You can draw! - Playthink Live Sketching

Visual Storytelling and Live Sketching Workshops

Sometimes words are not enough to fully engage in the important conversations of our lives. Learn simple techniques to tell your story and to co-create meaning with others. Together we will practice using hand-drawn visual icons and metaphors to create simple visual notes and wall-sized charts to map and discover meaning with others.

workshop playthink

During this hands-on workshop you will practice

Drawing simple pictures to communicate big ideas
Building a personal toolkit of visual metaphors and icons
Connecting ideas and show relationships
Creating a personal visual vocabulary
Discovering that you already have the skills to draw

Can’t draw at all? Already an expert? No problem. All levels welcome.

Resources for Visual Storytelling, Sketchnoting and Graphic Facilitation

On the Web

Sketchnote Army sketchnotearmy.com “Sketchnote Army is dedicated to finding and showcasing sketchnotes and sketchnoters from around the world, from events, conferences, workshops or wherever sketchnotes are captured or created. The brainchild of Mike Rohde, Sketchnote Army has existed since November 2009.”

Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Rich picture overview of methods including templates for engaging conversations and opening dialogue at Visual-Literacy.org.

Gamestorming gamestorming.com/ Highly visual, highly engaging activities for teams dealing with complexity. Includes many templates for sticky note and whiteboard engagement.

The Noun Project thenounproject.com. Ultimate source for simple images. Don’t know how to draw something? Try your hand at sketching images from the Noun Project. “The Noun Project is a platform empowering the community to build a global visual language that everyone can understand.”- Great for practice and building a visual vocabulary.

Heather Martinez Lettering Tips for the Visual Practitioner (letslettertogether.com)

The Grove David Sibbett is arguably the granddaddy of graphic meeting facilitation. His pioneering work and vast network of facilitators and scribes can be found at thegrove.com

Inspiration for beginning with sketchnotes

By no means is this a complete or definitive list of sketchnoters and visual thinkers I’ve found inspiring, but you can get a sense of the range of what’s possible by checking out these inspiring examples.

Griot’s Eye

Adrien Liard Graphic Recorder

Eva Lotta Lam

Dr. Makayla Miranda Lewis

Sketching Practice

Wendy MacNaughton (Draw Together) and Meanwhile in New York

Danny Gregory Sketchbook School

Books by LYNDA BARRY

Visual Thinking Communities of Practice

The Visual Thinkers Society Collectively sketching & visualizing complex information to make sense of the world around us. DM for more 💌
Moderators @playthinklive (That’s me!) and my partner @manishalaroia

Facebook Group: Graphic Facilitation “Graphic facilitation, graphic recording, visual practitioners, scribing – all that. Anyone in this line of work is familiar with the range of terms to name what we do – in essence, help people SEE what they describe and imagine.”

Sketchnote London, a project of the very talented Dr. Makayla Miranda Lewis

Nova Scribes meet up group “NOVA Scribes is a free and open forum for visual practitioners to share their knowledge.”

International Forum of Visual Practitioners “Over the years, our organization has grown into an international forum with hundreds of members. Our annual conferences are held in various locations, in and out of the United States, offering educational, marketing, and networking opportunities for our members. Become a member [internal link to membership] and be a part of our exciting organization, as we work together to advance the field of visual practice.”

Visual Tools for Systems and Systemic Design

Elanica EyeCues elanica.com/eyecues Complexity never looked so good. Peter Stoyko’s cutting edge graphics set a high bar for visual storytelling. “EyeCues is a showcase of the possibilities of visual communication and analysis. Second, EyeCues explores a variety of cutting-edge topics related to technology, governance, leadership, and public policy.”

Systemic Design Toolkit systemicdesigntoolkit.org Freely accessible tools for visualization and of complex systems. Where systems thinking, design thinking, and visual thinking meet.

Visual Representation of Complexity, Joanna Boehnert. “The poster provides a definition, examples, and a simple diagram to visualise a range of complexity concepts.”

Systems Viz Codex “Research project by Peter Stoyko exploring how visuals can enhance systems thinking, especially as it relates to inter-disciplinary, collaborative design.”

Books

Blah Blah Blah – Dan Roam. New York. Penguin. –Solving Problems with stick figures.

The Sketchnote Handbook, The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking- Mike Rohde, Peachpit Press.

Picture This, Lynda Barry, Montreal, Drawn and Quarterly. Everything master cartoonist Lynda Barry touches is visual gold. Also check out Syllabus and Making Comics, both visual guides from her life-changing workshops.

Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers Get your meetings moving, and visual with this book by Dave Grey and Sunni Brown.

Pencil Me In, The Business Drawing Book for People Who Can’t Draw – Christina Wodtke.

How to Mind Map: The Thinking Tool that Will Change Your Life – T. Buzan, UK: HarperCollins

Learning by heart, Teachings to free the creative spirit. Corita Kent and Jan Steward. Artist and educator “We can all talk, we can all write, and if the blocks are removed, we can all draw and paint and make things.”

Make a World, Ed Emberly’s Drawing Book – Ed Emberly- NY Little,Brown and Company. Draw like a kid again.

The Mind Map Book: How to Use Radiant Thinking to Maximize Your Brain’s Untapped Potential – T. Buzan & B. Buzan, Plume

The Graphic Facilitator’s Guide. B. Agerbeck, Chicago: Loosetooth.com

Cartooning, Philosophy and Practice Ivan Brunetti

Drawn Together through Visual Practice Anthology reflecting on best practices in visual practice

Generative Scribing: A Social Art of the 21st Century Kelvy Bird

Visual Meetings. David Sibbet. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hefty and dense, great resource filled with templates and guidance for facilitating teams.