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 Concepts

The 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:

rohdesign.com/concepts

Be sure to download the Concepts app at concepts.app and follow along with me during the workshop!

Running Order

• Intro
• Welcome
• Who is Emily Mills
• Origin Story
• Emily's current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Emily
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Emily’s Website
• Emily on Instagram
• Emily Mills LinkedIn
• Sketch Academy
• Sketch Academy Instagram
• Sketch Academy YouTube
• The Art of Visual Taking
• Emily Mills; Sketchnote Army Podcast S06 Ep 02
• Emily's Travel Sketchnotes
• Art Tool kit
• Maria Coryell-Martin; Sketchnote Army Podcast S13 / EP04

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Travelogue Drawing book
• Moleskine sketchnote book
• U Brand Felt pens
• Tombow Mono twin pens
• Tombow dual brush pens
• Zebra Midliner brush pens
• Neuland fine tip pens
• iPad
• Adobe Fresco

Tips

1. Keep on experimenting.
2. Try something outside your practice but still creative.
3. Be careful when sketchnoting becomes work then find something else to supplement that joy factor.

Credits

• Producer: Alec Pulianas
• Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro
• Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer

Subscribe to the Sketchnote Army Podcast

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Support the Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 al