Sketchnote Podcast

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 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:
https://rohdesign.com/concepts

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

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If you enjoy this episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, you can buy me a coffee at https://sketchnotearmy.com/buymeacoffee

Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Justin on LinkedIn
• Jungian work
• Justin's Upcoming book:The Visual Jung
• Justin's Art Work
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G.Jung
• Knowledge In a Nutshell by Gary Bobroff
• Ego and Achertype by Edward F. Edinder
• Inner Work by Robert A. Johnson
• Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• 0.5 Steadler fine liner marker pen
• Fabriano pad
• Neuland markers
• Copic markers

Tips

1. Draw where you aren't conventionally permitted to do so. Push your boundaries of drawing.
2. Have the easiest materials possible that you will use.
3. 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.

Credits

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

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 memberships to participate in them. So I went back to school, became a designer. Went to Cornish.

I didn't actually wanna become a designer. I wanted to go back and study sculpture and video, but the head of the art department was sick the day I went in to do interviews. The design chair was there, and she said, "You can take sculpture and video as electives. I'll give you a scholarship if you join design." I was broke. And I thought, "Well, okay, let's do it." So did that for two years, got out. All my classmates were in—this is a while ago. There was no Amazon in Seattle, I mean, at all.

MR: Yeah. Microsoft back then up in Redmond, right?

JH: Yeah. That was about it. The big design companies people were interested in, if you're a designer, were Starbucks and REI. Those were the two places young designers wanted to work. I wanted to have nothing to do with that. I still was, you know, pretty central in my punk rock ethos.

MR: I was gonna say punk rock would be resisting all that stuff, right?

JH: Oh my God. Yeah. I'll drink a Starbucks now, but back then you'd have to pin me down and pour it in my mouth. I'm not kidding. So, started my own small design studio and worked with small businesses and I loved it. So coffee shops, bakeries, massage parlors, therapists, artists, websites, boutiques. It was great. That was really what got me interested in user research too. So having those conversations with business owners and really hearing about their needs, and like having to unwire my brain.

In design school at the time, we didn't even talk about UX. That wasn't a thing. We were trained as—I know you love comic books, like, what was gonna be our superpower and how were we gonna be the authority that came and solved in a heroic way, you know, whatever it was we were trying to solve. I really had to unwire that from my brain. I was doing small business stuff for a few years, then I took a UX certificate course.

Well, then the market crashed, right, in 2008. I had a small business. It was doing pretty well. The market crashed. I lost all my clients. I had a lot of real estate development clients in Seattle, like Paul Allen, some of his projects and stuff. I tried to return the deposits to the people, and they wouldn't even return my calls. I don't know if the, you know—

MR: Just, puff, disappeared, huh?

JH: Yeah, were just gone. So I had to go downtown to take a job, which I really did not want to do, but I had to. I'd borrowed some money from my sister to buy a motorcycle, and she was about to have a baby. I was like, "I gotta take care of this." I went down and worked for a consultancy called Slalom, which was a small at the time. Now it's pretty big.

Then they had a educational program where they'd pay you to take some classes. So I took some at UDub, got into UX certificate program. Really liked it, really liked the people, the instructors. That program used to be called Technical Communication, so it had more of a scholarly HCI orientation. Understanding how more humans' interactions.

MR: Academic. Yeah.

JH: Yeah. And I really appreciated that. So anyway, got a master's in that. Then I started switching companies, worked in gaming—went from consulting to gaming, and then from gaming I joined a small Indian company, and that was a crazy ride. That started getting, acquired, like 1500 people, 8,500 people, 16,000 people, 33,000 people.

MR: Wow.

JH: Yeah. And finally, Samsung bought it, and I was along for that ride. And I was the UX director, then. I was a creative director, then. I was a global creative director. And I was going to India and managing a team there, flying there and stuff. But I was not happy. So if you have a line for career trajectory going like that, and you have another line for like, my spirit and my creative soul just like that.

MR: Yeah, was going way.

JH: - Yeah. That led to crisis. You know, not like a explosion or an implosion, but a lot of nightmares at night. Kind of archetypal nightmares about not expressing the self and feeling lost. Anyway, luckily couldn't stick with that. I went to Spain on vacation, and while I was there on the Island of Menorca in a cave, actually, which sounds crazy, I realized I had to just quit that job. I came back, and my boss wouldn't let me quit the job. He kept canceling all our meetings.

MR: Wow.

JH: I wanted to quit, and he kept canceling. I wanted to do it nicely, you know? And he kept canceling all these meetings for three weeks. And finally, I was just like, "Dude, you gotta meet with me." In my head, I'm like, "I'm not gonna be here Monday unless you do this." That led to me going to the University of Washington and becoming a full-time professor there teaching human computer interaction and design.

And while I was there working with graduate students, I really tried to form a bridge between design and the computational realm and the fine arts. That was kind of my personal mandate. They weren't super excited about that. I think the art department was, they were like, "Oh my God, a designer's actually coming over here and talking to us. We love to talk to you guys, but you never do." But for some reason, design was pretty insular and kind of at the time, trapped in a typography spiritual realm or something where they thought it was like the end all be all for all forms of visual expression, right?

MR: Mm-hmm.

JH: But I loved that. I was there for two years, and then I was in an experimental program, so it was funded by departments, and then we free-floated in the middle. They re-orged that, and the director left and I left. Then I went and started training as a Jungian analyst. So that was the big pivot point for me. It was like, all right—

MR: Yes. Yes, that's what I wanted to get to. Yeah, for sure. Make sure we covered.

JH: Yeah. So doing the self-inventory, it was like, what lights you up? What are you most excited about? It was like, I like helping people, working with people, having a chance to hear their personal stories and using creative means to help people self-actualize or, you know get to other levels of their consciousness or other spaces in their consciousness. So that kind of brings us to today. I think I just talked for 20 minutes.

I've been training for seven years as an analyst. First in Boston for two years, then for five years in Zurich. Now I'm what's called a diploma candidate. So I have a small practice here in Portland where I do analysis with folks. I'm also a licensed psilocybin facilitator. I do both those things here in Portland, Oregon. How the visual stuff ties into all this is, you know, as I became a creative director and stuff, luckily you get to set the tone for a lot of your projects. And the clients do—the more high-end and imaginal clients want wild ideas and they want sketches. They like that.

If you're a B-rate consultancy, you're gonna give 'em wire frames. If you're an A-rate consultancy, you'll give 'em those wire frames, but you're also getting 'em storyboards, and you're gonna give them some imaginal stuff and really push the boundaries. The people that really love that the most are the CEOs. My experience has been a lot of CEOs are pretty imaginative and do think big.

Some aren't, but you know, some get a bad rap for not being visionary enough. But if you can get 'em in the right context and break them away from all the VPs and everybody else, and do some workshopping with them, they're in incredible. Some of 'em are very imaginative people. I was able to do more and more drawings, but as I got into my training—would you like me to just kind of start into that, or do you wanna break off and completely—?

MR: No, I like the flow.

JH: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I'll share some visual artifacts with folks too, if you want.

MR: Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great.

JH: I left the UDub and University of Washington, and I had—my dad had an RV for his business, and I knew I needed to be in Boston to interview at the Union Institute there. I think it was in late June. My dad was a kind of hard ass character, not always very friendly. He called out the blue, and he said, I was expecting to fly there, probably though I woken up like three months earlier in the middle of the night, and I'd done this drawing with a map of the United States and all these different towns and places, and I drew my cat on it.

It kind of became a joke for my students that I was gonna leave the University of Washington to go on this big RV trip with my cat. They knew I was gonna interview to be an analyst, and some of 'em were excited about that, or to train to be an analyst, but I didn't have a way to make that happen. So suddenly my dad calls, and he is like, "Hey, do you want the RV for a month?"

MR: Oh, wow.

JH: At the exact timing I needed, I hadn't mentioned the trip, I hadn't mentioned anything about it. I was like, "Are you kidding? Like, that's insane." And he didn't make offers like that very much. So it was the first bit of synchronicity around that training. I drove across the country, and as I drove, I really wanted to have an open-hearted and imaginative experience going. I decided the best way to do that was with people and meeting people. So each place I went that I met an interesting person, I drew them as a card.

MR: Oh, wow. The same thing.

JH: Yeah. I kept these with me, and then each next town I would go to, at night, I would go to a café or a pub, and I would journal all the people I met. This was so awesome to have done this because I met more and more people, right.

MR: Yeah.

JH: I started with five drawings, and then I'm at a pub drawing, and suddenly more people are coming and being like, "What are you drawing? What's your story?" So I'm meeting all these really cool people by doing these drawings. I did this big deck of all these people. It was really fun. That one's super funny. You can see the guy's crack there with a kid keep going cream at some coffee shops. So I made this big deck.

MR: Wow.

JH: One of the funniest things about it was I got back to—this young woman, was so cool. She was in Rockport, and she had just started a jewelry business and was really making a go at it and out on the end of this pier. So I bought a ring from her and some other things. It's just a great way to remember trips and journeys. Then when I got home, I think the most fun thing about it probably was sitting with my friends, and they were like, "How was your trip?"

And I'd lay these out on a table, like a big tarot deck or something, and go, "These are all the people I met, who would you like to hear about?" And they were like, What?" Then they'd put their finger on one, and I'd be like, "Oh, yeah, that's Josh in Woodstock. He was super nice. When I parked my car, and he gave me some help, and dah, dah." You know, it was just kind of really fun.

I started with that, and that was a great tone setting for the start of my Jungian studies. I was accepted to that institute, and then I came back to Seattle and I got a job at a startup. And I made the startup agree that I could have the first Thursday and Friday of each month off because I had to fly to Boston Friday, Saturday, Sunday of each month. The first part, we had classes there.

MR: I see.

JH: So I was doing that training. So they were into that. This is kind of what I'm super excited about, is to share a few of these.

MR: Yeah. Another big stack.

JH: Oh my God. The very first day I'm in Boston, I fly out there, and I've got my Fabriano Bristol board style drawing pad, you know, it was crisper, cycled nice paper. I was gonna go to Cambridge and draw some of the churches and the buildings at Harvard and other stuff. And I had that, and I had my laptop, and I'm super into this training. I'm like, "Oh, dude, this is gonna be life changing and this is the path forward for me. I'm all in, dah, dah. I'm committed to this. I can't believe I got in." So excited.

The first lecture stands up to start to teach. And I have my laptop open, and I'm like, "I gotta capture everything they say. Oh my gosh, there's gonna be so much here, and we had to read these things beforehand, and I don't wanna miss anything." And I happened to have my sketch pad there with you know, a few architectural drawings, and it was really like this kind of two roads diverged in the wood's moment. It was like this Robert Frost kind of moment.

He started talking, and I took—I hadn't thought about it. I wasn't like, "I'm gonna draw the lectures." It was such a natural decision. I just closed the laptop and I picked up my sketch pad and I just started drawing. And I hadn't ever really sketch noted. I'd always had this distinction. I'd write my notes and then on some other pages, I might draw some wild drawings like, Ooh, here's whatever, and now, I'm not gonna mention—

MR: Separate from each other. Yeah.

JH: Yeah, yeah. Almost cognitively. Like, here's the purely imaginal realm. Here's a pollen air, you know, thinking function realm where all that's being captured. So I sat down and I just did it, and I didn't stop. So for seven years I've drawn all these lectures in real time. And they you know, they're—

MR: Pretty detailed.

JH: - they're done with—yeah, they're really detailed and they're done with crisp—you know, I use a Staedtler architectural pen, and then I use a Copic marker. And I've got just a ton of them.

MR: Wow.

JH: Yeah, and they're each really specific to that lecturer on that date and that topic we were talking about. So we're trying to make a book of these. I have about 180 pages, and it would be—this one's kind of cool, shows you how to analyze dreams.

MR: Oh, wow.

JH: Got like a body scan methodology we learned about and some other things. Yeah. So this will be a book and also my thesis when I finish my training. The book is about how people—well, it has all those artifacts. So it's kind of like autoethnography art space research, looking at myself, but then there's a companion portion, which is how do people creatively process psychically rich material, or heavy material? What are the means we do that by?

I'll interview a bunch of Jungian analysts to talk to them about how they, in their training, learned all the stuff that was required. Like, how does a choreographer or a dancer get through this material? You know, how does an architect, how does a painter, how does a designer, how does an artist, a musician, accountant, you know, how do people handle this material?

You know, it's a matter of how do you embody it? How do you retain it? How do you comprehend it? How do you spark other areas of your imagination with it? And then how do you socialize it? How do you come back to the community and enrich your learning and their learning by talking and sharing it? Yeah.

MR: Wow. Wow. There's so many questions I have after you kind of revealed this. Maybe I'll just sort of go in with the first one on the top of my head. It seems to me that your decision to choose between the laptop and drawing was really critical for you, now looking back. Also, it seems to me like the preparation before, like doing those little single squares over your trip out east almost primed you for that moment. And it's an interesting choice because right now personal knowledge management is this huge space really valuable, right?

Using these text editors, like Roam Research or Obsidian, there's all kinds of tools out here, but it's very text-based. I think sometimes even through the exclusion of attachments, although that these systems do handle visuals in some basic way, and that you could have gone in that direction and had this searchable database, but you chose to go in this other direction and that you were primed there.

Would you say that all of this travel and that—I think the other thing that's fascinating, is that you limited yourself to this square, which to me says that you kept yourself from being overwhelmed by having this small space to work in. So you knew you could handle it, right? I could do this, like I could take a lunch and I can draw a square. I can handle that. You had reasonable minimums.

But then you had the option to, later on you talked about going to a pub or something, or in your hotel or whatever, and then reflecting on that experience after having drawn it and then writing in more detail. Which then led you to when your friend said, "Tell me about John and Fargo or whatever." That you could look at that image, that it would bring back all the memories, and then it would kind of tap back into the writing that you had probably done, whether it's long or short, that sort of sparked all these memories that you could then tell a whole story out of these seemingly limited artifacts.

Even if you were to read the writings and look at the picture, there's way more in you that's tied to that, that only comes out when you're asked, right. So it's almost like you have to turn on that memory bank and then that stuff comes flooding out, and you probably remember things as you're talking, and it gets broader if you could probably keep going, right. It's really fascinating.

And it's sort of, I guess for me, in this big long ramble, reinforces this idea that visual thinking in this way, sketch noting, if you wanna call it that, using visuals as a way to remember is really powerful, right? I think you're sort of living proof in a lot of ways that this is actually doable and it's not—and I think the thing I love about it is there's not a huge expectation or extra work that you had to do to enter into it.

JH: No.

MR: Is that fair way to kinda?

JH: Oh, yeah, totally. You know, if we think about a divergent energy and a convergent energy and things that are defined and things that are undefined, you know, if we think about things in that way, these kind of panel drawings and sketch noting are so wonderful because they are really are launching points for more divergence. If we have an AI capturing all the text, or we have a volume from the philosopher or person we're interested in reading, that's concrete, you know?

MR: Mm-hmm.

JH: Thoughts and ideas can come off of that. Often, we're so devoted to the physical artifact and what it contains, that we don't allow our minds to go beyond that container. And that's why I love these kind of things 'cause every time I tell the story, it's different. If I had written down three paragraphs, "Josh and Fargo worked at such and such place. He wore these clothes and he helped me park my car. He seemed—" If I were to do it, you know, then I come back. My friends also don't really want to hear that, like, as a story. That's not a story. That's like there's something else, you know?

MR: Yeah.

JH: So they're great for story building. And then if we're trying to have a living knowledge rather than a fixed knowledge, we need to feed the process somehow. Images are great for that 'cause images often lead to more images. If you have a dream or you meditate, or you do psychedelics or something, and you have an image, it's like a river going by. Very naturally. Next comes another image, next comes another image. Some you might wanna grab others, you just let float by. But they seem like a very divergent and rich starting point for narratives.

MR: It's really fascinating when I compare, like that work that you did, the travel, the panels, the writing, and then sketchnoting, basically your whole education, and I compare that back to you started out by saying, I went to this parochial school, and all the teachers at least in that location, were sort of trying to beat that out of you. And it focused toward a known, structured, rigid, listened to what we tell you and remember the things, you know, very rote, stuff would almost be like, in some ways the opposite pole of like what you ended up doing with this work, right.

Because the stuff that you captured, I almost think of it as like, these things you did are the essence of the concept, and they can be endlessly generated from, right. So those squares, I would think—the other thing I think that's interesting is context, right? So you draw a square of this person in this place, if one person asks you to tell the story, you would consider their context and maybe tell them a different story. And then this other person has a different context or interest, you would tell the story differently. It would probably reveal other details or things you were thinking that because that person asked you in their context that would come up, that might not have come up in the other story.

So in a lot of ways, it's like this inexhaustible resource. I dunno, it's probably exhaustible, but I mean, it's generative, right? It's like we think of generative AI, and it can only work with the stuff that exists, and it's often not very good. But we as people are like the original generative, you know, thinkers. So this sort of provides these generative starting points that you can just keep on, you know, using them in an interesting way.

JH: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We have our unconscious. You know, we have that working for us. So if we start with an image, you might not know why or how, but a few other images that are associating with it. And you might mention one of those to a friend as you're telling the story, or just even more empathetically, you might know they're a gardener, and you're like, "Oh, dude, I got a shoot. I met so-and-so at the Bread and Puppet theater in Vermont, Olivia, she was so cool. And she showed me her pictures of her sunflowers." There's no sunflowers here, but I know—

MR: It's embedded. Yeah.

JH: - my friend is a gardener, you know?

MR: Interesting.

JH: Yeah.

MR: Probably for those who don't know, l would include me, what are the basic tenets of a Jungian approach to analysis of people? What are the components? And then I'm really fascinated, like, how do visuals kind of fit into that? It seems like they were open to you doing this. Did they have a reaction to you sketch noting every lecture and having this collection? What's the reaction from the Jungian space getting exposed to this visual thinking thing?

JH: Yeah. I've just been doing it for myself, and I was kind of that dude sitting in the back of the room constantly drawing. Then a couple people were peering over my shoulder and they're like, "What are you doing over there, man? Like, that's wild." I was like, "Oh, thanks. This is just how I process and remember things. I have to do it this way. There's no other way." I would've quit if I wasn't allowed to do this 'cause I would've been bored out my skull.

I think if you're an artist too, you have to generate. We don't wanna sit in a class and have a unidirectional podium delivery. We're not there to catch the confetti from what other people say. We wanna be a part of the process and co-generate and co-create. So that's the other beauty of these kinds of notes, is they're co-creative. So the person's giving you information, you're adding that part of yourself to it, and then you come out with this melded thing, which has so much more energy for me, and for probably for you, and for people like us than just sitting there and writing things down.

MR: Right.

JH: Man, you put me on the spot with, what are the foundations of the Jungian stuff?

MR: It's probably huge, right? That might be a podcast of its own, right?

JH: It is actually, or a series, but I'll do my best.

MR: Okay.

JH: Images are foundational.

MR: Oh, really interesting.

JH: Yeah. Because what Jungians are trying to do in analysis is take the unconscious elements of it, bring it into consciousness, observe it, understand it, see where the blockages are, which we would call complexes, and where the opportunities are and where people wanna be in their future selves, and then integrate it. So bring it all together.

Well, we know the unconscious is just full of images. It's a cauldron being stirred and bubbles come up, and you know, dream, or you know, you're on a long drive and your mind wanders, and you're dissociating. You're like, "Where on earth did that memory come from? Or that image come from?" So it's all image based and it's pre-language. If we go back through biological anthropology, before we had the spoken word and language, we had image. So the basis of this psychology is image based.

We do that through a lot of dream analysis, working with fantasies, creative practices, sand play is part of the Jungian realm where you take figures, little kind of action figures even almost and in a sand tray, you will recreate a scenario or describe it there, and then the analyst will work with you to understand what it's about. It's really super image based, but there an issue in the Jungian realm.

Particularly, there's such a strong intellectual component, and the educational environments have trouble letting go of the thinking function and really wanting to create taxonomies and categorize and microscopically dissect and understand things with so much intentionality that they can lose that divergent free-flowing engagement with personal narratives and the unconscious.

So that's a thing. I think if somebody doesn't get this book that I'm working on, you know, they're kind of like, it's a parlor trick, or it's like a gimmick or something like, "Ah, that person just sits and listens to things." Then people that get it though, it's like, "No, that's how they embody it." We all have our own ways of doing that.

MR: Right.

JH: You know, a child in class, they need a break. You know, if they're learning to spell words or something, they might prefer to go out on the playground and do jumping jacks while they spell words. You know, orange, O-R-A-N-G-E. That works for them 'cause there's a somatic pathway into retention and embodiment and learning.

The biggest challenge for all of us, I think in the world, is calling a time out from the conventional realm and from the pressures and the voices and the demands, and beginning to understand individually how we learn and how we grow and how we can master this life experience, you know, in a healthy way. That timeout is probably the hardest thing 'cause we know there's so many demands from society, family, and finances and things like that.

MR: Wow. That's really fascinating. If someone was wanting to go a little deeper, is there like a primer that they could look at or something to watch that might give them a little bit more depth? Because I would imagine it's a huge ocean of resources that you could get easily swept away in and lost in without some—and maybe that's something you give me a show note link. Like you'd have to think about and give me some links if someone wanted to look further into the Jungian space and understand what it means.

JH: Yeah. I can give you some links to some books and some other things. Yeah, because it is really heady. I think what happens is people might pull the book off the top shelf and go, "Oh, dang. This isn't for me because I can't intellectually grasp it." But there's an entire other way to get into this knowledge, and that's what I'm trying to do here.

MR: Yeah. You're sort of coming at it from a different perspective.

JH: Yeah.

MR: Let's come back to the Jungian space and those practitioners and the other ones like you that maybe aren't as visual, or maybe they just haven't released the visual capabilities because they haven't really thought about it that way. They just came to it from, you know, schooling, right? You learn how to type stuff or, you know, you write things. What has been their reaction to the sketch notes?

You talked about people, you know, being surprised. How has that continued as you've—because obviously you have been dedicated, I see that stack of sheets, and that's a significant investment. Obviously, you needed to do it 'cause that's the way you work. But like, there had to have been a reaction by not only students, but professors. How do they react to that? Do they want copies of it? Do they wanna know how to do it? I'm curious about that side.

JH: Yeah, absolutely. I have had professors request the sketches of their lectures because they were gonna deliver additional lectures on that topic and they thought that would be useful and good to share. I think a lot of the analysts that are running the institute in Zurich are pretty forward thinking and imaginative. They really do want to shift more into a feeling and artistic and visual space. So that's great there. There's a real health around that.

I think there's a lot of people—I love what you just said about "maybe they haven't discovered that capacity yet" because, you know, if you've ever taught little kids art and then watched them go through school and seen them as adults or our friends or ourselves, people have tremendous capabilities which get shut off by society.

So it's important to have those small classes. I know you do a bunch of these and they're fantastic. To just help people get back in touch with that, to oil the machinery, and with, you know, no sense of shame, no sense of deliverables or a timeline just in a very open way, go into it slowly and try to build that capacity. And folks are interested in that. You know, when I began my training, I told a friend that was a poet and another friend at the university that I was starting this, you know, switch into this part of my life. They didn't like it. They were very dismissive.

MR: Really?

JH: Yeah. They were like, "Carl Jung, that that's crazy stuff, or that's a cult, or that's weird, or dah, dah." And I was like, "Man, oh, that's so strange my good friend just said that. Conversely, one of my bosses in the tech space who was a VP business guy, MBA, one of the most boring people you can imagine on the surface, but had a lot underneath going on, told him out at a coffee, he just lit up.

MR: Wow.

JH: And he was like, "What? That is so incredible. Oh my gosh. That's so cool." And then you, you learn, he majored in art history in college. He had this whole other side, an undeveloped part of himself. There's an opportunity for all of us to look at those underdeveloped parts of ourselves and through this kind of activity or another activity or something else, begin to open those up. Yeah.

MR: Well, and I would suspect so, the book that you're trying to produce here and that you're producing, I would guess the consumers of that are probably two, at least that I can think of off the top of my head. One, are Jungian practitioners of some level, right. Because it would be a reference. "Let's go look in the index. I wanna learn about dream interpretation and the body thing you talked about." You could find the page and look at it. "Oh, that's right. Yeah. I remember learning that."

That would just like your little squares, it would spark their memory from probably learning similar things in their education that's maybe easier to enter into than to read like a really dense book about the process where you could actually look at it, just be reminded and, "Oh, that's right. Okay, let's try this. Maybe we'll put a little spin on it and do this other thing and experiment a little bit." So that would be one space.

JH: Yeah.

MR: I think the other space would be maybe someone like me, I don't know anything about Jungian thinking, it might be really fascinating to think of this as a primer in a way. Of maybe it's a little deeper than that, but to be able to look through and understand like, oh, okay, this is kind of, you would form an opinion off of it, but it's more approachable and accessible than a very dense, you know, tome in in German or something. Where you'd have to learn German to read it and understand it in the original language or whatever, right. Because Jung I think he was Swiss. I think. He was a contemporary and a little bit of a—I always remember that he and Freud were sort of like frenemies, I guess. I dunno. Like they—

JH: That's a good way to frame it.

MR: Is that the right way to describe them.

JH: He was a protege and then they were arch enemies after really falling out.

MR: Really.

JH: Yeah, unfortunately, or at least Freud exiled Jung from the realm because their theories diverged in places that were irreparable apparently.

MR: Interesting.

JH: But no, you're right. One thing is this book is not an explainer text. 'Cause we have to remember these are all live drawings. These were done in the classes. There's a lot of stuff that didn't make the drawing.

MR: Oh yeah, sure.

JH: You know, it's in the hour it's me going, "Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's cool." Like you said, they're just sparks. You could look at the page and be like, "Oh, that's a reference to such and such writer. Maybe I'll go read that person. Oh, here's this thing, maybe I'll go explore that." So there's that. You know, the other thing for me is it's a memento. It's a milestone of the training. It's like, "Dude, here's seven years of your life. You gotta turn this into a book." Because someday when I'm like 83 and I'm talking to my grandkids or whatever, I wanna be like, "See, I did a thing. You kids never listen. And I actually did a thing, whether you wanna believe it or not."

Then for lay people, I think there's also kind of this mystique around if people even know what Jungians are. There's probably people listening to this podcast that are like, "I have no idea what this particular episode's about." But for people that do know the history of psychology and the different methodologies and ways you can work on your psyche, they may be very curious about what the training is. It's kind of this Hogwarts sort of thing with a big door, you know, and you, how do you walk through the subway portal in the brick wall? What goes on in there?

This is a nice snapshot into, these are the courses that were taken, this is the material that was covered. The book also has reflections. So it has 180 pages of this, my personal reflections, dreams. So I found key dreams from my training, and I can put those in there. And then exercises. So it has exercises I developed over those seven years people can use. This one with the travel is one of those exercises I talk about.

MR: Yeah, I that would make sense. Yeah.

JH: Yeah. I want it to be more fun than just, "Here's these drawings." You know, I want it to be active. Yeah.

MR: Yeah. Yep. You wanna have some practicality out of it as well with, you know, actions that you can draw from it. So that, you know, explaining that, it seems to me like maybe your primary audience are Jungian practitioners, and maybe they could be people in college who are considering picking a Jungian path and wanna know, like you said, there's a big dark door and lots of thick German writings that I don't have to like—you know, unless you're a German reader, which there's a fair amount of German people that listen to the podcast and watch it.

So but like, you know, there's lots of opacity to getting an idea of it. If you were in a point where you're like considering maybe one approach versus another, this could be a good way. Maybe you check it out at the library, right. Maybe you see this at libraries, right. So that's your gift to the world. And then some kid in the future who's considering this path could get at least some kind of a sense of where this might be headed, right. That could be another thing, right.

JH: Totally. Totally. And maybe if people are going into heavier thinking function-oriented trainings, they can understand, you know, via you and your work and your podcasts and your classes and this book and other things, can see like, oh, it's okay to process in other ways. I'm not bad. My second grade Nun which I had, is not hitting me with a ruler because I'm drawing in the margins of my spelling journal or whatever, You know?

MR: Yeah, yeah.

JH: Yeah.

MR: Well, that's really interesting. We just got back from the International Sketchnote Camp in San Antonio, and there was a little bit of talk afterwards. I mean, one of the sessions was about how to make this a business. And I think that's a valid thing, right? Is how do you take these visual skills you have and then use them as a way to share with companies to hire you to do this work for them. I think I'm most fascinated by more like this stuff where people keep their day jobs, but they find ways to integrate visual thinking into the work they do.

