit, "Oh, what I have to do now? I want to do graphics. I want to do something with my hands. I want to create using my mind and my hands together. Not only my mind or not only my hands." And I decided to start a career as a graphic designer. Starting also in this case, from the bottom, making flyers for my friends.My friend was a musician, was an artist. I am not able to play nothing. So I start to make graphics for them using my background as a graffiti writer, as a drawer, not illustrator. I don't want to say illustrator. After that, I study in this school, and from this school I win master degree in a school in Milan, the science school in Milan. And I move from Bologna to Milan.In Milan in this master's, a person that already knows graphic facilitation, scribes, my mentor comes to run a workshop, and I immediately fall in love with him and with the methodology. Also, because the only things that helped me in my studies, in my career as a student was to sketching things. I already studied working and thinking with the sketching.My graffiti background also helps me to understand immediately the power of graphic recording and graphic facilitation. Because when you make graffiti and especially illegally, you have the same splitting of your brain like when you do scribing. With a left part, you draw and see the space and the flow. With the right parts, you pay attention. In one case, don't be captured. In the other case, listen to the other, but it's the same splitting.MR: Wow. Well, it sounds like you almost gathered all these parts, right? And also, interesting that you went all the way from the toe of Italy all the way up to the very top of the boot, right? So from the bottom to the top in a sense.PB: Yes.MR: And then, you know learning about law for two years and all these other experiences, anthropology, which it's interesting there's some ties between anthropology and user experience design as well, because you're, you know, observing people and how they act in a natural environment to learn how to improve, you know, the design of the thing that they're going to use, right? So all I would imagine all these things maybe are helpful for you and the work that you do. Would that be true?PB: Absolutely, yes. When I was in my career as a student, I can recognize this can help me, or I was young to recognize. But now, I really use and I'm great to myself to make anthropology, but also law, also Classical Lyceum are things that have opened my mind, especially in the relation with the clients, especially in the understanding the clients is super important for our career,

In this episode, Alina Gutierrez reflects on her childhood passion for art, her work as a banker, and how her banking experience led to her career in graphic facilitation. 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 Alina GutierrezOrigin StoryAlina's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find AlinaOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Alina's WebsiteAlina on InstragramAlina on FacebookOnline Course - Let me Draw What I MeanUnflattening By Nick SousanisToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Crayola MarkersSharpie MarkersNeuland MarkersUni Posca Paint MarkersDeSerres Marker PensNeuland GraphicWallyDeSerres Thick Plain PaperTipsPush 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.Just do the first line, even if it means signing your piece before you get started.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 everybody, it's Mike, and I'm here with Alina Gutierrez from Visual Versa. Alina, it's so good to have you. Thanks for being on the show.Alina Gutierrez: Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.MR: Yeah, me too. You were a recommendation from my friend Alejo Porras, who has been on the show in the past, and he's coming back again this season because so much has changed in his world, but he highly recommended you, and I'm always looking for new, interesting people, and you fit that perfectly. So why don't you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?AG: Perfect. Thank you. That's such a simple question, yet complex answer.MR: Sure.AG: So who am I? I am a mom, wife, friend, lots of roles. I like starting with that because I think beyond whatever we do, we're all humans and have a personal life outside what we do. I have two little boys, seven and eight. I'm originally from Columbia, but I've been in Canada, oof. I lost count, I think since 2007, around those dates.I am the founder of Visual Versa. I've been working for a little bit over 10 years, bringing color and visual notes to organizations. Well, there's a little bit of everything because I have a background all over the place. I think through Visual Versa, I found a way to merge all those passion and all that experience that I've had gained. I don't know if I answer.MR: It sounds like you're kind of a generalist, I would say. You have lots of skills and you find ways to weave them together. Maybe that's a way to say it, I guess.AG: I love that. Yes.MR: Yeah, there you go. You can steal that if you want to.AG: I like it. Thank you. I'll be stealing it. Yeah.MR: Well, you hinted at it, but I'm really curious, I'm always curious for every guest, but especially in this case with you, how you ended up in this place. It sounds like you had lots of interests and lots of things happening, and yet you found this way to weave them together or find a place to weave them together. I suspect there were things you did in the past where you couldn't do the other things.Like you had to focus on one thing and maybe you're frustrated, or. Tell us that story, go all the way back to even when you were a little girl. Were there things that you did as a little girl that you see now the thread tying you to the present?AG: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was actually having a conversation with my parents not too long ago, and they were like, "We're not surprised you're doing what you're doing right now." I used to paint everywhere. I was the one who did a mural in my room and painted my jackets and painted on my backpack, whatever. You name it, I have painted on it. I was blessed enough to have a family that allowed me to do that. But I also had, I would say, this duality between that rational side of me and the artistic side, I think a lot of it came from my background.You know, back home, the opportunities or the amounts of jobs available were not as many back then. Right now, I think there's a lot of stuff going on, and there's actually a lot of people doing sketch notes back home and really good people. But I felt that I had to go for a more secure career. When it came to the time where I had to design what, I wanted