They don't have to leave the thing that they're good at. Like say you're an accountant, or something like that. That's really fascinating is how do you integrate this visual skill in your unique context. And I think that in some ways can be powerful 'cause I think it can reach a lot deeper inside of organizations and reach to individual people, maybe more than a professional coming and doing visual thinking on demand, which has got value, right Especially if it's interactive, but it feels like it can reinforce this idea that, oh, only the professionals can do that.

You know, "I'm not a good artist. I could never do that." And it kind of reinforces. A lot of the work that I've done has been trying to break down those ideas and then just set the bar really low. Like, you don't really have to be a great artist to do this work. Now, if you're really good at it, you could elevate to that level. It's really interesting to hear this and think the work you're practically doing is could impact the Jungian space in a way that maybe hasn't been done since the beginning. I don't know. This seems pretty unique to me.

JH: No one's ever drawn all their classes. It's the first. Either I'm a madman or I'm onto something. I don't know. Maybe both, but per your comment, think about how much rigid thinking there is in society.

MR: Oh yeah.

JH: How, just in terms of politics or arts theoretical spaces or other things where people are either here or they're here. Having just a civilization that has more plasticity in our thinking and a way to look at things from different directions, doesn't mean we have to agree with them, but we can at least examine 'em, open up, feel things through. I mean, that would be so wonderful to have scientists thinking that way, to have mayors and people leading towns, politicians, you know, teachers, everybody just kind of drawing as a way of thinking. 'Cause it is so divergent, you know? It's really like that. I mean, at some point it comes back in, but it's just a wonderful, rich external exploration, you know?

MR: This has been really fun to see. We'll definitely have to have you take a couple shots of maybe a couple of pages and, you know, some samplings of these little squares so we include those in the show notes, maybe throw 'em on your site or something or social media or wherever so people can see, if they're listening, you can click on the link and see those images.

JH: Oh yeah.

MR: We'll do that as for you. So that brings me to—typically, this is where we talk about tools. I'm really curious about the tools that you chose here. It seems like you went really simple, right? You had a pad, you had you had a fine liner and then a Copic for shadows. And that was pretty much it. Tell me a little bit more about the tools you chose and why.

JH: One trick you know well, and I know and others that have been drawing for a little while, is if you're gonna do a set, find your most comfortable tool and stick with it throughout the whole set. Probably don't switch. So I just happened to have my architectural drawing tools on that day in Boston. And it was a 0.5 Staedtler.

MR: Yep. Fine liner. Super popular.

JH: Yeah. And a Fabriano pad, which I'll get it, it's right here.

MR: I think I've had Fabriano pads in the past more like a spiral bound notebook?

JH: No, it's this recycled paper and bleached and it's so—

MR: Oh, wow.

JH: I love this. I you may have trouble ordering 'em 'cause I ordered so many 'cause I—

MR: You cornered the market.

JH: I wanted to make sure—yeah. But these are great. It's this really crisp white paper. It's sort of between paper and Bristol.

MR: It's something like a sticker card stock almost.

JH: Yeah. 94 pounds.

MR: Okay, so somewhat heavy. Yeah.

JH: Yeah. Those, and then for other illustrations, I do, I use the Neuland markers, which I —

MR: Oh yeah. They're great. Yeah.

JH: - learned from you and like that gives a thicker line like that. And then I use a Copic N2 grayscale.

MR: Adds some tone.

JH: Yeah, and that's it. Just keep 'em real simple. The book will not be digitized. So this is gonna be a print-only book which I do that for a number of reasons. I might have to self-publish it. I've had some good conversations with publishers, but the response has been basically, "We don't know how to handle 180 pages of—we don't do that." You know, "That's beyond where we're at." Some of the graphic novel publishers, it's not really in their—

MR: Yeah. It sort of falls in this middle space in a way, right?

JH: Totally. So if anybody's listening and they wanna gimme a holler about a book deal, if there's any agents out there or anybody, please don't hesitate.

MR: Wow.

JH: Yeah.

MR: And then for the little squares, did you just take that same pad and pull them out of the book and then cut them in quarters? How did you produce your little squares? Or are they—

JH: Those exact?

MR: Okay.

JH: No, totally same. So they're six two-page, they fit. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And I draw them in here, and then I cut them out.

MR: And then you cut them out. Got it. Okay.

JH: Yeah.

MR: You probably use your maybe a pencil to stroke the break points for the six panels, and then work your way through them and cut them out at the end. Probably good for managing, like, on that trip. Right. You would keep them in a central place so that they wouldn't get lost 'cause I would think with loose squares like that, like ordering them then becomes more complex than if they're bound into a book. At least maybe while you're doing the production.

JH: Well, I actually cut 'em out every night because the payoff was like, if you spread like 55 squares on a table, it's pretty visually impactful. And I wanted to talk to people. I didn't know anybody as I drove across the country. So if I arrived in Minneapolis and was at some cool cafe, you know, oftentimes another artist would come up and be like, "Oh dude, what are you doing? Like, that's really cool." And I was like, "Hey, who are you? What do you do?" You know.

MR: Make another square.

JH: Exactly. Exactly.

MR: Interesting. It's like the thing beget more things in a way.

JH: Yeah. Kind of is.

MR: That's funny. So we'll definitely have to—we'll get some links specifics for you guys out there listening if you wanna check out these pads. Let's shift into practical tips. So this is where I invite people to do tips for listeners. And the way I frame it is, imagine there's a visual thinker listening. Maybe they've reached a plateau or they're just feeling a little bit burnt out, or, you know, they just wanna see a change. What would be three practical or theoretical things, tips that you might offer them?

JH: Yeah, totally. The first is gonna be draw where you aren't conventionally permitted to do so. Like, push the boundaries of drawing. So if everybody else on the bus is on their phones, they're staring out the window at the raindrops, draw. If you're at a lecture, if you're at the symphony, if you're at a very boring social function with your in-laws, you've gotta be careful there, but just draw. Start to push the edges and in the massage of that boundary, you will start to loosen up your own expressive capacity. So that would be one is, is draw where you're not really encouraged to draw.

The other would be have the easiest materials possible that you know you will use. You know, sometimes people wanna get into photography and they think that means buying the, you know, four-foot-long telescopic lens and dah, dah, dah. That's not true. The best camera is the one you're going to use.

So find tools that feel good in your hand. The pen should feel really good. You should have a relationship with your pen and then paper that feels really good. For some people that's gonna be more granular. Other people, it's gonna be smooth. For some people, it'll roll up nicely. Others will be really firm. I just love thick card. I don't know why. Maybe it's my printmaking background or something.

MR: Yeah. It could be.

JH: So that would be the second one. And the third would be the way I learned how to play guitar when I was a punk rock musician—I've had other younger guitars say, what advice can you gimme on learning guitar and stuff? What they expect is you to tell 'em some scale technique or something. That's not it. This sounds so weird, but to fall asleep with my guitar. So to actually at night play it—this is a long time ago, I learned to play guitar. You're watching like David Letterman on TV around midnight or whatever it was on, playing guitar. Always was in my hand.

As in college, in my apartment, that guitar was in my hand. I'd fall asleep and that guitar was with me. I might wake up in the middle of the night and kind of remember a melody and I'd pluck it out. I'd kind of fall back asleep. It was always there. So, related to that, try to have your drawings and your materials with you as often as possible. Another reason these are the size is because one of my favorite coats has an interior breast pocket right here.

I capture my dreams too. I'm a Jungian, I draw various dreams I've had. And then I will take those dreams. And this is an exercise in the book actually. I will put 'em in the breast pocket of that jacket in the winter with my big scarf on. I'll walk around the city and I'll sit at cafes and then I'll pull the deck back out. I'm not trying to meet people or socialize during this exercise, but I'll reflect on things, put it back in my pocket, walk some more throughout the city. Might take an hour or two to walk. I walk a lot. Go to the next place, pull 'em out, look at 'em, shuffle 'em around, have a relationship with them.

So it's the third bit of advice is that like, try to have you and your tools as close to each other as possible to develop that relationship and to open up those channels of expression and communication with yourself 'cause that's really what's going on, right? You gotta talk with your deeper self to get in touch with these processes.

MR: You want the tools to kind of step out of the way and be there when you need them and perform enough to do that.

JH: Yeah.

MR: I've been bullet journaling for years. I just recently bought a leather—I could show you this leather thing that I had made.

JH: Nice.

MR: So just a leather wrapper for my Neudstram. I had my little logo put here in the corner.

JH: Oh, cool.

MR: And then I decided to get a Lamy safari fountain pen.

JH: Oh, nice. I love those.

MR: It feels great in my hand. It's got weight to it. I actually just shifted the tip from a fine to a medium 'cause I wanted more juice out of my ink. I like juicy inks. They need to flow. I've noticed that it's changed my relationship with writing. I really enjoy the writing a little more. All I did was change the tip, which is really easy on a Lamy, you put scotch tape and you pull it off and you just stick the other one on. You can even do it with ink inside. It's crazy. So it's a really good trick.

JH: Wow.

MR: Yeah.

JH: I didn't know that. I love Lamy. What kind of tip did you put on it? Like a more fine one, or?

MR: Yeah, I bought it with a fine tip on it, and it felt scratchy to me and it kept bothering me especially when it would run out of ink. And I thought, you know what? I'm gonna do it. The ink is low. This is the time to do it. So I looked up a video and it showed do, you could do it when it was loaded with ink 'cause the tip sits on top of, whatever, the feed, and you just use some scotch tape and you put it on and you pull out and down and it just pops off. You take the other one and just snap it on there and start writing. It's a really ingenious design from Lamy with their tips.

JH: Oh, I gotta look at that. I gotta look at that. Do you use Noodler's ink? Are you a Noodler's guy or what are you like?

MR: I have not tried Noodler's yet. For this one, I bought the Lamy ink. I kind of wanted to go all stock with it. I've heard good things about Noodler's. I haven't tried it. I think it's water resistant or if not waterproof. So, yeah, I think I just have found going back to this tool, which, you know, I mean, I think the pen was like $40 for this heavy pen. But it changes my relationship with my writing. I've noticed that Neuland markers do the same thing, like the quality.

Like there's something to be said by using cheap pens that are available at the grocery store, and the truth is, is that you get really excellent pens at a grocery store or a corner drug store, like, you know, Energels or G2s really amazing. Like the technology is improved so much that they can also be, you know, something that you like. But it seems like my relationship with writing and reflecting in the bullet journal context has changed by switching the tools that I use. And it makes me more expressive. It's little, it's a small friction, but it's definitely works.

JH: I hear you. I think their stock tips, especially for the fine ones can be really scratchy like you're saying.

MR: Yeah. Yeah.

JH: Yeah, yeah.

MR: So, you know, you gotta find—I think it goes back to you finding what are the tools that are right for you? And don't feel like, just 'cause everybody uses this tool that I have to, you can break from the pack.

JH: No.

MR: You know, be a punk rocker like Justin was. You know, find the thing that works for you. Well, this has been really fascinating and fun and enlightening and I'm looking forward to seeing your book published. I'd love to see it when it comes out and have a print copy.

JH: Oh yeah.

MR: Tell me a little bit more about where people can find you. This is especially helpful if someone has ideas—If you're in the publishing space and you have ideas for Justin about how he might go about it to reach out to him. Do you have a website? Are you on socials? How would you like people to reach out to you and see your work or chat with you?

JH: Yeah, yeah, totally. I have a few things. For my Jungian work, it's cascadejungianservices.org. So if people wanna learn about Jungian stuff or psychedelics in Oregon and how we support that as well here with licensure in the state, they can go to that. For the book. I just got the Instagram handle, The Visual Jung, J-U-N-G.

MR: Good.

JH: So that's that. I'm gonna just start posting stuff there. Then for my work as an artist Justin_hamacher_artist on Instagram. Those are the three best places to get in touch about all those things.

MR: We'll put those in the show notes along with all the other resources. So if you're curious, you can go in there and dig in there and follow your passion and find out more. Well, thanks so much, Justin. This has been a lot of fun. I've really enjoyed the discussion. I know a little bit more about Jungian concepts. Not enough to practice, but enough to play Jungian on TV, I guess. I don't know. Not really. Not really.

But it's been really fascinating. It's makes me want to dig in a little bit more and understand Jung and like how we got to these ideas and maybe do some research on how could it apply to me? What are some practices that could help me? So it's interesting.

JH: Oh yeah. Yeah, active imagination is a big one. That's the most visual. I'll send you some links and some books if folks are interested in.

MR: Yeah, we'll put 'em in the show notes for sure. I think as visual thinkers, this audience might be well suited for this kind of work, these kind of practices potentially.

JH: I think so. It really resonates. So much image basis in the unconscious in the Jungian space too. Yeah.

MR: Interesting. Well, thanks so much, Justin. Thanks for being on the show and thanks for the work you're doing. Thanks for helping people in the way that you do. I think it's important that we each find that way and you found the way, which is great. Listening to your story and how you got to where you are, all that background's gonna help you, I think. So thank you for your contribution.

JH: Thanks so much, Mike. Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for hosting this podcast. It's really fun to see all the folks out there doing visual thinking.

MR: I'll never run out of people to interview, which is really great.

JH: Cool

MR: Well, everyone, if you're watching or listening, this is another episode. Until the next one, talk to you soon.

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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.

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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
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• How vector elements let you size and repurpose your drawings for ultimate flexibility.

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Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Diana on LinkedIn
• Diana's Instagram
• Sh8peshifters website
• Think Visual! Sketch Lab course
• Book: Designing Tomorrow
• Alan Chen's Episode

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Zig dual-tip brush markers
• Tombow dual-tip brush markers 
• Procreate
• Adobe Photoshop
• Huion Tablets
• Notion

Tips

1. Just doodle. Just let yourself go with the pen.
2. Keep a sketchbook on you all the time.
3. Talk to people. Find a community, a group of people who inspire and motivate you to think outside the box.
4. Join the Think Visual Meet-up.

Credits

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

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 even further in time when you were a little girl, like you said you, you learned Photoshop by yourself when you were 13. I think there's some interesting origin story stuff before you get to Australia. Tell me a little bit about, what was it like growing up. Did you do a lot of drawing then? You said technology, you probably were playing with technology. If you folks were into technology, it was probably laying around waiting for you to discover. Talk a little bit about your early childhood and how that influenced kind of what you're doing now.

DA: Yeah. Well, my dad was always on the computer 'cause he was a software engineer. It definitely influenced how me and my siblings saw technology. I think it was just such a normal thing around us. Yeah, it was at the beginning of Photoshop and all of these digital tools, and I just kind of felt like—it was just sort of a very intuitive way thing for me to just kind of go onto a new software and just start clicking around and exploring how it works.

I think in terms of drawing specifically, it was always something—again, I think everyone in my family just knew how to draw and it was just something on the side that no one really put too much emphasis on. So I never really pursued it. Whenever I would try to do some crafts or painting and things like that, I would always start a summer project, for example, and then I just kind of leave it. I guess, I would give up too quickly. I'd be like, "No, this is not working. I'll just give up and let it go. But the thing that I was very persistent with was software.

And so, I learned Photoshop and I started creating all these little greeting cards for my family. Every time there was a birthday, there'd be a nice little greeting card. I was drawing, I was actually drawing on Photoshop with the mouse. Manipulating different images and all of that. I remember experimenting on how to print on different cardboard, and I just really loved the process of discovering a new tool.

I guess at school, the way that showed up was in my projects when whenever we had presentations and things like that, I would go all out. I would create this video of like—I would just direct a video and just edit it and present it. Yeah, so it was always a lot of fun. I think that was my fun way of my creative outlet.

But in terms of drawing, yeah, as I said, I was just doodling a lot in my textbooks. I was almost ashamed of my textbooks to show them to anyone 'cause they were quite just messy. Very messy. Then, when I did my bachelor's in design, we took a few drawing classes. Again, it always was just part of design and I just didn't really see it beyond that.

MR: Means to an end kind of thing.

DA: Yeah, exactly. I did buy a Wacom tablet, and so I started drawing on Photoshop. I think that made me draw a little bit more on Photoshop, but even then, I didn't see it as drawing. I saw it still as kind of digital art, and I don't know what the difference is there, but so years later when Alan asked me if I drew, it was more like, "No, I haven't drawn in ages. At school, I used to doodle. Yeah, so that's my story.

MR: You were kind of doing it, but you just didn't think about it in the same way. It's a little bit like, you know, well, of course we all speak English at home. You know, it's English. That's how we communicate to each other. You know, we all draw, and we don't make a big deal out of it. You just do it. That could have been the case as well.

DA: Yeah, yeah. I think that's how it is. Yep.

MR: Interesting. In the projects that you do for Sh8peshifters—well, I know Alan is very talented. I've seen his work. He's definitely done some training and he's got skill. So where do you fit in? If you're doing sketchnoting or visual thinking stuff, do you also go up to the board and draw or do you do drawing in that same way, or do you sort of divide up the roles differently based on what you like to do? How does that fit together as a team of two?

DA: We have complementary skills for sure. So when we're working together on a project or with a client, we kind of work to each other's strengths. When I take on live events and things like that, I do come up and draw. I do live sketchnoting and things like that as well. I have definitely been lucky for the past 10 years to have Alan as an influence and a big mentor for me. So it's been yeah, quite good to rediscover that skill and hone it.

But when we're doing live sketching sessions with clients usually Alan's the one live sketching and I'm the one facilitating. That's how our dual collaboration works. We find that it works really well 'cause I'm really good at bouncing off people's ideas and challenging them and questioning them. Alan is very good at creating live sketches that are very high quality so that people can see exactly what's happening on the page.

We also have done a few projects where we're doing graphic facilitation and there's a workshop we're running, and we're both drawing at the same time we're running activities. So it depends on the project. But yeah, I think that's how it kind of is divided up mainly. With projects like explainer videos and book design and things like that, I'm usually the one on the software and Alan is on the iPad drawing.

MR: I see. I see. Those skills that you built being comfortable in software definitely helped. I think that's a great way to say it. You said that you're complimentary. I think that's a really great way to think of a good partnership is I go back to when I did a Typeface. For my books, my Sketchnote handbook, I was a print production designer, so I knew how painful print production was, and I thought, there's no way I'm gonna hand write this whole book and then scan it because you know there's gonna be typos.

So I reached out to some friends that said, "Who do you know that does typography? 'Cause I need to do a typeface of my handwriting." I found someone, my friend Delve Witherington, and we made an agreement, and we together worked on this Typeface, which now you can buy and use it on your projects. If you're an Adobe user, you can find Sketchnote Typeface for free as part of the Adobe Creative Suite.

In the beginning, we just did it because I needed a Typeface so I could do the production, but then in the end, and as we were building this Typeface, I kept thinking, "Man, I've got the best deal in the world. All I have to do is draw the Typeface and give it to Delve, and he turns it into this amazing font with kerning and all this cool stuff." And then if you talk to Delve, he would say, "Oh man, I got the best job in the world. I don't have to draw anything. Mike gives me all these samples, I scan 'em, and I tweak 'em, and I can nerd out in my software."

He thought it was the best thing ever. So we both kind of felt like we got a great deal. And I feel like the best partnerships tend to be that way where you both feel like you got the better end of the deal and then it works toward, you know, a solution or a collaboration that feels really natural. It seems to me, which you guys have been doing, is that, so that's really cool.

DA: Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah, that's exactly that. I love the way you put it. Yeah.

MR: I would also note that not always easy to find good partners who feel that way. I've worked with many different people and some people are easier to work with than others. It's just the way life is. So it's cool that you guys found each other and you found a way to make this work, and it seems like a good fit. So, pretty cool.

DA: Yeah, I think we both count ourselves lucky. I mean, I feel like I am the most creative when I'm in a good kind of collaborative space. I think Alan has had lots of different partners you know, throughout time. It's really a very important thing to find the people you're very aligned to. And I think if you have the right vision even if you're not exactly the same, we're not the same at all, but as you said, quite complimentary. It can make things much more creative, but also fun. It's a very fun working environment.

MR: That's great.

DA: And I think sometimes artists they get a bit isolated in their minds, so it's really helpful to have someone else to get you out of that.

MR: Yeah. Yes, a different perspective for sure. Interesting. Well, the last thing I'll mention about what you're doing with Sh8peshifters is it seems like, at least I see from LinkedIn, is having guests in and having groups of people come, and you're offering this teaching for like—I dunno what you would call this. A meetup of some kind pretty regularly, which is pretty cool. Were did that idea come from, and how is that going?

DA: It's going really well. It's called the Think Visual Meetup.

MR: That's right.

DA: We started it in our office. We were very lucky to have an office in the city at the beginning of the year. And so, we've always talked about building a community around what we do around meeting new people that do the same thing, but at the same time opening up this visual thinking space to people across different industries. Because we meet lots of clients and people who say, "I can't draw." And we know that drawing is more of a thinking process, and it's something that both Alan and I are passionate about. We wanted a way to open it up to people to kind of come and see how they can put into practice in their own life, you know, even if it's just their personal life.

So having that space at the beginning of the year made us think, "Okay, well, now that we've got a space in the middle of the city, why don't we use it to do that?" We have a big network of people that we know across different industries, so we started bringing in guest speakers every month. Every month we'd bring in a guest speaker and try to bring them in from a different industry, a different perspective, and they talk about how they use visual communication or visual thinking in their own practice. And it's usually very different.

You know, we've had people talk about prototyping, we've had people who facilitate in workshops, and they use visuals to map out things with their clients. A very big range of people from education, product design, tech. And so, it's been a growing community over the past six months. We've got the next one on Wednesday, actually. This Wednesday. It's being hosted at KPMG. So we've got some graphic recorder friends at KPMG who have opened up the AI Innovation lab there in the city to host a bigger crowd 'cause it's grown too big for our office.

MR: Yeah, in the office. Yeah.

DA: Yeah, yeah. So it's been really good. I think people really love it. Every time people come, we encourage them to sketch notes. So it's really amazing. It's not like other meetups. You don't see people looking at the guest speaker. They're all looking down at their papers and sketching. And it's really great to see just everyone not hesitating and just feeling comfortable with drawing.

MR: That's awesome. I love that. I have to find a way to come down under, and if I do, maybe I can come and visit your group. That would be fun.

DA: That would be amazing. That would be great if you'd be a speaker.

MR: Yeah, for sure. For sure.

DA: Share your experience.

MR: I have to get myself over there. That's the hard part. So Diana, tell me a little bit about the tools you like. We mix both theory and practice on the podcast. And one of the practical things I think that can help people is learning what types of tools you like. I always seem to discover some new thing that I—you know, you'd think after doing, I dunno, 160 of these episodes, I would've learned about every possible tool under the sun, but that's not true. I continually learned about new things. So tell us about the tools you like. Start with analog first and then digital second.

DA: With analog, I really like black and white. I love brush markers like Zig and Tombo. They're the dual tip brush markers. I usually, most of the time it's black that I use with that. But of course, felt tip markers. So I usually use 0.3 or 0.4 felt tip markers. I started Inktober last week. Are you doing Inktober, Mike?

MR: No, I've decided this year not to do Inktober with just so many things going on, but I have done it in the past. It's fun.

DA: Fair enough. So I've had this brush marker for a while. It's not a brush marker, it's a brush pen with ink in it. So it's a refillable ink, and it's this Chinese tip brush. I started using that for Inktober, and it's just been really, really fun to use. It's very different. It's like painting rather than the brush markers that feel more like markers.

MR: Yeah.

DA: Yeah, so I'm really enjoying that one at the moment. For digital, usually Procreate is my go-to. Procreate on the iPad. Right after that would be Photoshop obviously, and I use a graphic tablet called Huion, and they're really good. Very affordable. And yeah, for the big screen and a smaller one.

MR: I haven't heard of that brand. Maybe that's a newer one. Wacom, I've heard of a lot of, but maybe Huion is a new competitor.

DA: Yeah, yeah. I think so. I can't remember, I think they're Chinese. A Chinese brand. I'm gonna have to check that, but—

MR: Yeah, it sounds like it could be. Yeah.

DA: Yeah. It's definitely newer than Wacom and more affordable. I was gonna say, that's why I discovered it. I used to use Wacom and I wanted to upgrade, and I found Huion and I thought, you know—

MR: Give it a try.

DA: Yeah. Both Alan and I actually thought we'd just kind of try that one, and it's really good pressure and the screen is very good. So it's definitely a new competitor.

MR: Cool. Well, we'll have to put a link in there. Maybe it's something you can only get in Australia right now, but we'll see. We can put the link in to that in the brush pen. Any other tools that you like? Are there tools that help you do your work that aren't necessarily visual thinking tools, but you think maybe a visual thinker could benefit from software-wise or hardware.

DA: Software wise? Notion. I think that's an interesting tool that over the past year I've been tinkering with. It's more of a project management, task management tool, but it's got so many tools and it's quite flexible. You can really use it to document everything you want, from projects to your schedule to writing content in it, so it's got a document kind of database. So I find that it's such a versatile tool, and you can even share different pages with clients. So it's quite flexible. Yeah, I think that would be the tool that I'd recommend.

MR: Yeah, that almost seems like a box full of tools in a lot of ways, right? If you wanna build something, all the parts are there and you can kind of configure them in unusual ways if you wanted to, to achieve what you wanna do, which is pretty cool.

DA: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, instead of having several different tools, right? That's a kind of an all-in-one.

MR: Probably the challenge there is any of those all-in-one type tools is you could spend hours and hours fiddling and making it just right instead of doing the work. So that's the flip side challenge of an all-in-one is the care and feeding of your tool, so.

DA: I've definitely been guilty of that.

MR: That can happen in any tool.

DA: You spend hours.

MR: Yeah.

DA: Yeah.

MR: Interesting. Let's talk a little bit about tips and tricks. So we love to have tips and tricks for people who are on the show, or—and the way I frame it is this way that imagine there's someone who's listening, who's a visual thinker, and maybe they feel like they've hit a plateau, or they just need some inspiration, what would be something, three tips that you would give that person to encourage them? They can be practical, they can be theoretical, whatever you like, and you can do more than three. Three is just a nice round number.

DA: Well, I think I would start with just doodle. Just reflecting on my story, I realized that sometimes it doesn't matter what you're doodling, it's more about the relationship between your mind and your hand. If you let it go on for a while, you're bound to discover something new. And it's just about holding that pen and letting yourself draw even if you don't have any purpose of doing it, and even if it looks like just marks. I would say definitely just doodle. Let yourself just kind of let yourself go with the pen.

I guess, another one that I personally need to keep reminding myself of is to keep a sketchbook. Keep a sketchbook on you at all times. I feel like I go through sometimes where I either forget or I've got too many things on that I just keep my sketchbook at home, and I start feeling restless, and I don't know why. The moment I just keep my sketchbook on me, I feel like I just start drawing more. Even though I didn't plan on it, it's just because it's on me all the time, whenever I find a little moment, I'll just take it out and start drawing. And so, I feel like that's something that everyone needs to be reminded of all the time.

MR: Yeah.

DA: I guess if you're stuck, and you want some inspiration, the best inspiration I found is talking to people. So find a community, find a group of people who inspire you. It doesn't even have to be individual thinking, but who just inspire you and can give you some motivation to think outside the box. Yeah, if you're in Sydney, come join us, Think Visual Meetup.

MR: There we go. Yeah, I think there are a fair amount of Aussie listeners. It may not be in Sydney, but maybe if you're outside, if you're in another city, maybe you need a little bit of a tour, a visit. You need to take a little trip and attend one of these events. I know that if I live close enough, I would come, but it's a 24-hour flight or something for me. So we'll have to plan that. I've collected many friends in Australia, so I think I need to cash in my friends and come and see them.

DA: Yes, please do. Yeah, you're definitely welcome here. You'll find lots of friends and a big community waiting for you.

MR: Well, Diana, this has been great. Can you tell us what are the best places to find you? Of course, we have the Sh8peshifters website, which we'll put in the show notes. Are there any personal things that you'd like to share? Social media, websites, work, or any of that kind of thing that we can go and check out?

DA: I think the best place to find me would be LinkedIn at the moment. I do have an Instagram account. I haven't really used it for a while, but I do have some stuff on there. It's A8temis with an eight. Again, I'll just send it to you and you can link it. And I suppose the other place would be sketchlab.online where we host some webinars, and we've got an online course that's self-based as well.

MR: That's right. Yeah, I remember that. Alan mentioned that, and we'll make sure that gets into the show notes as well.

DA: Cool. Yeah, I think LinkedIn would be the best place for people to find me.

MR: Okay. Okay, great. I know when Alan was on before, he had talked about wanting as Sh8peshifters to do more publishing as a company. And he said, you guys are doing all this cool stuff, and you just weren't telling anybody about it. I would say in the last, whatever, however many months that's been, he's done a good job with you in kind of identifying those things and then starting to tell people about them, which has been really good. I think maybe going on the record on the podcast sort of made him make sure that he talked with you and made it happen. I don't know, but it's kind of fun to see what's going on with you guys.

DA: Yeah. Well, you've definitely given him motivation. Lots of inspiration.

MR: Cool.

DA: So yeah, your chats with him have been very motivational.

MR: Good. We'll have to keep the fire underneath him and keep him moving. Now I can put the fire under you, although I don't know that I need to, but. So thanks so much, Diana, for being on the show and telling us a little bit more about yourself and how you fit in with the Sh8peshifters work that you're doing with Alan.

Thanks so much, you and Alan taking the community and making something happen locally. I think that's just so inspiring to see communities forming like that. And then, as you say, it's not uncommon to go in there and see lots of sketch notes happening while presenters are speaking. It gotta be cool for the speakers at the end to see all these sketch notes of their talk, right? Maybe they haven't been sketch noted ever before, and suddenly you've got like 10 or 15. That would be pretty cool.

DA: Yeah. Yeah, they love it. They love it. It's very cool.

MR: Nice. Nice.

DA: Definitely, a great experience. Yeah, thank you, Mike. And thank you for doing this podcast. It's definitely a source of inspiration for a lot of people just to listen, including me, to listen to all the different perspectives and different people's experiences in this area.

MR: Yeah, well, no problem at all. I'm really happy to do it. It's a passion project for sure. And, you know, I would do it whether or not five or more people listen. It's hard to know how many listens, but I think it's an important thing to do. So thank you for listening, and thank you for now contributing and being on the show and inspiring a new group of people.

So we will make sure and get all these things that we talked about in the show notes for you. And until the next episode or the—oh, I dunno. I've lost my tagline, Diana, what's going on here? Until the next episode, this is Mike. Have a great day.

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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 Concepts

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• The Infinite Canvas as a sketchnoting power feature
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Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• James Durno's website
• James Durno on LinkedIn
• James Durno on Instagram

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• One-millimeter B lead Pencils
• Polymer Eraser
• Neuland markers
• Copic Markers
• Fabriano paper
• Paint

Tips

1. Slow down to speed up.
2. Abandon the idea of perfection. Practice, but practice makes proficient, not perfect.
3. Learning the rules, principles, and elements of what makes a good art.
4. Listening to understand.
5. 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.

Credits

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

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 inaccessible? It's about the information and the narrative thread. It's about the essence of the day, the mood and the atmosphere and the spirit. Oh, losing my earpiece. There. The spirit of the actual event or the room or the people. All of those things kind of soak up in the drawing. So there's so many different dimensions to it.

MR: Yeah, I was thinking as you were talking about that in some ways it's like, you need skill, but you need to have balance of skill. So knowing when to use the right skill, which is what you talked about with the jazz band. But it's also in a way like meditation and being in the moment so that you can do the right thing at the right time. And I think ultimately, it comes down to experience that probably the only way to get better at this is to study and practice, and then actually practice doing it.

And then there's a spiral of skill. Like as you get better, you start noticing like, "Ooh, that just happened. I need to capture that. Where can that fit?" Maybe like you said, you've got a kind of an anchor image where you keep up, that follows the same pattern, add that to the anchor image, and then the anchor image is getting richer over time, but knowing like, when do you stop adding to it? How do you avoid, like just packing the page with information and being more selective? Like all those are learned things just like a chef or a musician, right, knowing keeping the balance.

So ultimately, it comes back to balancing all those things because if you have the skills, but you just fill the page with tiny imagery, no one's going to take the time to go through that page full of, you know, a forest of information. Part of what you're doing is that filtering a little bit of the decision-making about what feels like the most important thing to get on this board or screen, right? It's a little tougher to capture that skill. I'm bringing AI into it. I wonder if AI is capable of doing that kind of work or not. I think it's the jury is out, and I'm not sure.

JD: I think the issue with AI—actually if we can park the AI for one brief moment, and I'll just respond to before that what you were saying is about hat flow state of experience and, and skill and confidence. It's not just about the information, what one is hearing and about what one is synthesizing and processing, but also responding to the room and to the moment so much that is intuitive how, just to take that and maybe it's a light touch. It's something that one senses rather than something that's conscious.

And you were talking about balance, and it's a small thing, but I think most people, when they think of balance, in their minds they see scales, and they think in terms of symmetry, they think this is equal to this. And balance is entirely different. If we think of the human figure, we—I've lost my use again. If we think of the human figure, it's constantly balancing and counterbalancing and cantilevering, every single movement is finally calibrated. And so, so I think if we use that as a metaphor for everything, the grace and the harmony and the balance versus a rigid symmetry in thinking or in the visual, it's a big difference.

MR: Yeah. That could be, you know, moving beyond just simply templates and doing the same template over and over again, which is maybe a good starting place to the level above that is being more in tuned to what's happening in the moment, and maybe breaking outta that template and doing something new or just following your—

JD: The thing about the template thinking is that one, I think when one is in a group space, one's role is contribution, and you are at the service of that group in that moment. What I struggle with in terms of a template thinking or pre-designed templates, a lot of digital graphic record pre-designed their entire canvas. Everything's prepped, and then they're dropping in and sometimes even repurposing a whole lot of images in real time. And yet, to some degree that misses the whole point 'cause although it's a safety net, you're not in the moment responding to—you are already trying to fit the content into a pre-ordained image, and I'm not so sure about that.

MR: You might be resisting the change in the direction simply to fit it within the template that you've predetermined, and then you maybe lose something. You lose an opportunity in a sense, maybe.

JD: Indeed. I think it sets a dangerous precedent. You were talking about AI and I backtracked it.

MR: We can come back to that.

JD: Your question about AI, what was it?

MR: My thought was basically the way you're describing this expert level ability to balance and maneuver and have different skills and deploy them at the right moments and maintain the balance that AI, at least not yet. It has a hard time, you know, with that kind of complexity, I think.

JD: My take and what do I know, I'm just an artist.

MR: Yeah, same here.

JD: We both work off prompts, don't we? You know, in real time.

MR: Yeah.

JD: There's just more lag with me, you know, with AI. I think the issue that I have is that with AI, it's not so much that it's kind of trying to eat everybody's lunch. It's that, to some degree, people are outsourcing their thinking. I commented on one of your posts and said, "It's like a prosthetic brain out." People are outsourcing their creative process to AI or abandoning creative process. I remember in the Midjourney when it first came out, in an article that I read, it said, "It can't take away mundane tasks like the initial stages of design."

MR: That's the most critical stage of the whole thing.

JD: That's the point, is that AI—and the greatest advocates of AI are those who actually can't do it. Those who can't really draw, go. "Wow. You know, isn't it amazing?" So people speak about the democratization of various spaces from writing to poetry, and I think there's a level people actually believe that they've created those things because they gave the AI some promise. Not to take away from the really great prompt engineers who produce amazing stuff, but AI starts at the end and skips the whole middle. For us, it's all about that middle bit. It's drawing as thinking and, in that process, it can go anywhere.

We might have an idea in mind where we think it's gonna go, but it seldom ends up where we think it will. So in that process, there's the push and the pull and the divergence and convergence and divergence. Even in a fine` artwork, one is producing a painting, one is euphoric with the experience, and then suddenly you just lose it, botch it, mess it up, and have to pull it back from the edge. And then you make a mistake. And the mistake defines the direction. You have those happy mistakes in the creative process. AI just, that's just not—that's part of our humanity.

MR: Yeah. You kinda lose that process. Yeah.

JD: So, and I kind of go, if people are talking about AI and as an ultimate creative freedom when it's anything, but ''cause it's kind of it's freedom that isn't tethered to our humanity. Like a kite, you know, you cut the string, you know, and I think that's what we are kind of doing to some degree.

MR: My big concern in the post you mentioned around that, and we can wrap the AI discussion 'cause we could probably talk the whole session about that.

JD: Sure.

MR: But my bigger concern than AI doing things which obviously it's going to do, and it's not going away at least anytime soon, how far it reaches is unknown, but my concern was more for creative people, like you said, outsourcing the creative process, thumbnail, sketches, conceptual things, leaving it in your subconscious while you have a coffee and go for a walk, all the hard work of arriving at a solution. By bypassing that, you're actually losing creative muscle.

And then what happens when the tool changes because the AI company decided they didn't need that feature anymore, and the feature you rely on is now gone, and now you've lost all your muscle to do that work. Now you're kind of in a pickle, right? So my call was for creative people just to be careful about how they use it and where they use it, and to not give away too much of their muscle because never know who might need it.

JD: And to that point, and I mean, I know we gonna move on from the AI conversation, but it's relevant to everything else.

MR: It is.

JD: At a certain point, I don't see upcoming generations putting in the effort to learn things that AI can do. So will they pursue careers in these areas? Because most of the conversations are professionals in this area talking about how it currently impacts them and how it's a good thing, and you know, they can use it and harness it, but what happens with future generations where the less and less and less people actually put in the effort to learn those skills and at that point, what will AI be trained on? Will it become an infinity loop of copying itself?

MR: Yeah, that's problematic because of model collapse which is basically when AI runs out of organic stuff that we produce, and it starts to ingest its own stuff, it starts to really hallucinate and have problems, so.

JD: It's gonna eat its own tail.

MR: Exactly.

JD: Yeah.

MR: Well, you said something in there that I thought could be a good segue, and that was how you got to this place. What I thought was it might be interesting to hear your story of how you got here from where you began. It sounds like maybe you didn't arrive here intentionally. Like most people on the show, they sort of come from all over the place. So I would love to hear like from when you were a little boy till now, what would be that journey maybe in a highlight view, the key moments where you shifted direction, maybe that could be interesting.

JD: Sure. I think the people are only coming into graphic recording or into the whole area of visual practice as a career choice now because it's been—you know, but historically everybody has to come from somewhere else or has had to this point.

MR: Yeah.

JD: I've been doing this for 21 years down at the tip of Africa. I'm based in Cape Town, right on the peninsula, at the very tip of Cape Town. So I can't go much further, drive for half an hour, and you're at the end of the continent.

MR: Wow.

JD: I live on a mountain slope. My studio is on a mountain slope overlooking at a valley just five minutes' walk from the sea. I lead a less existence. I was born in Cape Town in 1968, so I think we probably are similar vintage. I'm not sure.

MR: Yep.

JD: Would you divulge your age on this podcast, Mike Rohde?

MR: I could. I could. I'm a little bit further along than you. I'm at '64, but my brother is '60.

JD: You're at 64?

MR: Yeah.

JD: Oh my goodness. You're in very good, Nick.

MR: Yeah.

JD: So I'm 56.

MR: Born, born in '64, so I'm at 59. I'm a little bit ahead of you.

JD: Oh, sorry. Born in '64.

MR: Yeah.

JD: Okay. That makes more sense.

MR: Yeah.

JD: So born I'm in 1968 in Cape Town. Then moved when I was six years old to a tiny, tiny town. The reason I'm kind of going back this way is I actually started storyboarding a little bit of my origin story, and for the first time certain things actually popped in a way that they hadn't before. Yesterday was my youngest son's 22nd birthday. We pulled out photo albums and I actually pulled out my photo album of when I was a little boy.

MR: Wow.

JD: I saw few photos relative to the digital age. When you look through that, you've got these photos as kind of that punctuate one's history, but scattered between that is so much stuff that's missing. One of the big things, I moved in when I was six years old, we moved to a little town in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. I grew up kind of in the center of it where I lived one block from my primary school, my junior school. Five blocks from my high school. One block further is where I studied art. I was seven blocks away from the theater and from the museum, and less than two kilometers from the art gallery.

So if I look back as a bird's eye view, I can see the edges of my entire childhood and all my experiences. In terms of visualizing spatially, that has had a huge impact on my work and my thinking, because I had the opportunity to be involved in all of those things. I was involved in theater and in set design. I worked at the art gallery. I studied art, I went to school in one—but it was all within a tight, small area. I think that's one of the big things that's defined me to a large degree.

I grew up with the—I'm a middle child with two wonderful parents. Both passed away now, but loving, wonderful parents, happy home. My father's fascination with books and history and art. And in terms of just his general interests, very much a kind of a renaissance man, very eclectic, but both my parents were involved in amateur dramatics. And so, as a founder, we got involved in that as well.

I remember being a young boy sitting in the theater while they were rehearsing for a production and looking at the set and running up onto the stage afterwards because I couldn't believe that there was this miniaturized world. There were the cutouts of the city escape and then the perspective just in the shallow space. I think to a large degree that's also influenced my work, just looking back, is the idea that even in the work that I do, that when I draw little people, they are actors within a visual narrative. They tell a story in terms of how they act, their body language. When they speak, it's dialogue, little speech bubble. If they're thinking, it's a soliloquy.

The whole idea of perspective or shallow perspective for a lot of my work, and I think in a lot of graphic recording and a lot of visual practice, the surface of the page is cluttered with content. You only have got so much space in which to draw stuff, but perspective or shallow perspective by breaking the picture plane, one can punch through that, and one composition content so that you can navigate that within space. So there's a spatial element to it as well.

So I think that's one of the things that defines my work as well as I think spatially. Even my studio, I have different workstations where I'll draw there. I'll be at my computer here, I'll paint over there, and I lay out my projects spatially. Then I navigate that space. I walk from one to the next. Then—how are we for time by the way?

MR: We're good.

JD: Are we good?

MR: Keep going. Yeah, keep going.

JD: I studied fine art, and then I taught life drawing and painting for a couple of years. That as well is something that's foundational to how I think and how I work as well. Again, all the principles of art and design and that we spoke about earlier. Also, I think learning to think critically and to view things critically. I don't mean critical in a negative sense. I'm sure you would understand that, but not everyone does. To be constructively critical. So as a teacher to be able to constructively criticize someone's work whilst at the same time affirming them and being generous with one's praise, but pinpointing where they need to grow or change.

We live in a world where one can if one criticizes somebody's work, they tend to take offense, but not see it as constructive input. I remember life drawing and life painting as a student and spending time drawing and painting, and then having my painting master come along and grab a brush and dip it in, you know, like squeeze out black oil paint and start drawing, you know, with a brush straight through my drawing and saying that, "This structurally the axis runs in this direction. The emphasis is there, the weight is there, the pelvis tilts that direction."

And then he'd walk away, and I'd be left with this kind of. And yet it did teach me to think in terms of structure and foundations. I still work with a pencil. Not as a safety nest, although it is, but because it's a thinking tool in a way that a pen isn't. You can't un draw. You can't un draw this.

MR: Yeah.

JD: As one teases out ideas and pushes and pulls ideas with pencil, those thoughts, those visual thoughts, those are kind of nascent thoughts, but until you pen them, they remain charged with possibility. When you see it, you can understand it. And there's this kind of it's draw, see, process, push-pull, and explore and then pen. So for me, that's—I think a lot of people see that penning immediately is kind of like a gungho thing. You kind of, you jump straight in, you listen, you draw, because you've gotta do this quickly because you really gotta race through because time is marching on, and you've got, you know so many hours.

MR: Window of time. Yeah.

JD: One can get a lot further, a lot faster by slowing down. I work on the sidelines with a clipboard, and I'm constantly doing thumbnails before committing. Some of those, I'll loop back to much later in the day. Some I won't draw at all. It's a way of testing ideas and my understanding of those ideas before committing. Learning not to commit prematurely as well.

MR: Almost like letting those form on the clipboard until they're at the right time to be placed. And then you would lift the concept up, and then build it in final form on the big board, it sounds like.

JD: Even on the big board, I still will map in pencil just a few marks. It might just be a rhythm or a structural line just to—it's not built out or developed, but it means that I'm able to work confidently over that and give the work a strength and an energy that it might lack if I didn't have those. For me, that's an important something. On that note, I work with a one-millimeter B lead 'cause otherwise it scores the paper and then a high polymer eraser, because not all erasers are created equal. If one has a poor eraser, the friction will fix the pencil.

MR: Doesn't erase it. Yeah, it forces it in. For those listening, A one millimeter B lead basically means a very thick, soft lead, so that it flows on the page and you could brush it with your finger and it would rub. Yeah.

JD: Thanks for the translation.

MR: I know what you meant, and I assume there must be people who maybe don't work with pencil much and wouldn't know what that meant to them. If you get too sharp of a lead, too hard of a lead, I mean, it can literally cut paper. If it's the right paper, it could be quite sharp. I could show you my 1.4-millimeter Faber-Castell with a soft lead that I like for sketching as well.

JD: Lovely.

MR: That's really fascinating that I've heard several people who practice, who use pencil. I like pencil. A lot of the reason I teach pen, it was more strategic in that when I'm teaching people, I think it tended to be too much of a crutch for people learning to draw. I wanted to show them number one, that using basic shapes is enough for now, and that you can do basic shapes with pen. And by committing, it kind of freed them from overthinking. Because I think the problem for new students is maybe they overthink it, and if I gave them a pencil, it would only reinforce that. So it was more of a strategic thing.

JD: That's a fair point.

MR: Yeah, in that context. Right. Not in every context though, but I use pencil as well.

JD: I think if one always relies on the safety net, you don't necessarily go beyond a certain points. It's how I work, not because it's right, but because it works for me.

MR: Right.

JD: If I were going small scale on a sketch noting in a notebook, I would work directly with pen and just have a really nice, you know lovely quality black line.

MR: Yeah. I mean, I've seen—

JD: But for a larger scale.

MR: Yeah, you probably need something. And at that scale you can see the pencil up close. That's another pro tip, I guess. Where you, up close to the board, you can see the pencil, but someone standing five feet back or something would never see it. Especially in contrast to the heavy ink that goes on. They would just—

JD: I don't actually mind if they do. It's just part of the honest process. It's not really about the big reveal so much as being able to get the job done as well as possible and as eloquently as possible. Sort of like a visual eloquence.

MR: Yeah.

JD: To be visually eloquent and articulate.

MR: Interesting. I'm really curious. You talked about being a life drawing teacher, you've talked about being a painter. Was there a moment when you discovered graphic recording as a practice and made the shift toward it? I'm really curious about that moment.

JD: I came into that from being a—after I taught, I moved from that little town to the business center of South Africa to Johannesburg. That's where I met my wife, and we had kids, and I lived there for 25 years. I worked as, as an artist, but struggled. I worked as an illustrator, as a cartoonist, as a commercial illustrator, so for magazines, editorial stuff, advertising and that taught me to be a chameleon, to reinvent myself, to brief. If a job came up, and they said, "Can you do this?" I'd say, "Sure." And then I'd go—

MR: What did I just get myself into?

JD: Yeah. And then I had to learn how to do that. My wife, her name is Yolanta. My wife, I remember one day—I did work obviously through agencies. So there would always be a middleman and generally, so often you'd find that that would be there'd be miscommunication from the end-client through the agency to me. Also, they would've been sitting on this for ages, and I'm at the end of the line in terms of delivery and they're charging the client the expedite fee, and I'm doing the hard work for them. So I remember my wife saying, "Why do you have to go through an agency? Can't you just go directly to the business?" And I remember saying, "My darling, you can't do that. There's just no way that you'd say, 'Hello business. Can I draw pictures for you?'"

MR: Yeah.

JD: Then in 2003, two friends of mine that were management consultants, said, "There's this thing overseas in America called graphic recording." And so, they introduced that to me, and we worked together where they would facilitate groups and I would draw at that stage, just standing at a flip chart and sweating, adrenaline. It was terrifying. But it didn't really work out. The businesses didn't need somebody to facilitate so much as have someone that could draw. At the point of which they went back to get a job, a year or two later, I carried on, and it took up for me from that point. I think that at that point I had this kind of epiphany. It was like in three parts.

Essentially, the one was you know, selling a cartoon or being commissioned to illustrate a cartoon or an illustration for editorial or for advertising, et cetera. There's a cap on what would be paid, what is the intrinsic value of that piece of art, you know, even selling a painting, but what is the value of a well communicated strategy? What is the value to that organization? That was one of the big ahas.

The other one was, you know, in terms of the middleman. And this was essentially my entire business model. There's the client and there's me, and wedged in between is the agency or the middleman. And there's the broken telephone of miscommunications up and down the pipeline because one doesn't have direct access to the client. There's the money aspect and what I'm getting paid versus what the client's being charged. There's the money aspect, and then there's the time aspect. There's the you know, "I'm getting this thing at the end of the line."

MR: Last minute. Yeah.

JD: And they've been sitting on it for a couple of months. You know, what if one can leapfrog that entire chain of command and I deal directly with the business?

MR: Just like your wife suggested, right?

JD: Just like my wife suggested.

MR: Your wife was right again.

JD: So I drew for myself a picture of pouring a cup of tea through a hose pipe, it arrives cold and late and, you know, how necessary is that? How necessary is the hose pipe? You know, you don't need it.

MR: Yeah.

JD: So, choice to go—I didn't abandon working with the middleman. I just went, "I will not work with a middleman who wedges themselves in the middle and doesn't allow access to the end client. I will only work with the middleman where I'm able to partner with them."

MR: Yeah, that's smart.

JD: Or work directly with the end user.

MR: That's possible. Yeah.

JD: That was a big sort of aha.

MR: A subtle shift, but important shift, right? You know, that getting the direct [crosstalk 44:27].

JD: Aha in three parts, AH-AH-HA.

MR: Exactly. Well, it sounds like then, you know, the two guys you had partnered with sort of fell away and you continued. Did you find it hard? I mean, this was early, not only was it early in South Africa, it was early, I think across the United States. I mean, David Sibbet's been doing this since the '70s and has had a good business down in Silicon Valley where there's lots of business stuff happening and has found himself in a great spot. But I do know, like, you know, 2003, 2005, it was pretty early.

I didn't really stumble into sketch noting until 2006, and that was just, "Well, this just makes sense to me." But I do know that that practice had been going on before that. So what were the clients like, and did you just have a unique angle that provided you access that allowed you to practice and continue that work?

JD: It was by word of mouth. The work that I had it created more work. So it kind of seeded new work.

MR: That's the best work.

JD: Just in terms of word of mouth and because there weren't other people doing that. There wasn't really competition at that stage. Well, you know, or just there weren't other people in that landscape. Although I might not have been servicing a lot of clients relative, you know, relative to what was out there or the potential that was out there. I was busy, or increasingly busy.

MR: It was enough for you, which is really all that could you think about.

JD: It was enough for me . And so, I kind of worked in isolation because I wasn't really connected at all with what was happening abroad. In terms of a journey of the explorational visual language, 2010 kind of going icons, and I created in collaboration with a local business. We started looking at building an icon library that we called Conversation. Still have the domain, but we never launched it. It defined to a large degree my work as well because I was able to use that as a visual thinking tool, less in terms of like high-powered, you know, high performing organization, HPO.

You know, and you've got rockets taking off at 45 degrees, equals or, you know, time flies, you know, alarm clock, you know, or whatever time is of the essence or whatever. It's kind of those where you pack where you have a whole swades of text and an icon sort of punctuating that. I think that that one can be maybe a little bit more thoughtful with those as a learned as a library. I think they're valuable, and I think it's good. I just think people are a bit lazy with them at times.

MR: Yeah, they can be. Yeah.

JD: I think where they're not really—what people don't generally do, but what I think is very valuable is to look at them in terms of the building blocks of the component parts as pictograms or for pictographic sentences in the sense. You can actually in combination build pictographic sentences or use them in various ways or build them out.

MR: Interesting. And so, then the practice started running. and you started serving local community. Is that still the case now? Do you focus on these clients that you've worked with for years? Have you spread out to more businesses in the in South Africa and I guess worldwide, and how does that work?

Especially, we sort of commented about digital. Lots of graphic recorders have shifted to using iPads to do the same work, but digitally because of the pandemic, right. It was a necessity. I do know that there's a few people, and it sounds like you're one of these who went in a different direction and maintained the analog practice, but simply upped their game with camera capture. So can you talk a little bit about that and how you arrived at it and how you use that in your work?

JD: I stuck with analog because there are other people that do digital better. For me, virtual is a huge chunk of my work, but not necessarily digital. I use digital for my illustration work, but not for live graphic recording for live meetings.

MR: Interesting.

JD: The reason is a big chunk of my time is spent in a kind of a visual meeting space where I work with groups exploring ideas and co-creating that visual. So instead of just listening and drawing, we have a conversation, and we push and pull the idea under camera and collaborate on what that looks like until one reaches a consensus view that can then be taken to finished piece of work. And it's full of parts—

MR: It's pretty unique. Yeah.

JD: - because it's producing that in real time and everybody's able to contribute to what that looks like. It's not my drawing, although I'm drawing it so much as a co-created output that is shaped in the space between us. So in terms of getting on the same page, that drawing pan beneath the camera is that page on which everyone gets. And so, it's a very powerful tool for groups to be able to all contribute towards a single visual output in real time and push and pull that. The reason that I don't do that digitally is because seeing a digital illustration spidering across the page as a disembodied picture is not the same as seeing something that's—there's an honesty to the messiness of the process, to scribble with a pencil, erase, rub that out—

MR: Not to sanitize. Yeah.

JD: - pen it. All the while, there's a hand drawing it, which is the human point of contact. So people are able to connect with it, and they're able to position themselves at any given time within that drawing because they can see where the hand is and where the pen point is.

MR: Yeah. It's a reference. Yeah.

JD: Where the pen is. And it's important. My focus is kind of on the humanity of like the paper and pens and hands and art.

MR: It's interesting. It's important for that context, and I think it provides a unique—like everyone's along for the ride. Everyone's had a sense. I've told this story before. I used to do this with software developers on a whiteboard, and they were there for the whole session. What they were saying I would be capturing, and then we'd have back and forth about certain things. Often, I would invite them to come and draw on the board. So altogether we would craft this visual structure about a feature that we're talking about and how it would work with maybe drawings in black and then annotations and say, red white whiteboard marker.

And they would be part of that process. Then a photo would go into a repository so any developer could pull it up and look at it or pull it and use it as a reference to build the thing we talked about. They really loved those sessions that we did together. 'Cause If you ask somebody at the end, like, "Who designed the features?" Like, "Well, we all did. We were all in the room together."

JD: Yeah.

MR: It's a really powerful thing.

JD: I think people are invested in that. That co-ownership is important in terms of workshopping and output as well. Because everybody's a part of it. At the end of it, there's a visual brief that everybody is agreed so constitute sign off. So there's no comeback. I don't need to—and it's a direct translation into a visual of our thinking, of our collective thinking as opposed to my interpretation of a brief, and they're different things entirely.

MR: That's really fascinating. That can be a challenge for those listening to maybe find ways to get yourself in a situation where you can be a partner in that sense of a group and do that kind of capture. That might be a challenge for those of you who tend to be just recording from a distance or interpreting, like in a sketch note where you're putting your own spin on things, but maybe actually to be a collaborator could be a fun, a space that you haven't explored yet. That could be really valuable not only for you, but more importantly for the customers you're serving.

And then they would see—I think what I see in that is people see the value of the visualization because they were part of it, right. It's often hard to defend why a visual is important. And yet, going through that process, you would see exactly why, because you were part of the process, and you saw it unfolding, right. Again, coming back to the AI, that's something an AI would struggle to do, right. To do that kind of interactive collaboration, I think, at least right now, but we'll stay away from the AI topic 'cause we could get lost.

JD: Yeah.

MR: It's pretty fascinating. It's really interesting to hear, you know, where you started and where you've come from and how your background really informed and provided you skills to do what you're doing now, which is really cool. I'm really, really happy to hear what you're up to and how you're having an impact with the people you work with. That's really, really wonderful.

JD: Thank you.

MR: Let's shift a little bit. I wanna talk a little bit briefly about tools. I think primarily using analog, if I were to guess, I would guess you're using Neuland, but maybe there's other markers that you're using.

JD: I use a mix of anything and everything. I'm not sponsored by anybody. I don't necessarily draw on Neuland paper. We can Neuland here in South Africa. I do work with Neuland, but I work with a mix of acetone-based pens. Just because of the speed at which it dries. So I work a lot with Copic. I still have the Copic wide and refills, and I use that a lot as well. Then it's a mix of markers and a range of sizes. I tend to work probably kind of like 900 mils—90 centimeters, what's that in?

MR: I'm not sure. The math is too heavy for me to do on the spot.

JD: Anyway, just in terms of, it's easily scannable. It's kind of like any kind of corner print shop size. The running length, you know, isn't the issue, but the height. I can get good high-risk scans. So I tend to work to sort of set size. And then, this week I've got the South African Innovation Summit. So there, I work on a giant, you know, on a 10-meter by 1.5-meter wall. And that's over two days. Which is pretty intense.

MR: I bet.

JD: I don't do that often. I used to do it a lot when I was younger, but it's quite physically involving.

MR: Physically demanding. Yeah. I would think so. Interesting.

JD: There I work on a roll of Fabriano. It's good paper.

MR: A big roll of paper.