to do, I went into a program called design Engineering. It had that design aspect of it, the creativity, but it had the engineering title that kind of had that recognition. So social recognition.Back in high school, I was the one who painted doors for every single party or whatever we were celebrating. I was part of a musical actually in my hometown. I used to sing and act. Then I got to university, and despite the design part of the program, there was a lot of calculus and physics and all that kind of stuff.I've been kind of a perfectionist my whole life so I wanted to excel, but I had to put a lot effort into it. I realized by now, but then looking back, it's like sometimes when you have to push that more effort, things do not come natural to you maybe that's not your place. It doesn't mean that you cannot do it. If you put yourself to it, you can. But, you know, all the creative part of it used to come so natural to me.Then there was this opportunity to do exchange program in Quebec. So I applied to university and the way it worked, it was a agreement between governments, so I could come here and do a semester or a year of my program and some students would go there. I had to pay for my expenses, but I didn't have to pay for the university.I applied to Concordia University. I got accepted. Then when I got my acceptance letter, they said, "The only thing is we don't have the same program here, so you have to either go into fine arts or the engineering department." I was like, "Ta-da." I was so excited. Scared but excited. So I said, "I wanna go into fine arts." And you know, that self-doubt of like, "Oh, maybe I don't have what it takes because these people that are doing all plain arts and I haven't done that much."But I submitted my portfolio, got accepted and came to Montreal. After I got here, I kept extending my stay, extending, extending. I was like, "Oh, I like it. I'm gonna finish my program and then go back home." Then I graduated. In Canada, when you graduate as an international student, they give you a work permit. And I was like, "No, I need to get work experience here and then go back home with that in my CV." Long story short, I ended up staying. I met someone and it's been way too long and I'm still here. I'm getting to your question.MR: Oh, this is all part of the question. You're doing excellent. Keep going.AG: Okay. I then graduated and I had to find a job because part of the rule is they give you a work permit, then you have to find a job within a timeline. I found a job. It was hard for me to find a job because you had to speak English and French for most job openings, and I didn't speak French back then. I found something, I was not too happy then found a job at a bank, you figure.They hire me. They were like, "We don't care, you don't have that background. We'll train you in the background, but you like dealing with people, you're good at customer service, you're good." I worked at a bank for three years and it got to the day where my boss was like, "Okay, we need to do something about your background so you can keep advancing at the bank. I need you to go back to school and do a program in business or HR, whatever it is but it's a little bit more aligned with the bank than fine arts." And I was like, "Sure. Fair enough."I went back to school and I couldn't keep up with classes, I couldn't keep up with my notes. I started doing a program in organizational psychology or change management type of thing. It was really text heavy, the things were complicated. And then I started getting sketchbooks instead of the traditional lined book and I would do mind maps. I would get stuck like, "I dunno how to write that word." Then every time that I didn't know how to write that word, I would doodle it and keep going.MR: Ah, okay.AG: Then during my second year one prof came to me and she was like, "Alina, do you do graphic facilitation?" And I was like, "Wait, I do, what is that?"MR: What's that?AG: "What is that?" She said, "Graphic facilitation." And I'm like, "Well, it has the word graphic in it, so it sounds cool, but I have no idea what that is." She was like, "Okay, you should look into it." I was like, "Sure." And I remember that night, like it was yesterday, I came home and I googled "graphic facilitation." Then I started looking at people doing these big drawings in front of people, And I was like, "People get paid to do that? That is such a cool job. that's what I wanna do."Then I

Alejo Porras, driven by a passionate pursuit of challenges, shares how embodying a can-do attitude has significantly propelled personal growth and career advancement. Beyond business success, Alejo is motivated by a desire to be a good father and husband and positively impact others.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 OrderIntroWelcomeAlejo's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsWhere to find AlejoOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Alejo's WebsiteAlejo on InstagramAlejo on LinkedInAlejo's newsletter FRESH IDEASHire Alejo for Graphic RecordingSketchnote Army Podcast Season 10 Episode 1Eddie Shleyner WebsiteSteve Magness BookTipsShow 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.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, Alejo Porras. Alejo, it's time to come back on the show. It's been, man, since 2021. You were in season 10, and so much has changed in your life. I thought it'd be cool to have you back on and talk about what's going on.Alejo Porras: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me again, Mike. Honestly, you know, since 2021, I cannot believe it, I thought it was like last year.MR: I know. Doesn't it seem like just recently?AP: Yeah, it feels like not much has happened, but at the same time, so much has happened. And yeah, I appreciate the invitation again, and I'm looking forward to this conversation.MR: Yeah. If you're listening here, I think the thing to listen for is I guess the growth and evolution of Alejo and where he was. We'll put a link in the show notes. His episode was season 10, episode 1, September 6th, 2021. We'll put a link to that so you can go listen to that if you're curious to see where he was and compare it to what he's doing now.But you've been doing a lot of really interesting work. You challenged yourself to do lots of work intentionally. So you've been doing a lot of work. Someone that I follow and I really admire, Chris Doe is someone who you have been doing sketch noting about, and then it looks like you're working with him to some degree. So I'm just gonna step back, and why don't you take us from September 6th, 2021 till today and tell us what's going on?AP: Oh my gosh. So, a lot. Well, when we talked last time, I was diving deep into artist coaching, and I had this dream, this desire of turning something that I had been doing for so long, which is coaching people, leading people, helping people do their best and excel in their careers. I was trying to figure out if there was something that I could do on the side because I had a full-time job at that point. And yeah, I just wanted to try that out. I had some coaching experiences, I took some coaches, and then I realized that my expertise didn't lay there, and it was hard for me to position myself as a coach when I was so widely known as an artist.At some point, I was like, "I'm not giving it my all. I don't think this is moving forward. I'm helping people, but I don't feel like I even have the capacity because of my full-time job and my family to take on extra after work to get coaching with people." So I stopped that for a little bit. Then 2022 was a time in which I was struggling to find a balance and to find harmony with my rhythms of life. Partly because I was working a job that I absolutely loved. It was the best full-time job I have ever had and I was enjoying it.,The problem was that I had to work a full-time job, and then I had to commute on certain days. It was an hour commute going to the office, an hour coming back, and then I came back home absolutely drained. I gave it all, and I was so exhausted. My son, who at the time was three and a half, four, maybe. Yeah, four. He wanted to play with me. I remember sometimes he was like, "Papa, play with me. Play with me." And I was there on the couch like, yeah, I want to. My eyes were starting to close and I felt like I was gonna start falling asleep. And I was like, "No, this cannot happen. I want to be a good dad. I want to be a present dad."I still have my moments in which I'm probably working too much, but now that I'm freelancing or in my own business, it fluctuates. There's some days that I can just spend with him. But at that point, it was like every day I felt this tension of I'm not being a completely present dad, and that's not what I want. That's not what I wanted for my life. Part of that is my background with my relationship with my dad, because my parents divorced and then my dad was not physically present in my own home. And also, we didn't hang out that much. And I missed him for most of my teenage years and younger years.I learned from him, even though he did the best that he could, you know, that we didn't have a close relationship. I remember when I was 16 or 15 that I committed myself and I thought, "I wanna be a great dad when I am a dad." So since that moment, I started kind of preparing myself and trying to do my best to become a good dad.In '22, I was struggling with that tension. And in December of 2022, I had a meeting with my then bosses and they actually offered me a raise and a promotion. I felt something so odd 'cause the first impression was like, "Wow, I'm really thankful for that. You guys are trusting me and have obviously thought about this next stage very, very carefully." It was a substantial raise too. It was very generous, but I didn't feel happy about it. It was odd and it was partly this brewing sensation that I needed to make a change in my career. But I couldn't figure out how to take the step.The thing that happened was that, that was on a Friday, and the Monday after that, my dad had a stroke, and on Wednesday he died. So through all the chaos, I was like, "I'm gonna think about it, guys. Thank you so much." I never say yes immediately. I have room to negotiate and all that stuff. And at that point, I hadn't said yes or no to what my then bosses have told me. They were very supportive and all that. I went to attend business to Costa Rica and do all the things that needed to do as only child that I am.It was a wakeup call to me. It was like going back and reflecting on my relationship with my dad made me think really hard about the path that I was leading and how I want to be remembered as a dad by my son. So I then and there thought like, "I love this job, but I cannot continue in this capacity. I want to keep working with them, but I need to be at home more often. I need to have time for my family."By January, I told them, you know, all of that. I told them, "Hey guys," 'cause I was creative lead, you know, at this company. And I was like, "I'm not gonna just go. Let's make a plan here 'cause I know you need to find somebody to fill the space and to fill the role. I wanna support you guys and you've been very good to me." So we devise a plan and it took me three, four months to transition to part-time. Now, they're my client. They're like my biggest client. I work with them for projects, but I don't have to go to the office except if I'm doing a workshop 'cause I work workshops with them.It's been great since then. It's kinda like the silver lining how something so sad, you know, and choking serves in a way to wake me up and realize that the path that I need to take is different. I feel like from that point on, my life has been taken off. So, you know, it's been great since, you know, since April-May last year when I started just working from home in my own business with my wife. The opportunities that have arrived since then is something that I didn't even imagine. I couldn't have planned. The last day that I had as I was working full-time, the day after that I went to a conference to Creative South. I think you've been there.MR: Yeah, I've heard of that before. I've never been, but I've heard it. It looks really great.AP: Yeah. I think it was a perfect kind of segue into my new life, I will say. 'Cause I got with other creatives and I got pumped about things that I do. Got a lot of feedback of things that I'm—because I did sketch notes there and people loved them and all this stuff. So I was like, "Okay, I have content here. I can start promoting that I do this thing, you know, as myself and then try to figure out how to structure my business in a way that fits the lifestyle that I want to achieve."So I hired a coach right away, and I started working with her. Well, one of the first things that she told me was, you know, "A lot of people that I work—" She was with corporate CEOs and all that stuff. She said, "A lot of people have trouble in their business trying to promote it because the benefit of what they do, it's kind of abstract, but the benefit of what you do is immediately visible. When you show your sketch note, people can immediately see the value of it. So you have an advantage here. All you need to do to get clients is to show your work, you know, and show it consistently."And she told me, "Maybe one thing that you can do is just to join people that you admire in we