JD: Yeah. That's the paper materials. Pencil and pens and sometimes paint.

MR: As a painter.

JD: Not only on paper, but I've done some events, graphic recordings where, I've worked on giant canvases with paint.

MR: Interesting.

JD: It's a totally different exercise.

MR: I bet.

JD: There's the layering and the flow and the freedom of it. It's less words and far more imagery and far more kind of essence than information.

MR: I would think. Yeah.

JD: Different kind of approach. I don't know what else there is in terms of—

MR: Pretty simple palette, it sounds like. Yeah.

JD: Yeah. I work full color because of what color communicates as well. How we respond to color. One can tell a story with, with color in a way that one can't in a monochromatic kind of visualization.

MR: It's a full richness in that sense. I'm curious—so let's switch to the tips section here. Popular part of our podcast. We collect these all at the end of the season and put them together in an all the tips' episode. So tell me, what tips would you give someone who's listening who maybe is feeling like they're on a plateau, or they could just use a little inspiration, what would be three things you would suggest to them?

JD: I think we covered them, but I'll put the—that was the speeding up to slow down. Don't be so panicked at how much work you need to produce, but actually the idea is to produce meaningful output, not just volume. So be kind to yourself and slow down.

MR: Okay. That's a good one.

JD: I said speed up to slow down. I meant slow down to speed up, so work slower. The other one is, I'd say, abandon the idea of perfection. What one needs to do is target proficiency, skill. So, practice, but practice makes proficient not perfect.

MR: I like that.

JD: There are no shortcuts, and there are. There's a yes and no to everything. There are no shortcuts, but there are. The shortcut is the more you practice, the better you'll be. The more concentrated that practice, the faster you'll get there to get to being good. So practice. And the other one is about learning the rules and the principles and the elements of what makes good art. Read up about that. Not from a visual practice standpoint. Sure, do that.

Probably somebody will be cross at me for saying this, but so many people have come through a how-to-course where they've learned the how to do this, but all of those courses, someone has a vested interest in that course. And it's not necessarily the way to do it. It's a way to do it. The more courses, or the more broadly one looks at drawing and art in general, and the principles of art, the more one has to draw on. It's to by all means, do that, but look more broadly.

So for instance, if one is drawing the stick figure, draw it well, practice it well. But then, if you've learned how to draw a stick figure, don't think of it as an icon that is a placeholder for a person. Think of it as an actor performing that visual narrative. And then you are unable to observe stick figures, obviously 'cause there are those stick figures. But if one takes another view and goes, actually all of us are built on a stick figure. It's called the skeleton.

MR: Yeah.

JD: Structurally, in its most basic form, a stick figure is our skeleton button. If you think of how articulated that skeleton is, how balanced, how fluid, how mobile, you could draw stick figures that are unbelievably eloquent and visually eloquent and mobile and flexible. So, observe the human figure, even if you're drawing something as basic as a stick figure.

MR: That's great. Those are three great tips, I think. Yeah, you got three. You can go more if you have one more.

JD: I'll go. Then the listening to understand is the big one. Our drawings communicate, and they're not just about the information that they communicate. We are not illustrating words. We're illustrating ideas. We're visualizing ideas and packing that idea into a picture. If we don't understand what we're hearing and jump prematurely into—and that's why I suggest having a notepad on the side, so that you can test the idea and check that you actually know what you—

MR: Before you commit. Yeah.

JD: - what you're hearing, whether it's in terms of acronyms or whatever. You know, in terms of misunderstanding, someone says, "The sky's the limit." And you go, "This guy's the limit, what guy?" You know.

MR: Yeah. Mishearing. Yeah.

JD: Or you know, how do you draw an unaccompanied minor? Well, you draw a minor in a hard hat with a light on the front, and there's nobody with him, you know?

MR: Yeah. Very literal. Yeah.

JD: So, what we hear is not necessarily what is intended. And a drawing is not just what we intend it to be, but also how it's understood. Apart from the slightly facetious kind of comments on—I think that we draw something with a certain intention of how it's to be understood, but ultimately that drawing is what the viewer reads it as, how they see it, how they understand it, how they experience it. Ultimately, that's what the drawing is. So, we need to make sure that we get it right just in terms of what we pack into that drawing, body language, et cetera, et cetera. That was a slightly convoluted point 3C.

MR: Or you could call it a four, right? You know.

JD: Yeah, you could call it. A clumsy four.

MR: So, all part of listening to understand. Yeah. Well, James, this has been really fun talking all over the place with you and exploring just this general space. I think these are some of my favorite episodes where we have fun and explore. Thanks so much for the work that you're doing, and you're having an impact where you are and influencing the world, and thanks for doing that for us and being part of this community. It's so good to have you as part of our family.

JD: Well, lovely to chat. The conversation did kind of ricochet all over the place. Actually, those are fun.

MR: Yeah, those are fun. Yeah. So let's wrap this up by, what is the best place for people to find you? Do you have a website or you're on social media?

JD: I do. I do. I have a website. That's jamesdurno.com. Just J-A-M-E-S-D-U-R-N-O.C-O-M.

MR: There we go.

JD: So jamesdurno.com and then on LinkedIn.

MR: Yeah, that's where I see you the most. Yeah.

JD: I'm on Instagram, but more active on LinkedIn.

MR: Yeah. That makes sense. I've seen a lot more activity on LinkedIn from visual thinkers, so it's fun to see people making an impact there and opening people's minds. So thank you for doing that as well.

JD: Well, very lively online community on LinkedIn.

MR: Yeah. Well, thank you, James. It's been so good to be with you. Thanks for being on the show making time for all of us. And until the next episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, for those who are listening or watching, this is Mike Rohde. Talk to you soon.

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.

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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 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:
https://rohdesign.com/concepts

Be 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/buymeacoffee

Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Peter on LinkedIn
• Ye Olde Website
• Peter on Instagram
• Show Your Work Book by Austin Kleon

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Moleskine paper
• Neuland marker pens
• Sharpie gel pens
• iPad
• Apple pen
• Procreate
• Mural

Tips

1. Create custom color palettes for each client/event.
2. Manage self-negative talk and nerves through preparations and rituals.
3. Approach your work as a gift to share rather than something to be self-conscious about.
4. Being positive and supportive of each other's work.
5. Look for inspiration from artists and eras that are not closely adjacent.

Credits

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

Subscribe 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 Transcript

Mike 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 is people in a room lots of different experiences, different ways that they want to apply this skill, insights that they have. You may have one or two people who are instructors, but we don't know everything, right?

MR: Right.

PD: And so, getting to learn with and from other people, and then seeing the confidence level grow because they already had it inside of them, they just didn't know it, or they were shy about it, you know, and you get to see them just get looser and more confident. And then to see people learn from each other—

MR: That's cool.

PD: - that's where the juice is.

MR: I suppose, too, that you, being a professional graphic recorder, your engagements tend to be similar, right? You're going into a company event, you're going into a conference, and they tend to follow pattern, like they're structured in a certain way. I think the advantage of maybe doing a scribing thing like this would be, you might get exposure to like, what does it look like if somebody does scribing as an internal person inside a company to maybe pitch an idea or to build a PowerPoint deck or something, you know, integrated that way. That might be something that you don't really encounter much just because of the nature of the kind of things that people are willing to pay you for, where you could see that this can have an influence, you know, in different areas of the business. Is that something you encounter?

PD: Yeah. It kind of depends on what world you're from or you're stepping into. So I think for a lot of people who grew up in some area of the arts, you know, it really doesn't matter. It could be theater, could be a 3D sculpture. When we see this being done, we're like, "Oh, yeah, that makes sense," right? 'Cause that's how we work. Iteration, sketch things out, try things, you know, show it to somebody. They're like, "I don't know about that." Then you recombine. And for people that don't just kind of grow up in that natural way of working, it seems really exotic. Correct me if I misrepresent your background, but you kind of came through this through your whole design UX?

MR: Right.

PD: Web design—

MR: Exactly.

PD: - path, just thinking with a pen, right?

MR: Mm-hmm.

PD: And blocking out images, text interfaces.

MR: Right.

PD: And so, that's what's really cool is to see that people come with different experiences from their different genre. Engineers are really cool to work with as well. Because that's like the four-dimensional thinking is what I call it. You know, they're able to think of stress levels on curvatures and screws. You know, that's not what—

MR: That that's not what we think about, Peter.

PD: Oh, I would put googly eyes on it and say, "There you go." Yeah, but one of the masters that I learned from early on, and this does come back to your point of being inside a company and seeing the rapid sketching is my first professional gig was as a temp worker where I was sent to an innovation center where a lot of my friends, you know, that we come out of that world, the accelerated solution environment, it's called lots of different things now, but it's basically people in the room trying to figure out software and how to make it work for a company. And one of the guys that was my heroes is Brian Kaufman, and he went to the Colorado School of Mines.

MR: Oh, really?

PD: He's a geologist. Yeah. He studied rock formations. And when he did drawings about strategy, about conceptual stuff, you know, it always had this time-based plus three-dimensional aspect that blew my mind. You know, I was just like, how does your mind even convert this abstract thinking into that? So there are lots of different family trees that bring us to this, you know, way of working.

MR: And we can learn from each other, right. What you saw there, maybe in some situation, if you somehow could get, like even the high-level understanding what he was doing, maybe there's a way to apply it, you know, in your setting. Maybe not to the degree that he would, 'cause he's got a different frame, but there might be interesting things you could steal from that that would make sense in certain contexts.

PD: Yeah. One thing I'd add that I saw him do that at the time was a magic trick to me was synthesis. One of the first experiences I had with him, there was this big 3D or three-day strategy session, and it was about software, software implementations, like SAP implementation for this multinational company. And so, people have been working in breakout rooms on flip charts and whiteboards for two days, and all that stuff was up.

And he came late, he parachuted in and then just walked all the different rooms and like, took everything in, and then went off in a corner and just started making models, sketching out models that synthesized a lot of that different stuff. And this was overnight, it was like late into the evening. So the next morning he presented that back and there were a lot of jaws that dropped from his capability. But it's a tool, it helped advance the work. So then people say, "Yeah, those two spot on. This third one, you're missing this critical aspect." And then it became a dialogue, you know, and a collaboration.

MR: Yeah. Opens up. Yeah.

PD: I think that's where it becomes really interesting, where you're not an artist in a corner or off to the side or the back of the room. You're in dialogue with the audience building something together.

MR: I think that's a challenge in some ways because we often think of the work we do as the dead end. I mean, we would call it a dead end, but it's like the summation, the ending point. And nothing changes it. I think that's can be—I know that from design side that when I include my customers, like when I used to do logo design or icon design, I sort of built this practice where we would have discussions in writing.

So I would try to understand what they were trying to do, and they would see every sketch that I made, and I would put in the bad sketches and the bad concepts, number 'em, and then tell them, "Yeah, this is not gonna work, and here's why." And so, it became a conversation. It was a means to an end, which was the brand or the icon. And I've noticed that too, when I did it with software where the sketch was just the means to the end, which is the software actually working. We're just using this as a way to think visually as well as like, we can talk as a way to capture that.

But it was never seen as the final thing that you couldn't—you know, it's not like some holy document. It's just another step towards the solution. And maybe after we use the thing for a while, even though we think we've solved it, we might have to go back to the whiteboard and draw like, "Hey, here's the problems. How do we solve these and make some revisions?" So thinking of it as more of a in progress document and a way to kind of further the discussion, like you're talking about, is pretty cool.

PD: Yeah. Do you use Figma, or do you?

MR: I have used Figma. I'm lately using UX Pin, but I've used other Sketch and XD.

PD: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

MR: Similar tools. Similar tools.

PD: I use Miro, you know. So it's—

MR: I do as well.

PD: So I think that that history of the iterations, super important. It's one of the things that I think generative AI shortcuts and becomes—and I'm not a doom and goner, I'm not, a like, "Uh, doh, doh." It's that it's so fast, and it looks so good, it looks so complete, but there was no process in the middle for the group to think through things.

MR: Right.

PD: And when you're using something like whichever tool we just threw out there, if you have that track record—and this comes from architecture and graphic design, having that big wall, right? Where you have everything up, you get to see the history where it went off the rails. You know, the end product may look great, but it doesn't work.

MR: Yeah.

PD: Or, you know, I forgot this key aspect of functionality or a use case or a user story that was like the whole point of building the software. So having that living memory is just so useful especially when the client has to bring their stakeholders along. So, as an example, I did a whole year-long project that culminated in just a two-minute explainer video, which looked really simple, but it was community health workers.

And there were interviews that we did. There were multiple whiteboarding and post it notes sessions. There was writing scripts. There were creating version A, B, C, D, trashing them all, starting all over. And we have all that in a huge mirror board. And that's what I use and that's what the client sometimes uses to bring their funders along and some of the institutions that they need to convince to be a part of this is to say, "Here's the story, but here's how we discovered the story."

MR: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really important to remember. It seems like every discussion in this season sort of touches on AI somewhere. How could it not? It's in every part of our lives now, right, at this moment in 2024. And I think the thing that I think is—if you use AI in the, I guess, I dunno if there's a right way, but the way I think makes sense is in tedious things that don't benefit from you spending seven hours, you know collapsing Excel spreadsheets into something, right?

That would be a great application for it. And it's bounded and limited, right. It's not asking it to invent something. Where it becomes problematic, I think from a skill maintenance perspective, is what you talked about, is like, if I go in there and tell it to do—it's like, take an example writing. I just wrote a post a few weeks ago about what it was like to be a designer in the pre-computer era. And I struggled with it. It took a long time. I had to fight with it and really struggle. I had to reorient all the information the right way.

If I'd gone to check GPT for an example, and I asked it to write a story like that, you know, it would've taken away that whole process of like, what am I trying to say? What's the message? There's a bunch of stuff that I wrote, and I just threw it away 'cause It was like too much detail. No one's gonna care. It doesn't move the story forward. And I think the same too with like visualization. It's really easy to go prompt and like get really complex with your prompt, but again, you're not entering into this understanding with living with it and iterating. And you're sort of losing that.

And I think that's where we have to be careful is not letting AI take over the thing that helps us maintain our creativity and our ability to see. I think sometimes, like you might be going one direction and then through this process you see like, "Oh, we have to change direction." You wouldn't see that if you just sent it off to, you know, some AI tool to throw something back at. You'd miss that and maybe miss these opportunities.

PD: Another fun thing that I've discovered is zooming in on whatever the AI has, you know, created. So like crowd scene, if you start zooming in, like the faces just start to become horrific. What I've figured out is—I'm probably not the first person to figure this out, is it's really an expressionistic and impressionistic tool.

MR: Right.

PD: So just like, you know, when we do sketches, if you're doing a crowd scene, you don't draw every single detail. It's just the suggestion of a face or leg or arm or shoulder or whatever. And then the aggregate, our brains as the viewer, we look at that and say, "Oh, that's a, you know, group at a café, or whatever it is. And that's what it's doing with writing as well is like it feels like a professional whatever. But then you start like zooming in. Like, this is a weird phrase, you know, that people don't use. They used to use it in maybe 1900s, or whatever.

A final little side note on the expressionistic part is I did a lecture for a group of retired business people. And I was just giving a overview of like, you know, here's some of the tools that are out there and some things I'm playing around with. And I showed this crowd scene of people in Houston. It was like, "Eh, that looks great." But then you start zooming in and went, eh, you know, all the jaws, all crooked and eyeballs are up there.

MR: Yeah. Yeah.

PD: I showed paintings from Francis Bacon. You know, Francis Bacon, the eagle?

MR: Mm-hmm.

PD: You know, and he did that on purpose. He'd painted like the Pope and it'd be all distorted and everything. And I was like, this is what artists do is, is we take snippets, we make suggestions, we use just enough information so that the brain fills in the rest. And that's what, you know, the computers and algorithm are learning from what we've done in the past.

MR: Yep, exactly. Well, I would love to hear a little bit more, I'd love to have my origin stories in these and so wanna make sure we have an opportunity to do that. You're born in Kenya. So take us from that point till now. What directed you to the place where you are? 'Cause obviously you probably bumped into a variety of things. You talked about your dad wanting to be an attorney and finding out like, "Oh, this maybe not for me, and went in a different direction because of it." What are the things that happened to you along the way that brought you to where you are now?

PD: Yeah. Well, just to finish up on my dad, fortunately he remained an attorney, but you know, he just took this turn over to Africa for a little bit was a teacher and then returned to the United States. I grew up in East Tennessee, in Knoxville, Tennessee in a leafy suburb watching those movies that are in the background on those posters down here. I'm a child of the late '70s, '80s, and drawing and doodling and cartooning and doing all that stuff, you know, watching a movie and then recreating it on paper and all that kind of stuff.

And then, as I mentioned got a lot of support to go off to art school. Never got any pushback at all. And was really fortunate the school I landed in was a university. So we had to take courses outside of just, you know, the fine arts and illustration and graphic design. So I was studying history and biology. This was in the late '80s, early '90s, as the Soviet Union was falling apart and massive transition in Eastern Europe and the first Gulf War.

I was the art director for a political magazine on campus. Which meant I did all the illustrations. So I had to practice, even though my name was next to everything, I would experiment. And it looked like 18 different people illustrated this monthly magazine. That was 'cause I was messing around, you know? I had different heroes that I was emulating, or I wanted it to look more like a wood cut, or this one more as like a super hybrid detailed drawing.

And that was great practice because in illustration, you have an assignment, so you have an audience, you have a theme. You have a topic you gotta execute. If you're a good, you know, illustrator, you have your style. So you kinda have these five ingredients say you're working with, and you got a deadline. So that was great practice, you know, and sure enough, Mike, I don't know about you, you're probably a lot more well-prepared. Every single time that magazine had to go to print, all-nighter. It was just like all-nighter, every single time doing all illustrations.

But great practice because I was working with writers, editors, the head of the magazine who was also a student, and learning to respond to other people's opinion. Then having to meet that deadline. So when I've graduated from school, I was super lucky. I applied for a scholarship, and you had to write an essay and submit work, it was a travel scholarship. So I wanted to go to Eastern Europe where all these changes were happening, and I landed in Poland.

MR: Oh.

PD: Yeah, I was in Poland and the summer that I arrived was the summer the Russian army was pulling out of Poland finally.

MR: Wow.

PD: So now we're like full circle, you know, with the Russians saying, "Hey, we made a mistake, we're coming back." That was a time where it was transitioning, and I was just trying to figure out what the hell's going on here. I'm not Polish, I didn't speak Polish. I was working in a school teaching English, but it was a school for local democracy. They were training young people to go into the local government, basically like state and regional government. And they were just, you know, learning the basic skills, computer skills, writing, all the economics. And then I was teaching English.

Through that I was really trying to understand and document what was going on. So it was sketchbooks that became my main, just primary activity was just writing, taking notes, journaling, sketching, diagramming stuff out. The organization that I worked for, they saw these, and they said, "Hey, can we use that drawing to explain that these people who are coming in to talk about sanitation or, you know, tourism, what's going on? 'Cause it'll help us explain it." That was another pivot point. I was like, "Oh, these little notes I'm taking are useful for other people." That was like the first time my sketch notes were used by my client to just get people up to speed and, you know, codify a bunch of stuff.

MR: Sweet.

PD: So I'm gonna jump cut. That was like time outside the United States. When I moved back, I moved to Chicago and was temping making PowerPoints, not having a great time, professionally. Complaining a lot to my temp agent who is my age. And she got a assignment that she didn't understand. She's like, "I have no idea what this is, but it mentioned drawing. You seem to draw a lot. Young man. You show me your sketchbooks all the time, so go check this out."

And it was an innovation center in Chicago. They were using, I think I just mentioned this a few minutes ago, they were doing SAP implementations. My mentor, you know, he parachuted in, but you're in software, so it's one thing in a design software, it's another thing to sell software and it's another thing to buy it and then make it work for your business. So that's what this large multinational company was doing, was helping people integrate this software into making their businesses more efficient.

And so, it was kind of a line from that moment where this organization in Poland looked at my sketch notes and said, "Hey, can we use that to explain what's going on to these new people, to just being in the process." So listening to people present, talk, creating big drawings or small drawings. And then they were part of the churn. So it was just iterations forward, iterations forward.

Well, after couple years of doing that and helping develop or open innovation centers in different parts of the world Including Europe and Australia, I just got burned out. For me, it was the same conversations over and over again. I did want to do more illustration, more storytelling and to kind of be out of that technical environment of implementing software. And so along with my—she then became my wife, with Diane. We started Alphachimp.

Then we're in the crazy phase of building company, being freelancers, starting a family and building that up. So I've gone through a whole bunch of different phases inside organizations, starting a company, being in a independent, moving around the country a few times. And now, I'm really enjoying not having employees, not having a boss, but having a lot of friends that I have all over the world that I collaborate with.

MR: That's cool. Yeah. That's kind of nice 'cause then, you know, if it's something you can do solo, you can just do it. And then if it's something that requires additional help, then you can call on your network and team up. That's kind of fun.

PD: And I think because of the pandemic, it's just so much more fluid, you know? It's just with everybody being able to collaborate online.

MR: Yeah. Yeah, especially with tools like you mentioned Miro makes some of that possible, and many other tools that make that possible too.

PD: Yeah.

MR: Wow. That's pretty interesting. And so, now you're still solo. You work with collaborators when necessary. I'm kind of curious, what are the kind of customers that you work with mostly? Maybe there isn't a group, maybe it's pretty varied. I don't know.

PD: Yeah. Fortunately, it is varied, but I did spend about 15 years in healthcare. So for three years I was helping to run one of these innovation centers at Vanderbilt University. You and I ran into each other in Nashville, a time or two ago.

MR: Yes.

PD: I lived in Nashville for about 10 years, and through that developed deep relationship with healthcare. So that's one sector. And I also really appreciate how the medical mind works because when we were doing software in other parts of my life, people would say, "Well, it's not neurosciences, you know, and no one's gonna die if we get this wrong." Well, in healthcare, yes—

MR: They do.

PD: Yeah, neuroscience is involved and human longevity and suffering are at stake. I really like working with healthcare professionals of all different levels. Whether they're on the medical side or the technical side or system side, because they know that there's a lot of stake. It's very complex. And then right now I'm in Houston, Texas. I've moved here in 2001, in October 2001. This is the energy capital of North America definitely and the great energy transition is going on.

So more and more I'm working with either companies that have a ESG or climate focused initiative. Last week I was working for a company that has 9,000 hotels, resorts, and properties. And this was with their engineers. I have to say it was 110% dudes. It was like big large men who have to keep the boilers going and the air condition going, and the water flowing. But they were implementing their net-zero promises, which are very difficult to do.

MR: Yeah, it is. It's tough.

PD: So that's the new world that I'm spending a lot of time in.

MR: I spent a little time, like three years with Johnson Controls in that space. So worked with facility managers and kind of an unsung hero in a lot of ways.

PD: Absolutely.

MR: You do a lot to make you safe and secure and keep the building going, and you're sort of outta sight, outta mind down in the basement. So really important people for sure.

PD: Yeah.

MR: I don't know if any are listening to this podcast, but if they are, thank you for your service.

PD: Absolutely. You don't think about 'em until something goes wrong. Then you'll be really glad when they show up.

MR: That's right. Yep.

PD: Yep.

MR: Well, that sounds like a pretty varied selection of customers, and you've got challenges that you're facing for sure with, you know, climate shifting. I imagine with energy, you're talking about maybe a move from fossil fuels to solar and battery and electric power kind of things. And that's gotta be a huge shift to think about. You know, how long ago we developed the gasoline car network that we now enjoy, at least from a convenience perspective, to kind of ramp up, you know, EV charging at the same degree. It's gonna take a while. It's not gonna happen overnight, you know, and we realize it's been a hundred years or something of building that network to where it is now. It's not gonna happen in, you know, even in 5 years or 10 years, maybe not to that degree.

PD: Yeah, and it's all the things. That's what I'm learning. It's not like, let's move to one thing, it's a total reinvention.

MR: Yeah.

PD: It kind of maps back to my first experience going off the Poland where there is a whole reinvention of everything, the economy, energy, power, the political system. And that's the unifying theme I think, at least in my life, is just trying to understand systems and visualize them so that people can make a decision about what to do next. And whether it's software or healthcare or energy, there's a lot of stuff, a lot of moving parts.

MR: Interesting.

PD: And there's a lot of them, just like you said, the engineers are invisible. A lot of these systems are invisible too.

MR: Yes.

PD: So that's what we can do as visualizers is help make that invisible system visible, or it is just so large we can't wrap our heads around.

MR: Yeah. That's a really valuable place for us to be, is to sort of identify the unidentifiable or the hidden things and make them visible. That's pretty powerful in an in and of itself, I think. Well, I would love to shift now and talk a little bit about the tools that you like to use. We'll start with analog and then go digital. You sound like you're using Miro, so you're probably digital guy too. What would be some of the pens and paper, and you mentioned sketchbooks, are there favorite tools that you like to use that maybe somebody could get inspired to try?

PD: Well, Mike, I've learned that if I buy something really expensive, I will lose it. So I went down the whole route of, you know, Lamy pens and all these different pens. So it's kind of like whatever pen I can get my hands on and find 'cause I keep losing them in my bags. And now here's the whole cupholder right here, just like randomness.

MR: Oh, wow. Yeah.

PD: Yeah. But yeah, Moleskines are still like the consistent primary tool. It's just got that perfect balance of weight of paper and thickness. It's like an heirloom object. You know, I would be shocked if anybody listening to this, it's like, "I'm gonna get rid of all my old Moleskines." Like, no way. I invested a lot of filling that up. So that's that is definitely a primary tool. I still work just in, you know, black and white, so just black pen and Moleskine especially for me. I went through this phase last three months of taking in a lot of information, so I was going to a lot of sessions, webinars.

MR: I saw that. Yeah.

PD: Yeah. And that's what I—you know, you're work is inspirational to me. I just was like, "I need to show this." You know, this is just these are my scratchy notes. They aren't even sketch notes. They're scratchy notes, you know? And it's not meant as a product to be displayed. It's me trying to remember stuff. So Moleskine, number one. Any sort of black pen that doesn't fade over time. So that was analog. And then Neuland markers. So when I'm working, you know, doing my professional thing, like that's the go-to.

That's a family-owned business. And I think Guido is either second or third generation, Guido Neuland. They have the craftsmanship. They pay real close attention to their users who are us, and they're always like throwing out, you know, new products and super responsive. And they're sturdy. I have those pens. I've had 'em for a decade. I still fill them up. So just in terms of a footprint on the earth, you know, you buy it once, you refill it forever.

MR: Yeah. Those are great, great pens. As far as black pens, if you did go to like a Walgreens or something, or an Office Depot, like is there a pen that you would sort of gravitate to? I tend to be the guy who's in, you know, Office Depot looking at the gel pens. And I like those because I feel like, I guess pretty much in any city that I'm in, if my pen craps out, I can go to a Walgreens or an Office Max and like find a replacement or something approximating it. Is there a favorite one there that if you had a choice, knowing that you would lose it anyway?

PD: Well, my daughter is 16, and she is very put together. She's got all the—you know, everything's dialed in, color coded, sleek, and so she turned me on to the Sharpie gel pins.

MR: Oh, really? Yeah. I think I've liked those. I've tried those before. They're quite good.

PD: They're pretty good. It does depend on the paper. I have this weird notebook that's made of stone. Paper's made of stone. I don't know if you've played with that. And this stuff just, you know, it just bleeds, so.

MR: Oh, really.

PD: When I teach as well, Mike, both online and in person, I emphasize go with what's easy and available. You don't have to plop down a thousand bucks on the high-end stuff. So I'm still dropping by CVS, Walgreens, picking up Sharpie from the school supplies, you know? And then I have the kit, like the professional kit.

MR: Right. It's got your Neulands and such in there.

PD: Yeah.

MR: Interesting. What about digital? I'm guessing you maybe use an iPad and a Pencil and some applications, or?

PD: Yeah, and probably not gonna sound unusual if people listen to this podcast a lot, but yeah, iPad with Apple Pencil and Procreate or Virtual Scribing and Note-Taking. Those are the go-to. I keep things fairly simple. So I developed—I either stole, bought, or made my own brushes in Procreate. And I keep it really simple. So it's like four brushes just because the more choices, that's the more cycling time you have to, you know, make a decision and go back and forth.

MR: Yeah, that's what I recommend when people shift from one tool to another is kinda limit the template size, limit your brushes, limit your colors so that you focus on very few and you don't have many choices. It forces you to really adapt to the tool. Then once you nail that, then maybe you can do some tweaking and stuff. And that seems to be a good—

PD: Yeah, exactly.

MR: - recommendation.

PD: We're kind of sliding into recommendations, but that's one of the recommendations that I have is, you're doing this virtually for a client, just know what the pallet is and then in Procreate, you can make your own infinite amount of pallets. So I have a pallet per client or per event, and it's usually just based off their corporate colors or their logo or the event colors sampled from that.

MR: We'll shift into tips then right away. That could be your first tip is, you know, create new palettes of colors for your events or your clients, if they're clients so you can keep them separate and go back to them. I do the same kind of thing.

PD: Yeah. Let's see. I was supposed to have three tips, so that counts as one.

MR: Yep.

PD: The other tip is around ego and negative self-talk. So this is not about drawing, it's about that insecurity. We all have it. I have it every time. Especially if I'm standing up and they're proud people behind me. Like, how do you spell any word? I forgot English. I don't know how to write. You know, the first board is usually janky and kinda awkward because I'm nervous.

MR: Getting into the groove.

PD: I'm thinking about me, I'm thinking about the audience's perception. So that negative self-talk, it's always gonna be there. And just, you know, getting rid of it. Whatever rituals you can do to help with that. A lot of times just getting prepared, like tidying up or, you know, if I'm working on Moleskine, just writing the title, you know, date, all these simple things, it gets me outta my head and into my hand.

MR: Into the mood.

PD: And then the ears just like, you know, focused on the content.

MR: I know a trick that works for me in that case is I tell the client and I tell myself, this is gonna be fun. I mean, I believe it. It's not like I don't believe it. But I think when I look at it as play and an opportunity to play around and have some fun, changes a little bit of my mindset. That often helps me.

PD: Yeah. There's only been one time I almost fainted in front of a crowd. That was 'cause I stopped breathing. The audience, this was doctors, they had just come from a really serious, I think, budget conversation. They were all on suits. I was Captain Goofy at the front of the room, and I just turned and looked at them. And in that case, I was like facilitating and drawing. So graphic facilitation, and I couldn't get anybody to smile. I couldn't get like—and I knew people in the room, but they were thinking, they were like in their head and the whatever. And I started to get tunnel vision and I got really lightheaded. And there was a guy at the back who was videotaping, and after, you know, we wrapped in, I went back there and sat down. He is like, "Dude, what happened up there?" Is like, "Oh, I don't know, man."

MR: I was freaking a little bit.

PD: I almost fainted. But that's a fear response, right. That's me worrying about me. So we'll put that all in the bucket of tip number two. Whatever habits or ritual you can do to just get in the zone. Athletes do it too. You know, if you've gotta listen to music or pace around. And then tip number three would be, yeah, you're sharing your work as a gift. And it kind of ties into that self-consciousness from tip number two is some people are like, "Eh, I'm not really an artist." Or, "I didn't do that good." Or, "I didn't—"

You know, it's like, look, this is a service, and if we're gonna help people move forward in their ideas or their progress or their process, this is a gift, you know, you're just offering. It's like, "Hey, you know, here you go." That's it. You know, you don't have to explain yourself or trash yourself. And the more you do that, the easier it is. You know, you separate your ego from your output. And that was that benefit of doing a call back to being in college where I had to like, pretend to be 18 different illustrators for that, know, political magazine.

MR: Different styles. Yeah.

PD: Yeah. I just wore that person. It's like, "Oh, I'm gonna be Alan E. Cober. That was one of my stars. You know, and do it in his style. So, you know, I'm saying you, I have to recognize I'm in a role and that role is service. I'm doing my small little part, and I'm giving back. And so just, you know, share your work. Austin Kleon, you know, he's got a whole book on—

MR: Show Your Work.

PD: Show Your Work. Yeah.

MR: Yeah. He's great. Well, that's really fascinating to hear the tips that you have. And they're a little bit different than our typical ones. I really appreciate them. They're great.

PD: I thought I was gonna be boring. Say what everybody else says.

MR: No, this has been a lot of fun. Well, I just wanted to take a moment as we wrap up before we send people to places to find you, is just thank you for all the work you've been doing in the community. I know you've been a huge cheerleader for me and inspiration to me. When I see your work, I'm just always inspired to see the cool stuff you're doing lot.

PD: Oh, man, that means a lot.

MR: Yeah. So it's really cool to have people in the community that you can cheer for and you can see the work they're doing and just live through how they're helping other people. So thank you for doing that great work.

PD: It's fun having friends, isn't it?

MR: Yeah. It is very important. I think we need more friends.

PD: Can I turn that into a tip?

MR: Sure.

PD: It's more like advice. Let's be positive out there, people. You know, it's hard for everybody. And so, that's one of the great thing, you've been a supporter of me. The people I respect they acknowledge that, "Hey, doing anything is hard, and here, somebody puts something out there, let's, you know, give 'em a thumbs up or a little added bonus." You know, all those whole comments like, "Hey, I really like the way you capture that metaphor, whatever." 'Cause We're all friends. We're all just still kids. We're just like, doodling. Like, "Hey, check this out." And you want somebody to go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. Look at this."

MR: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think I go back to that we kind of have this idea that it's a zero sum game. That for you to win, that means I lose. Or if I win, you lose. I don't think it's that. I think there's so much opportunity, there's untapped opportunity for us in this space to help people visualize stuff to the point that we're not competing with each other really. We're really doing it together 'cause there's so much work to do.

PD: We're competing against the robots now, Mike.

MR: Yeah, exactly.

PD: We all gotta stick together.

MR: Yeah, that's true. Well, if someone wants to find you, what's the best place to find you, Peter? LinkedIn websites, social media, what's your thing?

PD: Yeah, I think LinkedIn has really turned some sort of corner where it's actually been fun to hang out there. So I'm on LinkedIn. I'm just Peter Durand @linkedin/in/peterdurand. And then my website is Alphchimp. All one word, alphachimp.com. I am on Instagram, but I neglect it 'cause I'm just like, 'Beh." But that's @_alphachimp__.

MR: Somebody got it before you did, apparently.

PD: Yeah. I'm sure some like gamer kid, you know. This is how I use I Instagram, I follow artist-artists. So that may be tip number five is I look for inspiration outside. You know, from my friends, of course, but I look at street art. I look at old posters from 1900s. I look at Renaissance painting and illustrated books from the 1700s. You know, that's where I really get inspired is picking up visual language from artists and eras that aren't just like closely adjacent, you know, to the world I work in.

MR: I think that's helpful. Well, five tips. Well, who would've thought, Peter—

PD: Oh, bonus.

MR: - when we started, you'd have to drop five tips in here.

PD: Gotta pay extra for this podcast, baby.

MR: That's right. That's right. Well, Peter, thanks so much for being on the show. It's been really great to have you on and to share your wisdom and some thoughts with us. For everyone who's listened, it's another episode of the podcast, or if you're watching another episode of the podcast, until the next episode, we'll talk to you soon.

PD: Thanks so much, Mike.

MR: You're welcome.

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

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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 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:

https://rohdesign.com/concepts

Be 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/buymeacoffee

Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

WORK

• Blanche's website
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

PERSONAL

• Instagram
• Spotify
• Youtube

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Strathmore 400 sketchbooks
• Watercolors
• Soft pencils
• Textured paper
• Neuland Markers
• Molotow Markers
• iPad
• Procreate
• Adobe

Tips

1. Try different ways into the same activity.
2. Keep experimenting to find your style.
3. Keep a Sketchbook with you always.
4. Only show the kind of work you want to do.
5. Don't underestimate the background of being an entrepreneur as an artist.
6. Appreciate the part that you do well.
7. Drawing on public transport.

Credits

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

Subscribe 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 Transcript

Mike 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 that looks like or how that could happen. And every job is different. I don't know if you experienced this.

MR: Yeah. of course, it is. Yeah.

BE: Yeah, so a large part of this kind of work is that there is no cookie-cutter and someone comes along, and they have this much information, and they want it to have this much impact or this much information, and they want the result to be something—

MR: Fit in here.

BE: - you know, really small and punchy. You know, 60 pages in one, easy to read graphic. And you're like, “Okay, so let's, you know, work out what's possible within this field.” Yeah, and that's kind of a dance that's always going on. That's I think where my facilitation part goes.

MR: Got it.

BE: And then the graphic recording, I kind of love just being the vessel. The information comes in, resonates, finds images, finds connection. Okay, back out onto the page. That's something more like a dance or flow of a different kind.

MR: That's really interesting. I've seen the work that you've done is really beautiful. It's got a certain style to it that is very unique to you, I think. Maybe that's because of your background with visualization, drawing and painting and such. It just has a different—when I look at graphic facilitation or graphic recording, sometimes it can fall into very similar looking styles. I think a little bit of that maybe comes from where you're trained from and what your background is. I can clearly see that you've got artistic skills that you're applying in this way that's sets you apart a little bit. That's just me reacting to what I've seen, which I think is great. I think it really sets you apart and probably is why people wanna work with you. I would hope.

BE: Yeah, I hope too. It's interesting to hear that because often I think a style is easier to see from the outside than from the inside. I feel like I have lots of variety, but I have that in my personal work as well, I think. There's loads of variety. Then someone who knows me or doesn't know me will come along and be like, “Yeah, but these all are clearly by the same person.” There's something in that. I think there's a very strong part of my practice that comes from drawing on the London Underground. Years and years and years of living in London, being a musician and a graphic recorder.

And to be honest, a creative odd jobs person for many years. Like doing so many things and always on the move, two or three hours on the Metro for—well, the London Underground every day, and just drawing and drawing and drawing people. So you never knew how long you had, you weren't gonna see the people again, the stakes were low, the variety and the diversity of people was really high, and everyone's in their own world. I think that's a great trip tip just for drawing in general is drawing on public transport. Loads of people do it. So I learned that kind of like to speed and summarize expressions and scenarios in that kind of.

MR: Speedy capture, I guess in a sense, right. Like you said, the next stop that person might get up and walk away and, you know, you hope that you've caught enough to capture their essence as much as you can in that two minutes or whatever you have.

BE: Yeah, and it's a similar feeling to the graphic recording when the words are flowing past, and you're like, “I only have this moment to capture it. I can't capture everything. What am I gonna go for?” And it's kind of exciting and stimulating as well. It's something about life and movement that, you know, a static document, ah, you could read it today or later or whatever, but information that's in flow, whether that's visual or auditory, yeah, gives that kind of speed deep connection go to the essence.

MR: Oddly enough, as you talked about that, I almost had the sense that you were like a fisherman or a fisher person standing in the stream, you know, like, which fish, putting your hook out and hoping you grab the most interesting things and bring them to shore or something. I dunno.

BE: I like that. And then you're like, “Right, so this is what I've got now how do I make a great meal?”

MR: Yeah.

BE: And you connect it all up.

MR: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, this leads me to the next question, which is really common in the show, is tell us about your origin story. How did you get to this place? Because there are a lot of people that do graphic recording and do the kind of work you do. Obviously, you have a unique style. I can see it immediately. So going back to maybe when you're even like a little girl, like you said that you were the one who's doodling, just like, you know, I was always doodling and drawing, making something. Talk to me about that process. What led you to this place and what were the, the key, I guess, pivot points or turning points or influence points that led you to where you are now? That's really fascinating to me.

BE: Yeah. It's a long—all right.

MR: We have time. We have time.

BE: Thinking about that, in school, I think, part of that, using visuals to process information, which is something I wouldn't have conceived of at that time.

MR: Right. Yeah.

BE: This kind of phraseology is preverbal, basically, you know. So putting information into joints, sorry. I think that could come in no small part because I had quite very strong dyslexia as a kid. My letters were upside down and backwards and mathematics was non-existent. In fact, when I started school and started writing, what I wrote appeared to be gibberish which confused the teachers because they were like, “She could talk perfectly well, she was understanding, but you pick up a pen, there’s no understanding.”

And then actually what happened was one day it was my dad after work, he took my exercise book at school and joined up all the words, read them out phonetically, and then re-separated them. And it was something that made sense, but it was just I had made up my own visual code because I didn't get what other people were doing. So I guess that was some sort of creative solution, even though not one that worked.

MR: Interesting. Yeah.

BE: Yeah, that layer of like some kinds of communication being more difficult for me. Meant that I lent on others more strongly. And visual communication is definitely one of those. There was that. Then I think, part of it is being one of the people who never stopped 'cause we all do this as children and to some degree or another. There's a beautifully simple element of just being allowed to carry on or not stopping because it's a strong enough push. Meaning that I carried on, I had sketchbooks all the way through school. I think it was an art teacher who first suggested I draw on the London Underground at age 14 or something. I just started and never stopped. Now, I'm in my mid-30s and it's still—

MR: Still part of you.

BE: - part of my practice. Yeah. Also, I studied literature. So that's what I went to study after school, literature and creative writing, American literature and creative writing, which is how I ended up studying in the states for a year. And that all connects with storytelling. So, at the end of my degree in American literature, I ended up focusing on oral folk tales. And so, my love of folk art, folk music just grew and grew and grew and storytelling. And the idea that first of all that stories, they belong to everyone, they are accessible, they are living things. That's at least in folk music, folk art, folk stories, they don't belong to anyone in particular.

It's information and flow in community. And it normally serves a purpose. Education, catharsis passing on learning, creating connection. It's really innate and natural and belongs to like the very first humans that we have any evidence of. And we just update the ways in which we use that. So yeah, so I studied all of that. Feel free to push, prompt me, or ask any questions 'cause I'm just jumping all over the place here.

I came out of university, and I think actually I studied literature instead of art because my idea was like, “Oh, in art you don't get jobs.” For some reason, I thought that in literature you do. In my world that I was in, that made more sense. I know maybe you can be a journalist. I used to say to people, “Oh, well I'll be a journalist,” because it was the only thing I could think of that made sense of my studies.

MR: Active writing. Yeah, every day.

BE: Yeah, exactly. And I came out of university and I didn't think I was gonna be a journalist. I was like, “What am I gonna do?” I went to some interviews. I still had this idea that being in an office, chained to a computer, 9 to 5, that's what being a grown up meant. And I was gonna have to do that at some point. I was just playing around until like, that happened to me and then I'd be in it forever. Like, I really, really thought, that's how life is gonna go. Then I would go to these interviews and just shoot myself on the foot because I didn't want the job. Never get the callback.

In the meantime, I was going to meetups all around London, anything to do with arts. So meetups for people working in the arts, for artists, for professionals, for gallerists, for anything. Just talking to people and telling them what I love to do and, yeah, discovering really. At some point, someone, and it was in North London in a pub garden with quite like dim lights.I can't remember the face of the person that I had this conversation with.

But at that moment they were sort of like my guardian angel because they told me that this job, graphic recording existed as I told them what I like to do and how I describe things with visuals. And they were like, “You know that's a job. Right? I sometimes work with this agency that do this.” And they gave me the name. I gave those people a call and went to a very informal interview where they essentially pointed at a wall and said, “Draw while I talk.” I was like, “Okay.” I walked away, and I was like, “No idea what happened with that.” Then they gave me a call and sent me on a three-day job for a big trade show in—

MR: That's pretty quick.

BE: - with three other artists 'cause we always worked on teams with big jobs. It was essentially like single swim, like this is your trial job, but three days of it, which is great because I had time to like really get into it. And I never re-found that person. I asked the people in place. I was like, “Do you know who that is?” Like, so that was weird.

MR: Maybe it was an angel.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Interesting.

BE: Graphics, angel. Yeah. So then I worked with them for years. It was their freelance structure, small family business based in London and a freelance structure. I was still doing lots of other jobs around it. We always worked on teams. Almost always it was two to four people, and I loved that. It was a simplicity to—this is before I had my business, so someone else was doing all of the client work, all of the stuff that I now really appreciate as being like—

MR: Yeah, a lot of work.

BE: - 60% at least of the job. You just get the call, first one to answer the email, first ones that get sent on the job. Take a train, get your materials, take a train, set up, find out—you know, someone hands you the agenda if you're lucky, off you go. You find a working rhythm, like a dance with the other people you're working with, you know, tag-teaming the talks and sharing tips and styles and going along. And then at the end of the day, off home.

MR: Job is done.

BE: That was a lot of learning, very fast learning.

MR: It did sound like, you know, that you'd sort of prepared yourself for that with all the work that you'd done 'cause obviously they wouldn't have just sent you out with the other two people if they didn't think you were at least potentially capable of doing it, right? If they didn't think you were qualified, there would've been, “Yep, see later.” Never heard a call from them. So obviously, you gave them enough to send you. Of course, they hedged their bets, right. At least had two other people. They wouldn't mess it up. I'm sure that they must have had to think that way, or?

BE: Yeah. No, I mean the interview was informal, but they had their criteria. So they're like, you know, in essentially, because it's kind of recreating the circumstances of graphic recording, like an improv, little information potentially, you know, how do you perform under pressure? And what can you do? And of course, the main thing apart from being able to make reasonable lines on a page, the main thing with graphic recording is listening, you know, so.

MR: Right. Right.

BE: All of the literature studies, and I think all of the studies and the interests that I had in, I think beyond formal studies, the interest I have in studying life and the work that I'd done visually and visual summaries that all fit into the work. I like to go beyond keywords. I think sometimes graphic recording can be pushed—

MR: Keyword heavey.

BE: - too far down into the summary. And I sometimes find, I write a little bit more than other colleagues. But then also, like for me, there's so much contact in the details. And of course, it's a balance you put too much in and it's not accessible. But I really do think that the details sometimes give the flavor and the human connection. I don't know if that comes from studies and things where it's just the way that I feel about information and connect with it. It's in the songwriting as well. There's a word smithery. I think that that's connected to the graphic recording apart from the—

MR: Like a smithery is like a smith, you know, where you're hammering on, you know horseshoes or something with a hammer.

BE: Yeah. It is like a really old-fashioned word. I dunno where I got that, but I like the idea because it's sort of like exactly. It's like the tangibility of like physically working a material. I think you can do that with sound. You can do that with words and words smithery.

MR: Well, the thing that struck me when you talked about your history, the one that stuck out to me was the folk storytelling. So you think about where that's coming from. It's people who are probably illiterate in a written sense, maybe in those folk environments where the story was everything, right. You said it belonged to everyone and they would share it.

BE: Yeah.

MR: You had to be a good storyteller on the one hand. So that's the outbound. What about the inbound? Like everyone, because of that environment, that culture, that expectation that there's an expectation of good listening. Because if you don't listen, you're gonna miss the nuance and the beauty of the storytelling. So there's an expectation that you're listening skills have to be up to par. And that's bound into it too, which you don't think about it until you start thinking about the context.

So I would think that your listening skills probably improved quite a bit in those studies listening to lots of stories, I'm sure you listened to a fair amount of stories, spoken stories. So that was one part of it. Then the other thing that you mentioned too was so the keyword heaviness. I see that you're connected with my friend Dario Paniagua. He talks a lot about one of the tests he has for graphic recordings. He has a young daughter, and what he does, he gives it to her and he has her read them.

In a past episode of the podcast, I interviewed him, and he talked about that. He pulled up some of my work. I didn't know he was gonna do this. And he started reading it, and he said, “You know, a lot of the graphic recording or sketch noting,” maps, he calls them, “You read them, and they don't make any sense 'cause it just keywords, this and this, and you jump, there's no connectivity to it.” He found that the best ones are ones where you can read it almost like a sentence. I mean, there's still visuals in it, but there's some thinking of visual structure that makes it fit together. Would that be a fair way to what you're describing? It sounded to me a little bit like that.

BE: Yeah. I mean, I think visual grammar, which is so different to linear grammar, but is really, really important, and flow in the work direction as well. Guiding, I suppose the eye, which is something you learn in the fine arts as well in a different way. But it's connected to guide someone through a piece of work. And it depends on what you're trying to create as well. So, you know whether it's something that's very, very orderly or it's something that actually has many directions and like sometimes you're capturing a talk, and it's 1, 2, 3, 4, and you really need to understand that structure.

Sometimes you're capturing a conversation that is voluminous, and it goes over days or many hours. And actually, it can be read in many ways as long as there's somewhere for the eye to rest and there are connections that make sense. You don't have to block it up to be, you know, unidirectional. It can actually be yeah. More multi-directional. And I think it depends, yeah, what kind of information you're dealing with and also what effect you want it to be having, where you think it will be seen. You know, is they gonna be in a place where people can stand and consider it for time or is it gonna be something that people are scrolling past, and you really need to have ultra clarity to get straight to them.

MR: That makes me wonder too, I guess I've thought of this before, but this idea that the talk itself—so you, as much as you control what you hear and what you place, you have the degree of control, whatever that percentage is, there's gotta be some percentage, maybe it's small, 5%, 10%, 15% where the talk itself drives the structure, right? If somebody is distracted, and they're jumping around to different things, you can correct that to a degree, but like the core of the talk is distracted and jumping in all these places. And that's probably gonna come through a bit in the visual as much as you try to maybe not include it, or am I wrong in that?

BE: Yeah, I mean I think that depends. Sometimes the speaker is basically a gift, you know, and they have a really clear structure, and they tell you where they're gonna go, and then they actually go there, and then they summarize it, and you're like, “Ah, beautiful. You've done half the work.” Sometimes it's more distracted. And then, yeah, there's part of, I mean, working spatially means that as they jump back and forth, you can group in a way that they haven't. That is possible. Sometimes, I mean, you're working with the material that you get and sometimes if it's a very, very confused speech. There are limits to what you can do at the moment. Joyfully with digital, you can move things around a little bit afterwards, but in the paper world, what is there, is there.

MR: It is what it is. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. Exactly.

MR: That's really interesting. Well, and it sounds like now you've sort of come up to current date talking about your experience and where you came from. Really fascinating to hear all those different experiences and the way you approach things. It's funny that you said something about yours being a little bit more wordy. I think my default tends to be more wordy as well. People are surprised by this. When I wrote my book, I really wrote the text first. Probably 'cause I was a reader first. As a kid, I did drawing, but reading was sort of my source. My whole book was first written and once I had the manuscript structured, then I went and I illustrated the structure.

So there was probably structure in my head. I see that occasionally where, you know, visualizations are maybe a little bit more wordy, but I appreciate that in some cases. Unless it's, you know, just all words. I mean, obviously that would be—at the other extreme, I don't think that's too common. People probably wouldn't necessarily pay for that unless it was, you know, functional something where you're just in this facilitation space where you're getting stuff on a board and maybe then you reprocess it into something more refined, I guess, at a later time.

BE: Yeah. I think in the words, there's something about as well, like the human expression that people use when they're talking that they don't write down. Those things for me, really key to capture. Like, language is so colorful when we use it in the day-to-day and speak as warm bodies in a room. As things get formalized and written down and that can get reduced. So I think, that's where I like to be, I'm gonna capture that whole phrase because everyone who's there gonna remember the way that that was said and the emotion behind it.

MR: I think this is gonna be sound really strange, but I've been playing around with Grammarly. It's this third-party tool which will help you, I guess correct your grammar and make you spell things better and such. I just wrote an article recently, and I was frustrated a little bit with it because I think the way I write is I write the way I speak and I wanna capture that. I want that to be in the way I write. Like it sounds like I'm telling it to you. If I were to read it, it would sound like I'm talking.

I found that this Grammarly tool would make these recommendations. Like, “No, I don't want that. That may be technically correct, but I don't want it to sound that way. I want it to sound like I'm thinking it, or I'm saying it.” Which is kind of fascinating what you're talking about this, we say things, and then it gets kind of compressed and corrected into this readable form, which is not what we necessarily exactly what we said, which goes even further back to, you know, these stories that people told that were all, you know, oral discussion, right. There was nobody writing it down necessarily, right?

BE: Right. I was absolutely fell in love when I first came across authors who wrote in the vernacular, like to Toni Morrison and William Faulkner and people who would write the way, and of course, they were writing about specific communities, you know, with their own dialects and accents and everything. The writing would flow the way our minds work, the way our conversations happen and sometimes do away with formal grammar altogether and certainly correct spelling and all of that kind of thing. But it was just understandable in this direct and innate way, but sometimes formal language, we sort of have to bring it in and then understand it. It's not as natural direct to the system. Yeah, exactly.

MR: I remember encountering that when I read The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. The way he would describe these machines running across the landscape. He is descriptive. I was like, “Wow, I've never read anything like this.” And it really influenced me at that point, at that time to want to do more description. Almost like he was painting a picture with words. I dunno how else to describe that. So that I found really fascinating. I think there is a connection between literature and, you know, visualization. It's all part of human communication we're trying to express, right?

BE: Yeah, and it's naturally multidisciplinary. Art is graphic according you're a user of words and images in a way that's sort of actually in some ways kind of untraditional for each. The images are standalone, and it's not the words in the strict logical flow. It's, “Okay, what happens if we mash these up?” Very long traditions of as well, but it's a bridge. It's a bridge between modalities of thinking which kind of in that way gives broader access, I think. Because you can come in through the words and then let the visuals help you come in through the visuals and let the words help you.

MR: Yeah. I think about music, you're trying to express emotion and all these things that we talk about, if you think about it, they're still limited in some way. You can't fully express your feelings for the things you're thinking. You're giving a reduced set that can be absorbed because we don't have the capacity to, you know, mind meld like Dr. Spock and see someone's thoughts or feelings or emotions. Even the best of times, it's still a pale expression of what we think and feel. Right. So by its nature it's limited to some degree.

BE: Yeah.

MR: This got really philosophical. This is fun. It's really interesting to think about these things, which is why we have guests like you on the show to go in different directions.

BE: Yeah. I guess what you said, everyone comes from somewhere different.

MR: Yeah. Hopefully, you know, someone's coming to this, and they feel aligned with where Blanche is coming from. That's the point of this, is to really provide different perspectives on how to come into this. And of course, the limitations, we do our best, but we are limited. And I think, you know, doing the best we can does communicate. And hopefully, what we're trying to do is, like you said, you know, just a block of text, you can read that at any time, but a visual adds another layer and maybe sound would add another layer. Whatever we're doing, we're trying to communicate these ideas and as direct as way as we can. So I do think visuals are another way.

BE: Yeah. I think it's very much like building bridges between people, between ideas. Building bridges and all these different directions and creating ways into the theme, creating ways to connection. Yeah, I feel like one little piece that I haven't—I don't know, maybe you have another question, but something that I have in my mind that feels relevant in this space, if we're talking about all the different places we come from. You have a place that I did a little bit of training in art therapy, which is a place that has a vocabulary for things that I have understood for a very long time about the way the art works. Also, the accessibility of like, anyone can draw and it has so many functions. Some of them are communicative and some of them are emotional and some of them have all of those pieces involved together.

And so, being a graphic recorder, so part of the facilitation can be participatory and creating spaces where people can bring their voice either by writing or drawing their own pieces to, you know, add to some co-creation piece or by sharing their voice and then seeing it represented by somebody else. So that's a space that I'm also really interested in where there's being a graphic record, but there's also opening that space and everything that it potentially contains those tools and to more people, to anyone who's interested, or to anyone who thinks that way. That's something that I feel is a beautiful place to explore and important as well.

MR: Yeah, I agree. That would speak to being in person, right? There's some advantage to being in person. I think you can to some degree, do this remotely. It's probably a little tougher. But being in person—I think of the story I have is I used to do this kind of graphic recording or facilitation around interface 'cause I'm a user interface, user experience designer by day. That's what I do for my main work. And I was in a situation where we had a team of developers would come, and we had a big whiteboard and I would listen to what the tool was and how we were going to add this feature. So I would listen to what they were saying and be drawing on the board. I remember there's one guy would say, “How are you reading my mind?” “Well, you were telling me exactly what you were—I was just drawing what you were saying.”

But the best moments in those environments where when someone would have an idea, and I wasn't quite capturing it enough, so I would offer the marker, and they would come, and they would always say, “Oh, I can't draw as well as you can.” I was like, “Ah, it doesn't matter. Just do it anyway.” And they would draw on the board and express. Those sessions were the best. Often it was a very difficult feature that was complex. I remember one that it took so long for us to process, I think before we began, I think I drew like a gravestone or something and said, you know, “Rest in peace,” this feature when we finished. That was one of the features that really was well done because we really thought about it from all these perspectives, and it involved everyone.

If someone would say, “Well who designed this feature?” It's like, “We all did.” We were all in the room, we all contributed, we all guided. Some people even came up and drew on the board that weren't Mike. The purpose was not to do the drawing. The purpose of the drawing was to the feature. So it was in a lot of ways a means to an end. Those are the most exciting moments is when everybody was involved, and we were all— they were sort of buzzing at the end of it that I dunno how else to describe that, but it was really fun.

BE: Yeah. There's a line I have in a song that's like, “There's nothing made that beats the joy you get from making.” It's not just joy, it's also connection. Like that buzzing is, I don't know what endorphins. Things reaching your brain and things connecting. That experience expands your capacity, your memory, your future, creative thinking, all of that. So that's a beautiful example of that happening.

MR: Yeah. That's great. I still remember that was, I dunno, 2016, 2017, so years and years ago. Still when I see those people, they mentioned it too, so it was clearly impactful on them as well.

BE: When did you start graphic recording?

MR: I didn't know what graphic recording was actually. I stumbled into sketch noting on my own because I was frustrated back in 2007. But it had been going on a long time before that. If you look back to David Sibbet and maybe even some of his contemporaries were doing in the ‘70s, maybe even the ‘60s, sort of visualizing discussion. I suspect it's been going on longer than that under different names.

BE: Absolutely.

MR: So I really just stumbled into it. And I didn't know that graphic recording was a thing until I met the organization and turned out that we were kind of doing similar stuff. So it was pretty interesting to stumble into this space with my people. “Hey, these are my people.” So it worked out.

BE: Yeah. Like, you're already doing it and then, oh.

MR: Yeah. That was really great. Well, this has really been fascinating to kind of unpack your history and how all these were opening up the space to look at what you do from all these perspectives. It’s really fascinating. I'm glad we had a chance to open that up, and you were willing to.

BE: Yeah. Thank you for proposing the conversation.

MR: Yeah. Yeah. So I think now unless you'd like to add anything, sounds like we're at your current, your space where you're at now, independent, of course, you're appreciating all the selling and all the paperwork and all the logistics that the company did for you which now you have to do on your own.

BE: Exactly. but also, there's hardness to it and there's also actually being able to accompany a whole process, control, and, I dunno, thoroughness, detail, being able to—yeah.

MR: Participate from end to end. Yeah.

BE: Yeah., yeah. It's beautiful too.

MR: I guess influence too, right? I mean, you hinted at this before, you think of facilitation as, “My customer wants to achieve this thing, they don't know how to get there. They have all this material, or they have no material. How do I facilitate them getting to this end point with my experience knowing kind of what they want to achieve?” That's kind of fun, right? In a lot of ways, you're facilitating them achieving what they want to express, which is a little different than being in the room facilitating.

BE: Yeah, it is.

MR: In some ways it's the same and different. I dunno.

BE: Yeah, it has a lot of back and forth. Ping ponging ideas back and forth and going through iterations and finding the unique shape for that particular thing. Then of course, it's really nice if what they're communicating is something that you really wanna support, as much and as often as possible, which I feel like happens quite naturally, which is very, very lucky. But yeah, exactly.

MR: That could be the benefit of having your own firm, right? Where you get to choose like those people while, you know, I could do that work, maybe it just doesn't quite align with what I want to do right now, but that client really aligns. And so, it's a little bit easier to make that—and you have that choice, right? They emailed me, “Hey, Blanche, can you do this thing? We got two other people. Are you in?” Then you have to make a choice, maybe not even fully understanding like what the ask is other than you show up and do stuff.

BE: Even who the client is, sometimes.

MR: Yeah.

BE: No, absolutely. That's a really important part of working for yourself is you can decide who to work with and where to go into and whatever work you show in your portfolio and all of this, like, that's what will come towards you. For me, that's one way to make that choice is I choose what to show and that's naturally fed that. I don't think I have anything that I wouldn't wanna show from quite a few years of work, but because also that kind of natural feedback loop.

MR: Yeah. What you do attracts more of what you want to do, right?

BE: Exactly. Yeah.

MR: I think that's a really good way to think of it. Something to remember too when you're faced with that decision like, “I don't know if I feel good about this.” That might be a red flag to say, maybe it's not for you. Even though it's good work and maybe you need the money. Maybe if you're not proud of it, maybe that's a flag for you to pay attention to. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. I don't know if I thought this, or I probably heard it somewhere, but like, just the idea that, “That's a great opportunity for someone, but not me right now.” For whatever reason, you know, like great opportunity. But you know, after the first years of starting off on your own and taking everything that comes and feeling like you should never say no. Learning to be like, it's okay to say no sometimes, you know? That's also an important part.

MR: Yeah. That's part of the whole decision-making process.

BE: Yeah.

MR: I think if you're not into it either, you're not gonna be helpful to the customer, so you're really not serving them as well.

BE: Absolutely.

MR: It serves both you and them to find the right person.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Interesting. Well, this would be a good time for us to switch into tools. Now, it sounds like you do some analog, or at least you have. It sounds like you do digital. You hinted at that as well. Let's start with the analog tools, you know, pens, pencils, notebooks, paper, any kind of things that you find are helpful in the work you do that might be something interesting for someone listening to go check out and play with. Maybe that's their thing, and they've just never heard of it before.

BE: Well, the first thing that comes to mind, for me, the most simple and the most obvious is having a sketchbook, and just that personal practice. That means that your visual world is always alive and growing. I make my own sketchbooks most of the time, so that's not very helpful.

MR: I was gonna ask that.

BE: It's a really nice thing that you can do is the simplest thing in the world, fold paper, tear paper, you know, make some holes and stitch it up, put some kind of cover on that you like. But yeah, finding materials that really feel good to you, touch them every single day, you know? I love watercolors and I like soft pencils. So where you can make the softest line and the heaviest line with the same tool and just lean into it and make it change. Let's see. In my early days of graphic recording, it was all on firm board because that was what the agency did. I really do like the finish sometimes of firm board, but I don't like the ecological aspects. Especially if I don't think they're gonna keep it and use it, you know?

MR: Right. Throw it away.

BE: Now that everything is so digital very often they'll take the digital image on, throw it away.

MR: Chuck it, yeah.

BE: Yeah. So, my preference is now paper. There's many papers. There's one I find in a local shop. It's almost like a canvas like weave. Still quite light, but it has a little bit of texture, which is nice. Then actually on live graphic recording work, I still like to use pencils. Although in the end I go with the marker. I have quite a sketchy style. And so, with a pencil I can be free and create a sketchy style. Then on top of that, work with the marker. Not always, there's time, you know, two layers is not always possible. But yeah, that’s for the analog. I suppose I am one of many to use Neuland because they're refillable and it's just—

MR: Excellent work. Excellent tools. Yeah.

BE: Yeah. As well as being excellent tools and refillable and that's great. And then also in recent times, oh no, what they're called Molo—maybe we could put it in the show notes.

MR: Was that it, Molotow?

BE: I think so. Yeah, I think so. They're also refillable, kind of acrylic markers that you can get really great colors in and mix your own colors and everything.

MR: I think that's also a German brand, if I'm not wrong. I think that's a German based brand.

BE: Yeah. I went to their shops, and it looks like all kind of like graffiti stuff that works really well for this.

MR: Yeah.

BE: Also, something else that I really enjoy, or maybe I wouldn't do this on every job, but paper cuts out, cutting out signs, cutting out lettering, cutting out creatures, making skyline profiles, you know, depends on the time you have and the budget if you're doing preparation or not, but that can be like another physical element that's really nice to have.

MR: Interesting. Soft pencils, handmade notebooks. I did see there's a short course from Domestika on making your own books. That could be interesting for someone to look up. I can see if I can find a link to that. I know my friend Marro Tuseli was really into hand making books. They were pretty simple with paper. Is there a size that you like? Is there a size you like when you go to the tube?

BE: Yeah.

MR: They are quite small.

BE: Quite like this size, and then they change shape. But I tend to like the tall ones all because I write a lot. So it's writing and drawing. Okay. And mine are really rough around the edges, and I think that's what I encourage anyone who wants to do it. It doesn't all need to be neat. I don't cut paper, I tear it. They're very rough and very lovely. You can make them as finished as you want, but it's actually very accessible way of creating something that feels unique for yourself.

MR: I think too, if you've just torn the paper and put it together yourself, it's a little less precious in some way that—you know, when I first bought Moleskines, I had a resistance to use them 'cause they were too beautiful to use. I thought I would wreck it. And I learned, you know, doing teaching, I just bring a ream of printer paper and hand out the paper and a simple marker because, so you screw it up, you crumple it up, and we recycle it, life goes on, you know.

BE: Yeah. That's great. Any tools that help with perfectionism are great because perfectionism or fear of breaking the, the blank in graphic recording is great for that anyway cause when the event starts and you're like, “I dunno what's gonna happen, but it's gonna happen.”

MR: That's the fun part. Yeah. I think.

BE: Exactly.

MR: The other tidbit I thought about too, as you talked about shifting from foam board to paper and that you specifically like the paper with a little texture because I think for most graphic recorders that I've encountered, they like a smooth paper with very fine if any tooth. It sounds like you're actually okay with that. Maybe that's because you're coming from an artist's perspective that maybe you actually like the feel of that. Maybe it gives the look that you're trying to hit with your pencil that you lay, huh?

BE: Yeah, I think there's something about the actual experience, So like the texture.

MR: Yeah. Feeling it.

BE: With material, you get that little bit of resistance. I think I'm quite like a firm maker, and so I like to feel that kind of resistance. Also, the finish looking at something. we live in such a world of screens and everything on screens is flat and shiny and textless.

MR: Yeah, that's true.

BE: And so, for an actual thing that's in space with you, for me, the more texture and presence it has, there's more connection for me.

MR: That's just an observation. Pretty interesting. Sounds like pretty much stuff you can get at any art store if you're listening.

BE: For sure.

MR: Soft pencils, textured paper, tear it up and make it into a book. rolls of it on a—you know, it might be interesting for a major graphic recorder's listening who's got our training. Maybe they challenge themselves and go with a little bit textured paper this time on the next job and just see how it feels.

BE: Yeah.

MR: Pretty interesting. You mentioned you use digital. I assume you're using on iPad. What's the tool of choice that you like?

BE: I am indeed on the iPad. In the very early days of the pandemic before I had an iPad and I hadn't fully moved into digital, I just made the leap as everybody else did at the same time, and I was using a computer that overheated regularly and a Wacom tablet. Had about a three-second delay.

MR: Oh boy.

BE: You know, you're just going on faith that what you're doing down here is gonna appear up there.

MR: Eventually.

BE: Eventually. That was very nerve-wracking, but when I got my hands on an iPad, I was like, “Okay, yeah, this is better.” So I use iPad, I use Procreate as to many colleagues. Other programs that I find really useful are the Adobe World because actually apart from the actual graphic recording itself, very often you're either taking photographs of work, you know, in uneven conference hall lighting and on [unintelligible 00:54:32] paper or something, and you need. And I do a bit of photography as well. I've got a light room. It's really great for, you know, getting a really—

MR: Corrections.

BE: - and light on everything. For corrections. Obviously, Photoshop as well. And there's a lot of pinging back and forth. So you maybe like take the photos, send it into Lightroom, clean it up the light, and then send it into Photoshop and clean up some other aspects and then send it back into Procreate and you know, add some extra drawings because you can. So there's sort of whole—sorry, it just started to hail, I think. I hope that's not too loud.

MR: That's the life of a podcaster.

BE: Yeah. But yeah, so all of those tools I find really useful in different ways. And I think that there's loads also like I have Adobe 'cause I use it a lot, but there's a lot of free tools that do all the same things. And it's just finding the ones that work for you. Also, I often find it's really unexpected what's gonna help. So like in the last project that I was doing, and basically an illustrated booklet front to back, the whole thing. It was quite like a large project. There were like 12 illustrations in it or something.

MR: Wow.

BE: And it was for a printed piece, which I love because I'm like, “Oh, you know, I have a beautiful project.” Yeah, equality in schools and really lovely thing. And I was really happy to know that it was gonna be printed, but also was talking to them about other ways of accessing it for people who weren't there that day or things like this. I've used InDesign a lot not normally this kind of work, but for creating catalogs for exhibitions. Creating liner notes for album artwork, you know, all this kind of thing. And I was like, “Hey, you know, I can make you an online PDF booklet where people can also go online and, you know, it's got the sound wosh as the pages go over and people can use an index to click back and forth and, and find all the pieces.”

MR: Interesting. Interesting. Well, that's really cool that you gave them an additional space that they maybe hadn't thought of, you know, thought of the physical. This provided something a little bit more. Interesting.

BE: All the tools cross-pollinate in the end. There's almost nothing you learn that isn't useful somewhere down the line. That's what I'm learning.

MR: And the hail is back. The hail is back.

BE: Yes. Maybe that's a sign.

MR: Coming and leaves. Let's talk a little bit about tips that you might offer for someone. So this is a good spot where I frame it that maybe there's someone listening who's a graphic thinker of some kind, maybe they need some inspiration, maybe they're just in plateau, and they need some encouragement, what would be three things you would tell them could be practical, they could be theoretical, to help them maybe go to the next level or just think of things a little differently.

BE: One would be to try different ways in to the same activity. So I did one recently, there was challenging myself to only draw, so not to write and then to go in afterward and give and write drawings.

MR: Annotate. Yeah.

BE: Annotate. Exactly. Not necessarily with exactly the words that were said, but like pulling from the drawings and then maybe you come out with something that was more synthesized than something came out in a long way. Instead of immediately writing all of that down and then trying to find illustration for it, you go straight to the visual meaning and then extrapolate back into it. So that's a fun game. And then, I dunno, experiment and find your own style. Like you said, there's a lot of people, some graphic recording can go into base in the style, and it's useful to have some plates, but also like, mess around with different materials and brushes or, or pencils or, you know, even digitally brushes and procreate, whatever it is. Like to find something that feels yours. I recommend.

I don't know what other things, keep a sketchbook, only show the work you wanna do. I'm just repeating myself now, but those are things I think that are really important. And I think don't underestimate the background work to being an entrepreneur as an artist in any way, in any field. And appreciate that part that you do as well.

MR: That's good to remember. Especially even if you're someone who does it on the side, appreciate all the work that not only that it's—you could really easily fall into the trap, “Oh, I have to talk to the client, I have to do this, I have to do that.” That can lead you to a place where you think of it negatively. Sometimes, this idea that “I get to do, I get to do,” could be a really interesting mental shift where yes, you have to do it, but you also get to do it. If you are responsible, you can change it. That's where you want to be, because then you can adapt to the situation or offer something that they had never thought of. So that's a positive thing.

BE: Yeah, yeah. There’s a quote I heard the other day, oh gosh, I really hope I'm right, saying it was Tony Morrison. It was, “Freedom is a freedom to choose your own responsibilities.” I feel like as an entrepreneur that kind of thing is that, you know, very much to remember that because a lot of things can feel like obligation and there are favorite and not favorite parts of every process. But stepping into that space and taking those pieces on it, that's a chosen freedom, if that makes sense.

MR: Interesting. The other quote I remember is from Mike Tyson, the boxer has this quote, he says, is that—I forget exactly how to say it, but it was something along the lines of “Discipline is doing the things you hate like you love them.” That was pretty deep, right? What if you took the things you hated to do that you acted like you loved them, like training and doing all the things that—getting up at 5:00 in the morning to do the thing that you don't wanna do. What would happen if you switched your mindset to say, “I love doing that.” That's kind of an interesting perspective, I guess along the similar lines of opportunity and choosing your responsibilities. Another thing as well.

BE: Yeah. Nice.

MR: This is the philosophical episode for those who've made it this far. We're just talking about philosophy all over the place.

BE: Sorry, I dunno if that was the plan, but I've enjoyed it.

MR: No, this is fantastic. Yeah, no, I love it. Each episode is unique, and each person brings their own unique perspective. And I appreciate the work that you're doing, Blanche, I love that you're doing it so uniquely that you're not necessarily following a pattern, that you're following your own way. I think that's really great because that encourages other people who see your work to do the same thing. I think we need more personality and variety and instead of everyone getting squished into all doing the same thing, like that would get quite boring. So I'm glad that you're doing that, and I appreciate that you are doing it and following your path that makes sense to you. So, thank you.

BE: It’s a wiggly path, but I'm on it.

MR: Good.

BE: Yeah. Very good.

MR: Now this would be a good time to ask what are the best places to connect with you, to see more of your work, to find you? Where are the places that you hang out? I know we crossed paths in LinkedIn, your Blanche Illustrates on LinkedIn if you wanna find her there. What would be some other good places to find you?

BE: For my graphic recording work and graphic facilitation work, that's all Blanche Illustrates. So that's my website, www.blancheillustrates.com. My LinkedIn and on Instagram as well, Blance Illustrates. And then my personal artwork and some music can be found at Blanche Ellis Art, which is, so it's quite a different aesthetic, a different world. Through there there's links to other places. I have music on Spotify, on YouTube, and all around the place, just under my name Blanche Ellis.

MR: Great. So Blanche Ellis or blancheillustrates.com is the one that I see here that's got your work-work.

BE: Yeah. Exactly. My work-work. Then there's a million personal projects always running behind and most of them are under Blanche Ellis Art, yeah, exactly.

MR: Okay, great. Well, we’ll put those in the show notes for sure and let people connect with you and find you. Thanks so much for being on the show. It's been really fun to have you and have this very deep discussion. I think it's good every now and then we get into these deep discussions. I look forward to them. So thank you for participating and sharing that with me.

BE: No, thank you. I've really enjoyed that. As I said to you at the start, I'm not a public speaker, so I really appreciate speaking with someone who makes that really easy.

MR: Yeah, no, you did great. You're a really fascinating person. So for those who are listening or watching, it's another episode of the podcast. Until the next one, we'll talk to you soon.

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Watch the workshop video for FREE at:

https://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 Javier Navarro
• Origin Story
• Javier's current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Javier
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Javier's website
• Drwaing Your Mind Instagram
• Javier on Instagram
• Drawing Your Mind LinkedIn
• Javier on LinkedIn

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Moleskine Paper
• Windsor & Newton Paper
• Pentel fine tip brush pen
• Neuland markers
• Pantone Tria markers
• iPad
• Procreate

Tips

1. Don't be obsessed with perfect illustrations.
2. Work around your strengths.
3. Improve your craft one step at a time.
4. Ask clients a lot of questions before the onset of a project.
5. Prep a lot.
6. Always remember that it is all about the audience.
7. Train your mind to be visual 24 hours.

Credits

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

Subscribe to the Sketchnote Army Podcast

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 see people around wearing clothes, and in a very quick brain synapses, you understand who that person is. And it's something very unconscious happening.

For me, that was the most important and interesting part of fashion because anthropologically, you can tell a lot, there's a lot of industries involved, the economy is always looking ahead in a way, is not casual at all. There are many layers, interesting layers about it. There's a lot of storytelling because we tell unconsciously stories through fashion. Even if you choose not to follow fashion, that is another—

MR: That is a story. Yeah.

JN: - statement. There's a statement, but there's still a story there. You are editing that story, you're casting the elements that you need to work around it. So there's definitely a visual narrative that at any level, all of us do. That said, at a personal level, I didn't find a way to monetize that point of view and that interest. It was the capitalist side of it that I was struggling with, because at some point it's like, it's overproducing. That was my personal experience.

From a visual storytelling perspective, I know that we do. From one place or the other, we all have clothes at home we pick up and there's a inner narrative and there's a very unconscious choice. I mean, we pick up what we wear from very significant places without even knowing. You're attracted to certain colors, certain textures, certain shapes, and there's a reason why. To me, that's storytelling as well.

MR: It's down to almost the instinct level in a way, right? It just feels right. I know that I'm fascinated by clothing. I don't know that I'm very fashionable necessarily, but I'm very picky about—when I go to the store, I have to touch the fabric and feel it, like there's something tactile about it. The shirt that I'm wearing now is actually a service—it's a shirt for people that work on cars, but there's some really nice details about it, because it's nice, heavy cotton. The buttons are actually hidden behind a panel here.

The idea is when you're working on a car, if you have buttons exposed, you're gonna tear them off, sliding under the car, catching on something, so it covers it. Then on the shoulder, I think one of these shoulders, has a pen thing so you can put, I dunno, some kind of tool in there. For me, you know, I thought, "Hey, this is a perfect artist shirt." I can put a pen in my pocket. You know, it's free and floating, so I never feel constrained. It's really interesting that I accidentally stumbled on these red cap shirts that were intended for guys working on cars, but they actually fit really well for what I liked about clothing. I mean, it was a little bit more conscious, but it felt like, you know, it made some sense to me.

JN: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. There's a choice. I mean, there you have your own criteria, and then you start building your own. Those are the building blocks for your own narrative, so.

MR: Interesting. Yeah, I just thought that was a fascinating. I think the other thing I think about is we've tried to do this at the International Sketchnote Camps in years past, where we've had people that are really into urban sketching. Where we've gone off and done sketching of buildings. I would imagine there must be fashion people who are finders, I dunno what the word is, but people who find the next fashion. Because I suspect that there's people that build a fashion profile that are on the street, right?

Like you think maybe walking around Milan, and they're making these choices, telling these stories with their clothes, and someone is probably going out there and seeing like, “Well, what's going on in the street that could be the next thing that we could make more available?” There's probably people that look at that. It's a little bit like urban sketching in a way, except you're sketching people and seeing how does their overcoat flow, or what's the color choices, or all these little details. You could probably fall into a hole trying to discover all that stuff.

JN: Actually, I used to work for one of the companies that are trend forecasting those kinds of things. It's very interesting because the sources where you—it is almost like really—not really in the future, but obviously you don't have a crystal ball, but the sign, little signs and the cycles as well. Fashion is really cycling. When one thing is full, then you go to the other extreme.

One of the really interesting things that movies are a really, really guiding line to understand what is next because there's so much budget and money put behind blockbusters that you understand, okay, in a room of people thought that in two years’ time, this might be the content that people want, these are the themes, this is the angle, the perspective that you want to throw at them, and this is execution level.

And they pick up that direction, not that one. There are more women. You know, things like that also inform all those trends. I think that's more like something that could be applied to any craft, to keep an eye on those things and see where those people are thinking ahead, where are they heading to, and then that informs backwards.

MR: Kind of awareness and noticing. Being a noticer, right? Noticing the details and keeping your awareness antennas up so that you see what's happening, whatever your space is.

JN: Yeah.

MR: The other question I'm curious about with fashion is how did your fashion experience both in education and in work, how does that apply to the work you do now when you do these graphic recordings or the graphic storytelling that you're doing. How did that inform it? Was that important? Do you see fashion related ideas coming up in the work you do that sets you apart from other people?

JN: Definitely, yes. Because there's a couple of things. One is very practical and one is more like a downside, but also downside story but that is also informing. I think that one of the things you need to do when you work in fashion is analyze visually a lot. Again, I'm very much aware that fashion has a reputation for being superficial. I agree it is, but at the same time there's a working process behind. So you have to constantly be very observant and also read a lot, read images, and judge a lot.

Judge in a way that sometimes it's judgy, and sometimes it's just tagging things and moving things along. Maybe you go for a retro '70s with a bit of futuristic, and you put it together with a regular '90s look. Those little tags and observations, [clears throat] sorry, they really helped me when I have to do personas in graphic recording. For instance, if a client says, okay, this is our meeting, this is what we're discussing, and this is the audience we are targeting. I had a UX process that I have to visualize for a company, and I understood by what they were telling me, okay, these guys want the cast of Euphoria. You know the TV show?

MR: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

JN: I understood, okay, this is Gen Z, this is the profile. They were people with this kind of hair, this kind—I think that my fashion background really helped in profiling visually and creating those personas accurately.

MR: I see.

JN: You say, "I would like a middle age, central European man living in Zurich." I mean, I've been in Zurich, but I don't know exactly those people, but I can roughly picture those things. That really helps put the persona together very accurately. Sometimes it's maybe not so much for graphic recording because everything happens so quick, but for rich pictures, something that is more strategic, that really helps because in this case, with a client with Euphoria thing, he said, “You nailed that.” Because my final client, he really was targeting those people, and they can see it now. So it's very evident for them.

MR: That's really fascinating.

JN: Yeah, the downside, and I will wrap this one up, is that because I'm very used to judging, I have to do a really thorough work on myself to stop judging when I'm at event because I'm very used to be opinionated. Also, that having strong opinions is a value. You know, what we do, we are channel, we are just channeling information, reflecting on a board. What I hear on the back is not for me to judge. For me, it's been a bit of a journey because I had to make a very conscious choice, a genuine effort to say like, "Okay, no judgment."

MR: Bring yourself back a little bit. Yeah.

JN: Exactly. I mean, it's not about me, it's about them. This is a service, and I'm very loyal to that principle. So yeah.

MR: You're probably always thinking of, who will be the people who see and understand this and is my strong opinion going to get in the way of them understanding, right. That's what you're probably, I sense you're concerned about is if I have a very strong opinion when I capture this and the people who are intended to see it think of things in a certain way because of my opinion, am I pushing them in a direction when maybe the goal of this is to just present the information and let them make that choice.

I think that's a real challenge for graphic recording or sketchnoting for a client because you're always concerned about how much of my personality should I put into it? If it's just sketchnoting or something for me, I can question things or make fun of things or whatever, have my strong opinion 'cause that's really my personal approach. But when you're doing it for a client, things get a little more tricky.

JN: I feel that responsibility a lot. Actually, that's one of the things I love more about what we do, the service side of it. In order to provide that service, you need to take one step back, have no judgment, even if you're invited to the conversation with some clients, very kindly, do not reframe yourself, but put it on a context. Like, okay, my opinion is not so much—I don't need to be that indicative of that opinion. It is something. And to be very mindful that your lens shouldn't be informing the result. It's more about their lens. What is useful for the brand, what is useful for the session, what they need to reflect. That it's a very abstract thing to do. Yeah.

MR: Interesting. That's gotta be a challenge. You have to constantly remind yourself as you put things down, which is hard, right? Because you've spent so long building it as a almost a reaction, you know, the way that you think that you have to really be on your toes.

JN: Yeah, exactly that. Sometimes you understand that people are buying your personal—I mean, the way you draw. I mean, the way you process things and then sometimes makes you wonder, okay, how much of these will be buying? I mean, if they're coming to me because they love what I do, and they like my style, and they love my drawing, but how much will that determine the content? That's a balance that you need to keep very—try to keep it balanced and everything.

MR: Yeah. Really fascinating. Really interesting. I don't think we've ever had a fashion designer who's been on the show. So, you're a first there, Javier, which is great.

JN: Pioneering.

MR: Let's shift into, I would love to hear the kind of tools that you like. First, we'll talk about analog tools because honestly, when you talk about digital tools, it usually is very boring which is Procreate and iPad Pro is like everybody's answer. Now, sometimes you get some variation, but let's start with analog. What are the pens and paper and markers and whatever, you like to use in your work?

JN: I'm afraid that I'm very cheap, but actually because I've been drawing forever, since I was a kid. I'm very used to drawing with literally everything. I would say for anyone who's willing to start drawing, I wouldn't obsess with having expensive tools around you, because I find that—I mean, I don't want to be determined by the fact that I don't have my fancy things with me. So if I'm in the middle of nowhere and I could grab like a tissue paper and a big pen, I would like to be able to communicate something with that. But if you want to elevate that, and I understand I wanna do it as well.

For the analog thing, for the paper, I'm not too fussy. I use Moleskines in all the variations, and probably I'm losing a potential sponsoring team, but even the copies, the phony ones is everywhere. There's a chain here in the UK named Tiger, and they have very affordable stationary. I buy them bulk like 10 of them because I like to carry with me the small ones all the time, so I can draw, but Moleskines. The only paper I'm [unintelligible 21:12] is with Windsor & Newton. They have really, really nice notebooks. Slightly thicker texture paper, similar to [unintelligible 21:17] sometimes more so texture. They have really sturdy paper, so you can really throw any kind of wings, watermark, watercolor, anything you want to throw at it. Those are the papers.

For the pen, I distinguish. I mean, for the graphing recording thing, when I work for clients is one thing. When I do my own sketching in my part-time, or when I'm sketching for a project, but it's not a final product. I love the Muji range, any Muji thing. They're again, very affordable. From the brush pens to the ball pens, all of them. They're all really good. They're quite durable and I would highly recommend. The one that I'm in love with that might be a bit more expensive is the Pentel brush fine pen, that's the name. I highly recommend. I don't know if you know that one.

MR: I do. I think I just bought some recently in a box. Yeah.

JN: I discovered them quite recently, and I'm crazy about them because it's such a flexible tip that you can have a proper lettering, but then also you have a more artistic nuance so that you can do more.

MR: I'll show the—

JN: Amazing.

MR: Yeah, for those who are listening, I'm showing the tip. I don't think I'm getting it focused, but it's a little bit like a flare, but it's got a flexible tip, so.

JN: Exactly that.

MR: You could push it and make thin and thick lines almost like a brush pen. Not quite, but almost.

JN: The thing with those is that they do color transparently, so you can overlay colors. I mean, they respond very well to having like all pens on top. I highly recommend. They slightly more expensive, but at the same time for what you get in terms of flexibility and how much can you use them, I mean, I would totally go for it. That is all. I mean, I'm crazy about that one. Then for the actual project, I realized that for drawing people, faces, shadows, the Neuland is of course the number one art version, that will be my one to go.

Because again, it's quite similar to—it's like a more professional, not serious, but bigger scale version of the pencil brush, because you have that kind of ductility, you can still do some loose brush things and some effect and some shadowing. You can be also more specific. You have a very fine pointed thing and you can do some details. It's quite very flexible as well. Then my lettering was not great. Was much better on Pantone Tria.

Pantone Tria the usual ones are very—those are the ones—I say, Pantone could be like copy colors, all that range of Sharpies that have been around forever. Those for me, they look very well for the lettering because it's very dry, and they are very thick, and you can do angles. You are a master lettering. I'm not that good at lettering. Lettering is not one of my trends. Then I found a tool that I feel confident enough to play a bit to elevate things, but it is still very simple and keeps me very much on track. I tried to swap places and use the Neuland where the Pantone is, doesn't work.

MR: Yeah, that does have a certain style to it. I think I'm old school enough that when I was in school, I learned how to do marker rendering, which we used I think Letraset markers, which are similar. It's an alcohol-based marker. It has a certain look to it. Like when you see it, you know it right away. It has a feel to it. I think what you're saying is just this real crisp stroke, I guess.

JN: Yeah, yeah. Also, for clarity, it really helps me because I can be like really very, not specific, but I can be really bold. Like, okay, this is a letter, this is what it's done, and then I can add some bits. But with something more like a brush, some more artistic, some people are really good at creating lettering with that. I feel that things are shaking, and I don't like the end result. With this little system, I realized that I have the quick side for the lettering, and then the more organic, the more fluid thing for the figures and the persona.

MR: I see. Yeah.

JN: The metaphors. Yeah.

MR: Interesting.

JN: It's just a good Combo for me.

MR: Yeah. I think everyone has to find the right combination of things, which is why we talk about tools because, you know, I think you said you recently found out about the Art Marker. I learned about it from Austin Cleon, and he just learned about it too. Like they've been around for a while, and he stumbled onto them and bought a box like I did. You never know where the next tool that might be helpful would be coming from.

JN: Yeah. Exactly that. Again, I try to not—I rather experiment and work on a budget and then try cheap stuff around me and some more expensive one, and have a wide range, rather than really be obsessed with getting the fancier box of, I'm not gonna name brands, but really expensive ones because it always feels like you need some validation to feel like a professional while the skill is somewhere else, for me. I mean, the tools help, that's for sure, but having a wide range of more affordable things that I can buy almost anywhere. Muji stores are everywhere. If I lost my luggage on the flight, I can go somewhere and get them, and I'm not panicking, finding the proper store, so, yeah.

MR: Yeah. I think even in a pinch like eBay or Amazon probably sell Fuji stuff or Fuji's website, you can get it there too, so. Yeah.

JN: Yep.

MR: Very interesting. What about digital? I'm assuming you can have the answer like everybody else.

JN: Oh yeah. Yeah, of course, Procreate. I would say, and I would like to know your opinion on that one, because I started my craft during the pandemic, so everything was online and digital. That's when I joined myself with Procreate and everything was very much digital. But right when things start opening, now the ratio of digital versus analog is like 60:40, I would say. People are really enjoying analog and Sharpies and boards. Is it the same for you?

MR: Yeah. I've noticed a swing back. I think in the pandemic just because you had to go digital because you were calling in or something, right. And everybody was on Zoom, you had to turn it into something. That was a shift to, you know, iPads and Procreate being that tool of choice. Some of the places that I talked to during the pandemic said that they were fortunate that they had been experimenting, had bought some iPads and got Procreate and pencils and were ready. So when things hit, they were in a better position. Like Sketch Effect was one of those places. Said that they had been experimenting. Other people that I talked to, you can go back to the podcast episodes, were surprised, and they had to kind of scramble a little bit and get an iPad and or get the old iPad and see if they could make something work.

And so, I think the experience is different, but it was definitely a forcing function. I think there are some places where that makes sense, but now that we're meeting in person, I think there is a desire to see the thing. There's a little bit of almost like a comedy or jazz like improvisation happening in front of you, right? Where you can see this thing emerging in front of you, you know, where if it's online, I mean, you're probably looking at speaker and not at the thing that's being drawn unless they're putting it in a little window. But there's something fascinating I think for people to see these things happen in real time.

JN: Yeah, yeah.

MR: ‘Cause You might think like, oh yeah, they just listened to the recording, which is another approach, right. Is get a recording and convert it. But to see it happening live, there's something fascinating about that. So I do think there is kind of a balanced back, but I think digital is probably here to stay. For certain projects, it just makes more sense, so.

JN: Absolutely. Yeah. I embrace both, but the reaction from the audience is so different. The level of engagement and the way they engage is so different because with the boards and Sharpie, people, I can feel they can get closer, and they can talk to you and interact. And they don't feel like sticking a post is wrong. I mean, this is like what I thought, I'm not in this bit. And there's more like, I think that is a more like, of an ownership, whereas with digital, you have a very pristine, clean finish, but there's a distance to it. I think people see you like, wow, this is, this is great. But they get closer to a screen, they say, "I wanna take a picture." And they leave. So there's a different interaction, different engagement. So yeah, it depends

MR: In a way, with the digital, you become the operator with full access, and they become the observer, and all they can do is request. I think the same is true with physical things. But I think the cool thing is with physical things, like you said, depending on how you structure it and how you open the floor, it might come more like if they see you putting sticky notes on there with notes, then they might feel more open to it, or they come and talk to you and say, "Yeah, please, write something and put it on there." Like, "Oh, I have permission?" Like, yeah, they just don't feel like there's any way to do that with digital other than, "Javier, can you write this thing?" Well, now it's like in position on you to translate for them.

Where if you're in more of a facilitating environment where, you know, you've got a group of people. I've been in those situations, the zone is a little closer, and you can sort of set the tone for the environment to say, “Hey, this board is for us and we're doing it together, and we're making something together.” The other place I see that happening is in whenever I do any kind of work, I like to include sketches with clients rather than going right to finish, because I think a lot of times when a client sees finish, they just see, "Well, I can't say anything. He's already at the end.” And they might feel bad. And so, by including them in the process with sketches, it makes it a lot more interactive. So, maybe that's what you're feeling as well.

JN: Yeah. And the thing is that one of the things—my favorite project is one where there’s a co-creation with a client. So maybe it's more of a draft state, but there are a few projects where I've been working so close with a team, and it was literally like erasing things and drawing and erasing. “And no, that's not what I meant. It should be a different sports card. No, not this one. Different building.” But I love that one because there's only, there's not just an ownership, but there's a richness to the process.

MR: Yeah.

JN: Otherwise it's me interpreting, us interpreting our own thing. I want to think that most of the time it's very accurate interpretation, but might not be the case. And then if you're working hand in hand with them, I mean, that for me is my favorite thing. Being slightly more on the strategic side with them, draft early stages, and then I can polish and go back to my corner, my studio, I polish the thing and I send it back. But working with them closer to me, the co-creation process, to me, is the best one.

MR: Yeah. They can identify themselves in the work. I think what that means is that long term if it's a means to an end. Let's say what you're doing is a means to doing something, which might be something else. The thing you're doing is not the final result. It's just a way to kind of get everybody aligned. That the likelihood of that project being what you captured on the board is higher because you had that interaction, and you're capturing the real voices and correcting. So that's what I've seen is when, you know, I did work like that for software, I had developers come up and draw on the board their ideas, right? So then I knew their voice was there and then we correct it. Then we were more likely to have produced something that worked, so.

JN: And very interestingly, I think in my experience as an arc, so people at the beginning, this conversation, they say, “I'm not a visual person. I cannot draw. I have no idea what I'm doing. You're the artist.” But then as the conversation evolved, they realize how visual they are. And the most shy people—it is like karaoke of it. I mean, you know, when you're in a karaoke, nobody wants to grab the microphone.

MR: Yeah.

JN: But after a couple of songs, they were like, “No, no, this is my turn.” So there's a narrative and that informs how even people who think they're not visual, they can come with the most amazing visual metaphors. It is almost like a train, it's like you can heat up and you can train that muscle. And during the session that's growing, and you can see the growth in the same session, and they're way more confident at the end. So yeah. I thought that was an amazing process.

MR: That can be an opportunity if someone's listening with a group that continuously meets. So as the example, I cited before I was with the software team, and Mondays was our whiteboard. We had a giant whiteboard, and we would go through features adding to the software and all the developers would sit at the table, and they would talk, and I would draw, and they would see the things, and sometimes they would say, “How are you reading my mind?” “Well, you're talking. I'm just listening.” But they would often come to the board and draw their own thing.

And so, there was like, you know, our team, this is what we do. we draw on whiteboards, and we have discussions, and if we want to add something, we're welcome to come up. So you sort of build this a little micro culture of how things work. So over the period of four or five, six weeks, at some point, they just feel confident, “I'm gonna come up and draw something.” And it just—

JN: That's great.

MR: So I think—

JN: That's great because also I bet that they made them more receptive to visuals eventually. Like part of them down the line, they were more receptive, and it felt like this is something that you stick to the world would never look at it again. They start thinking visually, which is a great, yeah.

MR: You know, originally when I did this, it was because I was one designer and there were 50 developers and product managers, so, I was clearly a bottleneck however I wanted to slice it. So I thought, well, how can I reduce that pressure? My solution was this whiteboarding. When we would get done after every session, we would take a photo and put it in a SharePoint, so everybody had access to it. Very often the developers would be faster than me. I couldn't do a mockup as fast as they could start building just because of 50 of them and one of me.

So they would grab, pull up the image, they could read through all the notes that I was taking, see the imagery. And you know, usually at the end when we would get done with a session, I would finish with—I would star things like, “We think this is the winner and here's why.” And I'd write little notes so they could go in and see this, and then just start building. And then they would call me over and say, “Hey Mike, what do you think about this?” I started building this thing we talked about last week. Does this make sense? Is there any UX stuff that doesn't make sense? And we would sort of work through that. So they felt confident to even move ahead simply with a sketch, right. It was enough. We didn't have to have a prototype of anything or a mockup. So that was pretty cool.

JN: Wow. That's amazing. Yeah, sounds like a great process. I'm envious openly.

MR: Well, it only lasted a few years. I was a contractor, so eventually that time ended, but they all remember that time that we worked together. And I think it gave them appreciation for visualization as a way of solving problems.

JN: Exactly, yeah.

MR: So, yeah. I think it was pretty cool.

JN: Agreed.

MR: Well, let's move to our practical tips. This is the fun part of the show, where we get practical. And Javier has indicated that he had may have more than three. I usually suggest three just to make it reasonable for my guests, but we always are welcoming more than three. If you have more. So, Javier, let us know what your tips are for someone who's listening, and they're a visual thinker, but they just need a little encouragement.

JN: So I'll be quick. Some of them are more practical than others, so.

MR: Sure. That's fine.

JN: Yeah. I wanna say, first of all, please do not get obsessed with illustrations to be perfect and to be like the next renaissance artist because I was also a lecturer for fashion and fashion illustration, and I said so many times people get so tense, so rigid around drawing even the hands and the fingers were tense, and they were obsessing with the little tiny thing. And this is like, “No, this is not the way you should be doing.” I mean, my point is that this is about communicating. So this is about communication and service rather than the perfection illustration.

Of course, illustration helps. But for me, for instance, and I'm not arrogant or cocky, I'm confident that I'm a fairly good illustrator because it's one of the skills I have, but still, I have to retrain myself to transfer that into a service because the mean is to make it work for someone else. So don't get obsessed about the illustration. Especially don't get pulled off by it. it's all about communicating.

And some people, if you play charades or Pictionary, you know, where you have to throw a movie, people have the skill with three lines that they draw three lines and say, “oh, Star Wars, I know that.” So that is the kind of skill that you require, rather than have a very nice illustration perfectly done. That helps. That's helping. But to be honest, I've seen like really good illustrators doing like very poor graphic recording sessions because it's not so much about how intricate the design is, how accurate the faces are. It's not so much about that. It's about communicating what people in the room wanna talk about.

MR: Yep.

JN: That will be my first. Also, I would recommend that someone who has fairly recently started, build around your own strengths. I mean, for instance, in my case, I am not great at lettering. So instead of investing like six years and trying to get the level of the lettering people I admire, I work on making the lettering work for me. So it's clear, it's clean. I have some level of creativity where it can elevate and integrate. It'll be integrated in the piece. But I work around the other strength, which is the persona who we're talking about getting more the visual metaphors. That's something I feel is one of my strengths.

So I would say if you are blocked, or you feel a bit anxious about things in graphic recording, find your strength. Say, okay, I'm really good at font lettering. This is my thing. So I can prioritize that over drawing. And then I could go with simple drawing or the other way around. My layouts are brilliant and super clear. I'm very structural focus on that. Of course, there's always room for improvement. Improve your thing one step at a time, but don't wait until everything is at the top level to crack on it. I mean, building blocks, and instead do your strongest thing at the core and build around it.

MR: I love that. Yeah. I love that.

JN: Thanks. Then another one, this is a practical one. When you get to the stage, when you have a client with a brief, ask millions of questions. So even things like size of the room, lighting, is there a stool for me? Is there a table? Is there a desk for me. What is my space? What do you expect from me? Ask about the brief, the audience. What do they need? What is the aim of the meeting? What is the tone? Is it gonna be a difficult conversation, you reckon? Do you want people to come to solutions? Do you want just to draft intentions? So try to be as granular as possible with the client at that stage.

And another one is, and kind of tuning into that one is prep a lot. I mean, for me, prepping is key because it is very strange because what works for me is like prepping like a maniac because that gives me the freedom once I enter the room to be ready to teach everything that I prepared. I didn't be present, but I have the confidence of teaching everything that I prepared because I prepare it.

MR: Yeah.

JN: So I don't know if that makes sense, but for me, prepping, mind being clear about everything, and try to get familiar with the company craft, what they do, how they do it, acronym, their own lingo, how they talk, that really helps me to be focused on the meeting. Even if I'm ready to get—and it happens more time than many. I dunno if that is your experience as well, but more than many have to get rid of. Like, everything I prepare, it doesn't work here and that’s where [crosstalk 41:19].

MR: You gotta adapt.

JN: Yeah, but I feel more ready to adapt when I'm already more prepped. I mean, I don't know how this works, but.

MR: I wonder if it's because you're internalizing it, right? By processing it, you're sort of putting it in a memory bank someplace and then if it can call on it. you can use it if you need it, but you can also feel free to go in a different direction knowing that you've done your prep. Yeah.

JN: Exactly that and it's almost like even if you haven't met the whole team, everyone in the room, you are already familiar. So it feels comfortable. There's almost like a soft tense one. You get in there, you have an idea what is going on, you have a feel for it. And then that at least allows me to be in a much open space. That's my thing.

MR: That's interesting. It's interesting you can observe that for yourself and maybe other people can try it and see if that works for them too.

JN: Yeah. I mean, I will be curious to know how that portfolio—because also it's a very strange thing to share. I understand that is a bit like, “What do you mean? Prep or not prep?” I would say prep a lot. Get rid of it. That will be my tip. Then just a couple more. I mean, one thing that is not about you, it's not about me, it's about them.

MR: Yeah.

JN: So for me, I mean, it made the difference when I realized that, and I get asked by friends and family, and colleagues like, “Don't you panic when you’re drawing in front of all those people? Are you terrified?” But it's not like they're looking at you at the time, and it's not about you. It's about what they're talking. It's about them. Most of the time they don't look at me. I'm just a channel. I'm channeling information. I'm not so much in the center. So if anyone out there is panicking about that, it's not about you. We are not so important. What we do I think it's very important, but it's important for what it is for them, for the group, for the session.

MR: What can we provide? Yeah.

JN: Yeah. It's exactly that, what we provide, what we share, and how we contribute rather than us as individuals. So it's not about us. I embrace that a lot. That's a relief for me.

MR: Yeah. That's a good thing. Yeah.

JN: The last one is, I would suggest train your mind to be visual 24 hours. I would say, I mean, looking at a thing is free, you don't even have to have a notebook with you or a pen. Even if you're on the tube and then somebody has your hand very close to you, try to imagine how would you draw it and try to be visual on your everyday life in a way that start training your eyes on seeing things visually and how would you draw in your mind, everything surrounding you, so.

MR: That's a good one.

JN: I dunno, I mean, that's something that worked for me even before graphic recording. I love drawing. And I was thinking that angle, that food, that hand, that dog, and that's something that you don't need to switch it on only when you have a paper with you. It’s something that all they can travel with you, and you can be in that mindset.

MR: The question I ask myself is what are the most interesting things I'm seeing? So that can benefit you as a photographer, right? Like, what's the most interesting shot I could take? Just not moving anywhere, just sitting where I'm sitting or standing where I'm standing. And what's most—

JN: That's a really good one.

MR: Yeah, so that could be a good one too.

JN: Again, it's for free, so hey, you are just seeing things anyway, now that you're there, do something with it.

MR: Turn it on. Yeah, exactly.

JN: Yeah.

MR: That's great. Thank you for all the tips. This has been wonderful.

JN: You're welcome.

MR: Of course, they will appear in the tips’ episode at the end of the season, so people can enjoy them twice, which is great.

JN: Perfect. Fantastic. Thank you. Glad to help. Happy to help. Also, my experience is quite recent, so I've been in the shoes of people if they're trying to get into working visually.

MR: Yeah, that's great.

JN: It's quite recent, so I can empathize with the struggle. The struggle is real.

MR: Yeah, yeah. So Javier, what's the best place for people to find you, websites, social media, so they can connect with you and see your work and such?

JN: Yeah. Thanks for that. I mean my website is drawingyourmind.com, like drawing your mind, very clear. I got the.com because it's not such a common name, so I'm proud of that one.

MR: Good move.

JN: So, www.drawingyourmind.com and the same tag handle for Instagram, LinkedIn, and whatever platforms are coming our way with AI and everything going on. Yeah, both on Insta, LinkedIn, and Twitter threads everywhere, drawingyourmind.com. That will be me.

MR: Got it. That's great. Well, Javier, thanks so much for being on the show. It's been great to have you and to hear your experience. I love the fashion angle. At some point in the future, you can guide me being a more fashionable guy. I used to get GQ Magazine just to see what was happening. I don't know why. I didn't have the money to buy anything they showed me, but I stole ideas the best I could, so.

JN: I'm very happy to do that, but just bear in mind that I moved from fashion for a reason. I feel like it's best that we stay where we are. We need cloths, hat's fine. There are many options out there. I wouldn't go there. But yeah, let's embrace where we are now.

MR: Sounds good. Sounds good. Well, thank you, Javier. It's been good to have you here, and I look forward to you being involved in the community. You're already involved in the community, so we're happy to have you. And for anyone who's watching or listening, this is another episode of the podcast. Until next time, talk to you soon.

JN: Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

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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 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 Kelvy Bird
• Origin Story
• Kelvy's current work
• Sponsor: Concepts
• Tips
• Tools
• Where to find Kelvy Bird
• Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Kelvy's website
• Kelvy's Book
• Otto Scharmer Book
• Otto Scharmer Book
• Bill Isaacs Book

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Neuland Outliner ink
• EagleCell Graphic boards
• Chalk markers
• Moleskine paper
• Procreate
• iPad

Tips

1. Experiment and try new tools/approaches.
2. Preserve a sense of mystery and beauty in your work.
3. Prioritize self-care both physically and mentally.

Credits

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

Subscribe 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 Transcript

Mike 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 already edging toward doing digital stuff before you had to.

KB: Not really. I picked it up pretty much—like the first week of the pandemic I was delivering a program. Then I quickly knew though, we all are gonna need to pivot. You know, it's like sometimes you can choose how you wanna evolve your practice and sometimes conditions evolve your practice for you. That was a case in point where you know, you could kind of figure out how to go with what was called for, what was needed. No, I was scrambling to figure it out. I had done some digital stuff before, but not live-scribing more like motion graphics.

MR: Yeah. You hadn't fully invested in it as a primary way that you've worked, right. That would be not the case. I think a lot of people in the space, visual thinking space ran into the same thing. A lot of the interviews that I did around that time and after that time talked about the scramble. I talked with William at Sketch Effect and he talked about they were fortunate. They had been seeing digital and had been experimenting, but again, they had not committed fully to it. They were doing physical in-person stuff. They continue to do that.

It'd be really interesting now that the pandemic's, you know, a couple years, you know, since it peaked, like how has that impacted these companies? What percentage of digital versus in-person? In some ways, to do a corollary, digital is a little bit like CDs or streaming. Then, you know, the scribing on a board is sort of like a vinyl record, right? It's like this thing or something, in some senses or in some perspectives.

I don't deal with those two together much. I do most of my stuff digitally, but personally, I do you know, analog things. So it would be interesting to hear from—maybe do some polling of companies that do this. Like, "Hey, what is the percentage, what is the feeling in the space? What do companies and educators—and what do they want? What do they think they want?" Maybe that's—

KB: Yeah, I think that business—sorry to keep cutting you off.

MR: No, it's okay.

KB: I'm very excited to talk, so I have to like—

MR: Yeah, let's do it.

KB: - talk, minimize my excitement here. From what I've observed, businesses where the digital scribing might be projected large in a conference with big effect, that seems to be really popular. When you have big audiences and you have a big screen, that really maximizes the show.

MR: You can do a lot more than you can with just the board in front, which may be for the people in a large space, hard to see, right?

KB: Yeah, certainly. I haven't worked like that in a while. What I tend to do are more immersive environments. I really like this feeling—my art was always like that. My fine art was more really geared towards deep reflection. If you go into a room of Roth Goetz, like at the Tate, modern or some space where you have—or like Donald Judd has a space out in like Marfa out in Texas.

When you're in an environment that has art set up in a way where you go in and you are with the vibration of the work, that's a completely different experience than if you have one image on a wall that's projecting out or you go into a cathedral, right, you go into a space of mosaics or something that's been created to envelop you in vibration in some way. That's a very different experience than one, you know, board at the front of a room.

I've done, you know, all different types of setups and I'm not dissing or I'm not throwing anything—I'm not putting anything down because they all have their place. I tend to prefer when you can create some resonance, like you create some sort of vibrational, a tonal thing that people aren't even aware of. It's just more of a feeling where the drawings help the sense of containment and safety in a space. Like a nest, you know, the drawings become a nest.

When I work with executive education at MIT, for example, they have a few rooms with gyrus boards that go all the way around the room. And so, if I'm working for five days, the whole room will get filled by the end. The group that's in there has—there's a different type of pattern recognition that can also happen because you're looking at—if you were to have your drawings—a lot of them up from similar content or over the same set of time. You know, things come out on one session that then might repeat the third or the fourth or the 10th session.

And so, you can create a visual icons or things that start to signal similar themes across time. That's really interesting to me. I'm trying to seek out those types of situations like where you're working with one client over time and the images become part of the cultural memory and knowledge, and yeah, does that make sense?

MR: Yeah. That's totally fascinating. It made me think of, for a while, I worked for a company, Johnson Controls, a big multinational in Milwaukee, and they redesigned our studio space for our design space. They had this one corner by the front door, they didn't know what to do with it. It's like this long, narrow space, so they just put a door on it and then put whiteboards in there. I remember I had a big project that I was trying to sort out with lots of information, and that was my room. I claimed it. I had stuff everywhere on the walls. I had stuff on the whiteboards, stuff stuck on the walls.

I always liked going in there 'cause I could go in there, I would immediately get up to speed with where things were and I would start saying like, "Oh, there's a connection between that wall and that wall." I would start seeing all this because it was concentrated in this space. I would tell people, "I'm gonna go live in my work for a little while." It was a pretty fascinating experience to be there, so.

KB: That's so cool. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean, where, because you—and this goes, where talking earlier about slow and fast thinking. This goes back to helping the cognitive overload that we have in the world. If you're helping people slow their minds down, you present data back, so you scribe in a way that reflects the data and the information in a session back with the specific words and you know, particular images that might represent things, but then you're also setting it up for a slower absorption rate, you know, over a duration when the mind is not as pressed.

Like in your room, you find other types of connections that you might not have made. I mean, for me, that kind of gets into the mystery of life, you know, where you're setting it up for discovery and curiosity. Instead of providing all the answers, you're creating some conditions for the unknown to live still.

MR: Yeah, you're organizing the information to some degree, but you're not making the necessarily connections. You allow the observer to make those connections, it sounds like. You mentioned at the outset—we said that you're a little different. I think you're unique in the way that you approach things, which is I think awesome. I would love to hear, you talked about this difference when you went to Massachusetts that you started thinking about different stuff. Talk a little bit about that origin. How did that change what you had learned? Or maybe it didn't change it, but maybe it built on top of it, and how did that change your perspective and the work that you did? That's really interesting to me.

KB: Yeah, that's a great question. Thanks for asking it. When I started—oh, I came to Massachusetts to help open one of the MG Taylor environments in Cambridge. While we were in that space, Peter Senge and the Society for Organizational Learning came in to see if they could use the space. Then another company called DialogOS came in to see if they could use the space because everyone in the area was looking for a large-scale space to bring people together. Ultimately, it didn't work out because the space was too open. The walls were movable, but they didn't offer enough containment and enough sense of—

MR: Separation in some way, maybe

KB: Separation and like quiet. There wasn't enough quiet in it. That didn't work out. But then I met these people and got really interested, what is this dialogue stuff? And so, I started working more in that area. What interested me and still does, is it comes back to this mystery. When you have a circle of people and they're sitting together intentionally with a certain awareness or mindfulness about being together and slowing down together, what comes through, that's the dialogue or, you know, that's the word coming through the space.

That was really interesting to me. It probably links back to going between my parents. You know, I haven't made this connection, but the space between the ride between my mom and my dad’s was about 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Packing up from one household, going in the car with my brother, just like looking at the side icicles on big sheets of rock or moss along the way or vines or things, that was the, in-between space where I'd be able to—like a suspended reality.

I used to love to fly for the same reason. Well, I never loved to fly, but once I was in an airplane and you're in that suspended state—I always like that suspended state. In the dialogue work, you are in a suspended state, so you're consciously letting other people speak and waiting until it's your place almost or when you're called to enter into the space. When the word is meant to come through you is when you speak. And so, I immersed myself there. I thought it was really interesting. I basically did whatever they needed. I took notes for years, texting notes I didn't draw.

Then I started scribing in those environments, and then I started integrating. Then I realized like, oh, the drawings can represent this emergence space which is very different than the drawings representing the words. So it's both. Like the drawings representing the words and the drawings being like an echo in the pond. Like you throw a rock into a pond and there's the immediate plunk, and then you kind of have the ripples out and I don't know, maybe something like that.

Then when I got involved in the presencing work, it furthered that that kind of inquiry that I had, my own personal inquiry about how we can just be together in different ways. You know, like as human beings. How can we be together as human beings in a way that feels whole and not fragmented, and how can drawings support that kind of wholeness? I think that's been my inquiry all along.

MR: That's pretty cool. Talk a little bit more about presencing. I don't know if I have a good definition of it. I'd love to hear your definition.

KB: The work was founded by Otto Scharmer and Katherine Kaufer and others, Arawana Hayashi. Dana Cunningham is another one who was in at the very beginning. Otto basically had done the research and the presence thing is when you bring the emergent future into the current moment, so you slow down enough to sense into what wants to unfold. The word itself is a combination of presence and sensing.

MR: Oh, okay. Got it. Got it.

KB: So you're intentionally reflecting in a way to allow the future to find you. I don't know, sounds kind of weird, but rather than projecting into the future and saying—like, letting it come from just your head of, I think this is a good idea. I'd like to build this building and then you just kind of—

MR: Make it happen.

KB: - make it happen, and you kind of force your way through which is our western, northwestern society for, you know, since the industrial revolution and before colonization. It's a process of being found, you know, rather than, yeah.

MR: A little bit of like a—I sense emergence maybe as part of it. Like letting things emerge.

KB: Definitely.

MR: Like, I think about, it was, yeah, Stephen King. He talks about in on writing book that he would write these novels and he said he was more like an archeologist than a writer. He would have his brush and he would be brushing off bones, and the bones would tell him things. He said that he would write and he wanted to go in one direction with a character, and the character would just refuse and would go in a different direction and tell him what the character wanted to be or do. He thought that was really weird.

It reminds me of this emerging—you're immersing yourself in this story, which in his case, he's making it up, right? He's setting the conditions for it to be this situation. He's setting out to say, I'm going to write a story about these seven characters, and here's the story arc, but like within that, these characters sort of tell him what they wanna be, that is really crazy. But it sounds a little bit like what you're describing in some ways.

KB: Yeah. It sounds very parallel. You're listening. It involves really deep listening to what is what you're bringing forward. So when I'm drawing or scribing, a lot of things now—cooking, you know, you feel into what it is you're trying to create and you listen to it to say like, does it need more salt or does it need more red or does it need a big line here or does it need more containment? You know, so you're getting your cues from the thing and your observation or your ability to attend to what is coming to life as you're with it is what sets apart the quality of the life that's coming to form, if that makes sense.

MR: Makes me think too about being in a state of flow or being in the zone.

KB: Yes.

MR: But, you know, getting in that, like—I've been in the flow state many times, and sometimes I'm able to get myself into it with conditions that I set music or a coffee or whatever. It's a great space to be, you know, time just disappears which is strange, but kind of cool. So, I mean, it sounds like all these things overlap a little bit.

KB: Definitely, definitely.

MR: The other thing I thought about when you talked about your trips between your parents was Dave Gray talks a lot. He wrote a book about liminal thinking. Talks about liminal spaces, so like the spaces in between. Even, you know, going back, we talked about, you know chatting a little bit about AI, our whole way we're thinking about doing things is changing. We're sort of in an, in-between state right now, I feel like, in these years, right? Going from, like, you might even say like pre pandemic to post pandemic is that we're in a transitional state. I don't where we're gonna end up or have we ended up somewhere? I don't know. It feels like there's always a transition happening, but it feels more transitional than normal.

KB: Oh, definitely. I really agree with you there. I love Dave's work, by the way. I'm such a huge fan of his and I know that book. I think I've already mentioned, you know, the mystery, like preserving space is a mystery of a liminal space is beautiful because in some ways, for me, it's so hard sometimes to be in because things aren't clear and I want things to be clear. I want to know when the plumber will show up or I want to know what the weather will be so I can dress appropriately and not get caught in the rain like today.

But then learning to be the acceptance, you know, just learning to be with what is, my gosh, that's like my lifetime's work. That liminal space, it can be so beautiful if we're not caught in anxiety and over—I should say, if I'm not caught in anxiety and overwhelmed by it, it can be a really mysterious and delightful place, but it's easy to get really it gets thick too, right? It can get a little bit, like, you just want clarity.

MR: Yeah. Yeah. After a while, "Okay, I've had enough of this."

KB: You just wanna wake up and get vertical?

MR: No more liminal. Let's do something, you know?

KB: Yeah.

MR: I'm curious, this is a really outta left-field question, but when did you start drawing? Did you draw since you were a little girl? Like, you talked about these trips between like what was the spark for your drawing and how did that manifest over time? Obviously, you're still doing it, so, but you even talked about like when you met these people in Cambridge that you were taking tech notes, right?

KB: Yeah.

MR: So the visuals were not coming out. I've had those moments in my life as well, so, but it still seems like an anchor or a touchstone or something that keeps bringing you back to it. Talk to me about as a little girl drawing and then how that has changed over your life.

KB: I always drew from, as long as I can remember. I mean, I grew up—my formative years were the '70s, and so in the early '70s we drew, we just did everything by hand. There was, obviously no computers or anything like that. Actually, my dad was a computer programmer, and so I did grow up drawing on punch cards. He'd bring home punch cards from coding. My early sketchbooks were punch cards.

But yeah, it was always a sense-making method for me before even knowing—you know, obviously, at 10 years old or four years old, there's not like the word sense-making, but I was always drawing and you know, I was like, doodling like little shapes or things. We had lots of coloring books and both of my parents were pretty creative. My whole family's pretty creative, so we were surrounded by a lot of art and art was really valued which I think is something that I wish I saw more of in the world.

Like every creative, anything that my brother and I did was celebrated and, you know, put up over the previous thing on the refrigerator. We were very encouraged in that way. So I never had, what a lot of people say is like, I drew and somebody made fun of it, and then it shut down the drawing and there was a lot of embarrassment about like, oh, I can't draw a certain thing. I never had that because my parents were so supportive of whatever we wanted to make. But also, you know, they were working all the time. They weren't around that much. So my brother and I would just go out in the woods and play with sticks and just be creative in lots of ways, but I always drew. Then going to art school, I drew in high school and—

MR: Furthered it. Yeah.

KB: Yeah. I went on an art program in high school with Parsons, with school of design. I was really, really privileged to have my creative thread supported my whole youth basically.

MR: Yeah, because that—

KB: What you asked, I got so enthusiastic about my parents there.

MR: Yeah. No, I think that's all part of it. I'm just I always wanna dig into the motivations or the origins of how you ended up in a place, and it seems like there's so many people who start out drawing and then for whatever reason, there's all kinds of theories about why it happens. I'm sure it's varied for every person, but they kinda lose it, right? I experience it when I teach sketchnoting, the basics. My approach is to bring it back to like shapes, as simple as like five shapes so that you can just get into it without feeling overwhelmed. Then a lot of people that do it, they feel like they haven't drawn since they were maybe in middle school or something like that.

KB: Yeah. I have to say, we talked earlier about maybe you're gonna ask a question around like if you get stuck, what people do when they get stuck, but I would just say for me, drawing there's nothing more freeing than working with my hands. Probably because it quiets my mind. I have a very rambling, anxious mind and overactive, you know, in good ways too, but when I draw, it calms my mind down.

It could be with a stick in dirt or it could be, you know, then in elementary school we probably had different assignments, like, you know, making books for your parents at Thanksgiving. Then in college it was all the things you were supposed to do like painting and printmaking. Then scribing, it was also, scribing is just another sort of form. In essence, you're free when you draw. And I feel free and I do stuff that like nobody has to look at. That's the best is when you relieve the pressure of anybody—

MR: Yeah, just do it for you.

KB: - being it, just do it and make something on the inside visible on the outside for yourself.

MR: Yeah. Well, it's been fun to hear and get more of a sense of where you came from and what you're into. You definitely have a different perspective about this stuff which I think is needed. A lot of times I think, you know, because its business oriented very often 'cause they pay the bills, there tends to be—you know, and I'm a practical functional person a lot because my dad was very practical, so I've always got this art side and the practical side, and they tend to merge in the middle, but there tends to be like this pressure to perform, deliver, and meet deadline. You know, and we have to, that's just part of life.

KB: Yep.

MR: I think it's really important what you're talking about here is to not forget to set aside time or space to just let things emerge and reveal to you. Really interesting. If you have anything, you can give us a show note for how to maybe get into this on a website or something, or a video that might help somebody who's curious about this to maybe experiment with that. That would be really interesting. We could talk about that after we're done with the show and put the link in so people could see what you're talking about and maybe give it a try.

KB: Yeah, but I'll also say I'm also incredibly practical, so I haven't been talking about that, but you know, I've had my own business search for whatever, 30 years and I love spreadsheets. Anybody who knows me or has done any program with me, I'm like a spreadsheet maniac. I really like attention to detail and I really like numbers. I really like knowing that I can pay for things and they go hand in hand. My structured self of me supports the creative side.

MR: Interesting.

KB: And the creative side couldn't exist without the structure. If I were just like all, you know, emergent blah, blah, blah, you know, it would be ungrounded. It would be like this airy sort of like swirly thing. No, you need all the elements, so.

MR: You need both sides. Yeah.

KB: I've got boulders in my life too. I've got things holding me down and I appreciate them a lot. Yeah.

MR: That's cool. That's good. Well—

KB: So, yeah.

MR: - it feels odd just to make a shift, a transition, but I'm really curious, what are the tools that you like to use? We talk a lot about tools, not so much the tools make a difference, but sometimes they do. Sometimes it's nice to have things or maybe they're—you know, my dad always taught me, "There's the right tool for the job. Don't be afraid to buy good quality tools because, you know, in five years you're gonna need to take off that whatever, and you're gonna need that tool." Right.

So in my mind, I've got this idea of quality tools because the last thing you need is the marker or the whatever, failing at a critical moment, right? So you gotta get the good stuff that, you know, will be reliable. There's a reason why. So what are the tools that you like? Pens, paper, pen, computer software and things that help you.

KB: I am right with you with tools. I love tools. I just restored an old chair from the '60s that I had. I could not find anybody to restore it and so I took it apart and I had to get all the glue off the little pegs. I got this like little file set and, you know, appreciated my teeny little files to file in the little grooves of those pegs. Yeah, I'm a big tool person too. In terms of supplies for our work, it's just been all these years of really refining what works.

I don't have a massive amount of colors anymore. I have a very reliable toolkit for each surface. For dry erase, I have—I get all my inks from—I used to get them from Neuland, but now that I'm not flying, I can't really get them anymore, but I have a lot of—I mix my own colors also across all mediums. I've got a whole set of like chalk stuff for blackboards, dry erase, paper. Paper and foam board, not foam board eagle cell board, you know, that kind of slick rigid surface, but a sustainable version, not foam board.

That's different than paper because paper has a life to it. Like this, you've drawn and it starts to—you know, it has humidity and it has other things going on, so I have a slightly different set for those. But yeah, I don't know, not getting into the details. You have to just find what works for you. I wouldn't suggest—I mean, the Neuland outliner ink is a total staple. I cannot work—that's a critical ink to have. I would pay anything to have that shipped to me, but I really lean towards what's sustainable.

Now what I use or I get the—I don't have anything here, but I have the shells. I can't think of the brand. They're plastic shells that you can put—oh gosh, I can't think of my memory's going. But then I have the same shells for each ink, and then I get separate inks, and then I mix my own colors in those shells. I also have arthritis in my right hand so I had been wrapping all of my—I have like a wide marker with a raft, with like a grip so that my hand can hold a little more lightly, which I think contributes to—

MR: You modified it.

KB: Yeah, which I think contributes to the—a sense of flow is when you're not holding a pen so tightly. That's been a challenge with digital scribing. Like everybody I use procreate probably. The thing that I love about it are the layers, the colors. You know, using it in a way not to mimic what you can do by hand, but using it for its own—what you can only do with a digital medium.

MR: Yeah, yeah.

KB: That's something that I've been trying to experiment more with is what is each medium will lend itself to. You can do things on dry erase that you can't do on paper. Like certain textures, you know, putting something on and then using your hand to remove, but then you can't really blend colors on dry erase.

MR: Yeah, there's limitations.

KB: Yeah. Each have their pluses and minuses. For like large scale—another thing is I've been trying to be sensitive to the production of things. Like where am I getting my papers from? I haven't found a great paper source, but yeah, just trying to get things reduce shipping reduce waste, you know, only do things that can be recycled or erased and washed down. Just like minimizing footprint that is priority. That's kind of premium is just minimizing footprint beyond certain color or a certain brand or anything.

MR: That's a consideration. Like circular economy.

KB: Yeah.

MR: This idea that—

KB: Exactly.

MR: It's got a plan.

KB: Yeah, exactly.

MR: Lifespan all the way from beginning to end and could be recycled in some form. Yeah. What about your personal—I'm guessing you maybe do like personnel books where you write in the journal and visualize, do you have a notebook—

KB: Yeah, I should show you. I should show you—you're gonna be horrified. I've been journaling or doing like sketchbooks since I was probably 12, so I've got boxes and boxes, but at this point they're all—it's like this, but I write. It's like I write, so it's like, you know, I don't really—

MR: It's a craft paper cover, flexible. It looks like one of those—maybe even like Moleskin I think makes sense, right?

KB: It's Moleskin. Yeah, it's just like writing. And let's see if I have any drawings in here even. Yeah, I might have like little things. Sometimes like little symbols help get an idea across more than—but I've been using these for a long time and yeah, sometimes it's mixed. I aspire to do the whole sketchnoting thing. At some point, I will, because I think there's so much potential there, but yeah, they're not very organized.

MR: Well, the great thing about sketch notes, the way I look at them as it's on a spectrum, right? You can have lots of writing and then just little images that help support that. That's one way or you can go full image with, you know, annotations at the other edge, so.

KB: Yeah. Well, again, like I was talking about drawing being like a freeing art, writing is another freeing thing for me because—like, no one's gonna read these journals.

MR: They're just for you.

KB: Yeah, they're just for me. If I'm doing something for someone else, I'll tidy it up. Like, you know, it will be—

MR: It's different requirements.

KB: Yeah. yeah, I mean, if I'm taking notes for somebody else, I'd do it on my iPad at this point.

MR: Your mind shift—you're in a different mind space when you're doing it for somebody else too.

KB: Yeah.

MR: If you're imagining who's the recipient, is this gonna help that recipient or not, and what's the most critical thing I can share with that person? Which I don't know necessarily.

KB: Yeah.

MR: Right.

KB: But I have to say, like, one other thing is just, and I'm aware for you of the time and for people listening, but is I really do bounce between order and freeform. I'm in sort of like a meta trend of it now, of trying to be much more freeform in my life in general. Like, hence showing up like this today. But I've been ordered for a long time to be professional and have a business and, you know, do programs and get clients and have what I do, like look good and look professional, and it's been very tiring.

I have to say it's been more exhausting than I realized. And so, I'm trying to balance that out with just more spaciousness, more gardening, more stuff like that doesn't have to do with work. That's like an age thing probably where I am in my career. If I had been more attentive to the extreme nature of our work earlier, I knew it was—I could keep up with the extremity of it, but traveling and being in different places away from home, hotels, whatever, all that stuff, different foods, there's a lot of rigor in that kind of work. If I had been more aware of balancing that along the way, I would have.

MR: I mean, at the beginning it's exciting, right? It's part of the excitement of doing the work and at some point, it becomes a drag to a degree, right? I know that, you know, getting to the space where I'm doing the work is great, but like everything up to that point is like a struggle. And if you just have to do the struggle, right, you start to be more aware of the struggle, then it becomes less exciting in a way. I don't know. That's the way I would describe it.

KB: I think it's been very exciting. More people are probably better at play. People with families have vacations built into their lives. I don't have a family, so I just worked all the time. It's on me, but if you don't have the structures of society kind of saying, "Okay, now it's summer, you should take time off." You forget. So I'm trying to remember all that now.

MR: Trying to catch up, huh?

KB: Relearn. I'm trying to catch up with all of you who know better. Yeah.

MR: Interesting. Well, talking about guidance, let's jump into the question, the practical thing, and this is, give me three tips for someone who's listening, who's a visual thinker, whatever that means to them, who maybe is in a rut or just needs a little encouragement. What would be three things you might tell that person?

KB: Yeah, so three tips. Coming back to the materials, I would say, change it up. Put yourself in a space where you can experiment. That would be one. Two would be, I guess just the theme of this whole conversation is—so one is experiment, two is mystery and beauty. Three—hmm, part of me wants to make it 10. Three, I guess it would have to be like, keep yourself healthy. Because if you wanna go full force and travel around the world and, you know, have that intensity, you need to have stamina for that and you need to look out for yourself physically and mentally.

And if you choose to work locally, you know, in all ways, wherever, whatever medium you're using or wherever it is in the planet, looking out for our own health and wellbeing, mental and physical, and also that of our peers and our communities, I think is probably pretty key. Bodies age, you know, so take good care. Yeah. Experiment, mystery, care.

MR: That sounds like a good combo. It's good trial [unintelligible 49:34].

KB: I should listen to my own advice.

MR: Sounds good. Well, where Kelvy can we find you? What's the best place to find your work websites? I don't know how much social media you do, but.

KB: I have basically stopped social media. I mean, I still have all my accounts, but I'm posting very little mainly because of AI. I'm trying to pay attention to what's right underfoot, basically. That's the real thing. I have my website, kelvybird.com. I wrote a book called Generative Scribing. If people wanna learn more about the interior—it's not at all a how-to-book-on.

MR: Sounds philosophical to me.
[pause 50:27 - 51:05]
Hey there. I kinda lost you for a minute.

KB: Yeah, sorry about that. I think I froze, or I must have been talking—I was talking about getting off social media and trying to get more connected with what's right around me, and it froze.

MR: I lost some of the—

KB: Yeah, so my book—

MR: I got like the first tip and then there was some breaks.

KB: Oh, really?

MR: Yeah. So for whatever reason, the network just was—I dunno if it's one of our side is a little bit flaky, so.

KB: The first one was around experimenting.

MR: Mm-hmm.

KB: So just give yourself new tools, try new things, put yourself in new context, you know, be curious. The second was around mystery, like preserving the mystery of life and seeing beauty in things essentially. And the third was around self-care, mentally and physically 'cause the work takes a toll.

MR: Got it. And then as far as the best place to find you, that would be kelvybird.com.

KB: That would be my website, kelvybird.com. Also, I wrote a book, Generative Scribing. And so, if people wanna know more about the inner mechanics of my practice or generative scribing practice, they could go to the book. It has a lot of frameworks for dialogue and presencing and those types of things. Also, just talks about the model of practice that I use for my work.

MR: So that would touch on, if someone, if you were listening about the presencing we had discussed before, that would be the place to go to go deeper on that book.

KB: That would be a place that book that would intersect presencing with scribing and visual practice. If you wanna know more about presencing specifically, you could look for Otto Scharmer's work on Theory U. And there's a book, The Essentials of Theory U, that's a really good starting place. Then there's a book by Will Isaac’s on Dialogue, which I think is also pretty foundational to my practice. Yeah.

MR: Interesting. You sort of taken these multiple worlds and blended them together in a way that made sense for you, sounds like in the book.

KB: Yeah, probably it's my own—yes, in the book. It definitely is aimed to integrate the all the different pockets of work experience that I had had in practice. Yeah.

MR: Oh, that's great.

KB: It's very easy reading, I have to say. Each chapter's about two pages with pictures, so.

MR: Excellent. Well, there you go. That sounds like a perfect visual thinker’s type of thing. Well, Kelvy, this has been so much fun to have you on the show and learn more about you and your history and how you think about things. Thanks so much for the work you've done and the impact you've had in the community and you continue to have. So thanks for being who you are.

KB: Well, thank you for all that. And thank you for who you are because I'm just a huge fan of you and your work and all you've brought into the world and into our field of practice. So, right back at you.

MR: Oh, thank you. That's really great.

KB: Yeah.

MR: Well, for everyone who's watching or listening, it's another episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Until the next episode, talk to you soon.

KB: Bye.

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Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Joran on LinkedIn
• Joran's Email
• The Grove
• Illustrious
• Books

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Neuland markers
• Bell/mallet
• Device tote bag
• Mural
• Procreate
• Zoom
• SessionLab
• iPad

Tips

1. Own the problem.
2. Break down the big thing into smaller digestible pieces.
3. Ask for help.

Credits

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

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Episode Transcript

Mike 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 of my life. The first one was musical. I started a band, was writing my own songs for years and finally in high school, got people that would agree to play music with me. We'd play at the cool bars and clubs in Tampa Bay at the time, Brass Mug and Gasoline Alley. Green Day had just played at the Brass Mug, and we were freaking out like, "We're playing at the Brass Mug." That first era of songwriter, producer, band leader, front person, that whole thing, that skillset of writing songs, assembling them into an album, recording them in a studio, packaging them, presenting them, designing an experience, performing that experience, that whole thing was the first era.

Then the second one was marketing. The first job that I had that then lasted over a decade was a marketing director at an alternative news weekly in the southeast, so this creative loafing, we were in Atlanta, Charlotte Tampa, Sarasota. I was a Marketing Director for the Tampa Paper for 10 years. That was where I learned to really get innovative and throw things at the wall to see if they would stick. This is right at the time in journalism, when journalism was being changed by things like Craigslist that was gutting the classified section and citizen journalists and blogging, which was changing the way stories were reported on and all kinds of things. Disruption was happening in journalism at the time.

Being from the music scene, I was allowed to engage a local music store as a sponsor and build out our archive room with all the back catalog in there as a recording studio. We would bring artists in, and people to perform, and do interviews in this really cool room, free NPRs tiny desk. This was way before—I mean, the sales team didn't know how to sell or position this thing at all. They were like, "What's Jordan doing playing In the Closet again?

You know, like, they didn't have any idea what we were doing, but we were able to innovate content in a way that yeah, really set everybody up for the future and where journalism ended up going. That was a fun time to be in that as a career, but then when I got out of that, marketing had changed. Marketing was all sales and ClickFunnels, and I didn't wanna do marketing anymore. That's when I found graphic recording and began my visual consulting journey.

MR: What was it like early in those days? Was it hard to convince people or your firm to do that or was the firm pretty well established and knew how to sell, I guess, the services and the solutions that you're really offering? Was it tougher at the beginning?

JO: You mean the first consultancy I landed?

MR: Yeah. Yeah.

JO: No, we didn't have any trouble in the beginning. I mean, my CEO who was doing most of the sales. She was just a compelling personality and magnetic and was really charismatic and really plugged in socially and a great networker and a great attractor, you know? Just did a great job of selling the work. We had a niche, we focused on innovation training. We were setting up internal innovation teams to do large scale change work in their organizations, but also write their internal innovation playbook along the way. We focused on one thing and got clear on what we were doing, and that made it easier.

MR: That's interesting. What kind of things did you learn as you shifted? Were there, I suspect that both the music and marketing experiences probably bled or fed the work you did as a graphic recorder and graphic facilitator. Can you make any of those connections? Are there threads there that you could connect?

JO: Yeah. I mean, I think it really is art as a community builder, that's been the thread, the common theme throughout all of it. The other big era in my life that I haven't mentioned was that of spiritual community. I was a prayer chaplain for a few years at a Unity church, which is like a new age, new thought, metaphysical spiritual community. It was too metaphysical Christianity for me and I wanted something that was more pluralistic and interfaith so I left the path of ordination through Unity and started my own just completely independent thing called the Integral Church, which was based on integral spirituality and integral philosophy.

Carl Young and Joseph Campbell, and Alan Watson, you name it, like, "Where can we pull spiritual wisdom from?" And we really did a lot of creativity in that group, community as well. Like making art, mask making, music making, dance movement, you name it. That was a real central part. It was also really inspired by Matthew Fox's work around creation and spirituality which is really creativity centric. So, I would say art as community builder is the theme that runs through all of this. Whether it's graphic facilitation or spiritual community or marketing or music and performance. All of it is building a community of people who speak a common language and are leaning in the same direction towards some dream or vision, you know.

MR: I suppose that's important too, if you're doing any kind of creative work, artistic work, ideally you want people to experience it, right. The reason you're doing it partially is for you. You do it 'cause you wanna do it, but you do like having someone experience it and the idea that someone else could have something turned on in them because of what you experience is really cool. As an example, I just wrote an article, I dunno, a couple weeks ago, where I talk about what it was like—I came up in the days when everything was analog, there were no computers, and I talked about what it was like to do graphic design in those days, the yield days, right?

JO: Yeah.

MR: In doing paste-ups and all this kind of stuff. Ultimately, I wrote it for myself 'cause it felt like it had to come out, it wouldn't let me let go of it until I finished, even though it was frustrating through much of the process, but I ultimately got there. The discussions I've had with other people of my generation who remember that, for them it brought to life, "Oh, that's right. I forgot about all that. What kind of markers did you use?" There's all this discussion that happened because we could connect at some level, and additionally it probably shares with other people who didn't experience that, like, "Wow, that's what it was. There was some cool things about that."

You appreciated when that gave you context for when the desktop design revolution came, you could see why it took off because if you knew how it used to be done, the shift, it is sort of like, we're talking about AI now, right? What does that mean? It's real early, we can't imagine where it's gonna go. Just like we couldn't graphic-design in the desktop publishing. Ultimately, I did it for myself, but there was also, I wanted an audience to appreciate it, whoever that audience was. That seems like a thread that I sense in the work that you do.

JO: Oh, yeah. I mean, you're speaking my language now, man. It's like my very first job in media was at Black and White Arts and entertainment—Arts and Fashion tabloid in Florida. It was like offset, we modeled it after Women's Wear Daily, which was a fashion magazine. And so, it was this really clean designed social paper. And I used Aldus PageMaker.

MR: Oh yeah.

JO: I had a wax roller, and I would wax the flats and I would print the pages out or sections of the pages out, wax them down, wax on the ads separately, and lay the page out on a cardboard flat, and then stack those flats in a cardboard box, drive that box to the printer 30 miles south where they would shoot 'em with a big camera. Nowadays, I tell my kids this is what I did, and they're like—part of 'em is like, "Why the hell did you do that?" Then the other part they're like, yeah, it's like a zine, you know? And I'm like, well, I guess. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's like, if you still do collage or any kind of mixed media work, that hasn't changed at all.

MR: Right. You could still do that work. Yeah.

JO: But it's like the transition from like VHS and DVDs to all the content being in the cloud. Gone was the file cabinet full of 8 by 10 glossies that we had to scan and cut every time. Now, it was just a folder on the computer full of JPEGs, you know? So it was just a matter of storage and access and that was the big paradigm shift.

MR: Yeah. It's funny how you look back and you see, like, you think AI is an example. I mean, there's all kinds of things you could point to. Oh, it's this radical disruptive thing and it's gonna be so different. I'm not sure that it is. It's just like if you look back in time, all these disruptions kind of follow a similar pattern. Now some had more influence than others based on the context they come into. I think there's gonna be probably a—the optimistic version of AI is probably not gonna be quite as great as we thought it was, but it's not gonna be as bad either.

Probably it's gonna settle in at some middle point where we just—like now it's this big deal, but at some point, we're gonna like, oh yeah, of course, yeah, there's AI someplace in here. I think it does this thing for me. It's just the way I work and AI just does this, I guess. That's probably what it's gonna be like in 10 years. We won't even know where the AI is. Where now it’s like AI's getting slapped on everything because it's the new thing, right?

JO: Yeah, and I feel like we're the Lars Ulrich of the Napser, you know, like, "You're gonna take my job away. You're taking money outta my pocket." It's like, yeah, we're gonna get to a point where we're we have other revenue streams that are feeding the artists in a different way. Granted, I get it that the modern 360 deal and the modern music scene is a mess. It's not what it was, but it's like, it's what it is now. There's more kids playing music now and it's like, that's how are you gonna measure success? A millionaire cash and a check or the amount of kids making music, you know?

MR: Right. Or the influence you have. I've stumbled on this guy, his name is TribalNeed. It's a guy in Berlin. He goes into squares in Berlin, and he is got this old analog, I don't even know what it is, it's keyboard and he's got all these things hooked up to it. He's got a microphone and a keyboard and speakers. I guess he plugs in, it has a battery. He goes to these squares in Berlin and all over the world, and he just sits down on a blanket and he starts doing analog techno. He starts playing something and he's got looping and he does stuff with his voice and he taps a drum. You got these Germans, within half an hour, dancing and in this trance state, right.

Is that successful? I think so, because he's influencing all those people in that square. All their kids are there, their awareness and they're watching this guy make this, right. We think about even the work we do, if it's digital, there can be a danger where our customers don't realize like, yeah, we worked really hard to do that, but they don't see it. They just see the output. So to see someone sitting in a square with this analog equipment, like, okay, he's a musician and he is producing something for me that will probably never be exactly repeated the same way.

It moves in this direction of experience, which I think we, as coming back to visual thinking, I think there's opportunities where we can do the same thing with the skills we have. Even maybe integrating in the AI in some way. I don't know how that's gonna fit in for us. Maybe it will help us in our research phase that nobody sees that is annoying to do and takes time and maybe that gets compressed. I dunno.

JO: Yeah. Even if it was just—I mean, I've done graphic recording in Tandem before, and that just means somebody's doing the capture and somebody's maybe coming behind and doing color fill or doing like little call outs or whatever or just doing capture on stickies and then slapping it up and then the person captures that. You know, you're just working as a tag team. Even if there was an AI version of the capture of that, spit me, you know, generate highlights from the last two minutes of the discussion. And then I'm gonna translate those visually, right?

MR: Yes.

JO: I'm gonna do the thing the robot can't do but leverage the strength of what the robot can do to make what I'm doing stronger, faster, more efficient. What'll take the stress and the cortisol levels down in my body so I can be more present with the iconography, whatever it is. Right. How do you partner with that bot to be stronger and better together?

MR: Yeah. Because I mean, the bot might show you five things. It's like, oh, based on what I'm hearing of those five things, that one thing is most important.

JO: There's the one Yeah, exactly.

MR: Grab it and stick it in or recreate it based on that reference. So I think there's opportunities. Where that's gonna go, I dunno. Now we've completely veered off your origin story, but I think, it seems like we're at the place where you are, right? You're talking about The Grove, which is this, institution, I guess if you could even call it that in the visual thinking space, thinking about reimagining what kind of service you provide, maybe even the customers that you're gonna reach out to in a different way. Maybe talk a little bit about that, what you see now that you've been here while you haven't been there very long, what do you think the vision is, or at least that you can share?

JO: Well, I can tell you what I've been brought on to help with, and that's to really help deliver and train around the team performance system. That is the Drexler Sibbet model of team performance, which is a seven-stage model of team development that's based on Arthur Young's theory of process. It's a beautiful, elegant, yet simple model. That's a system that's been used at Mars and Wells Fargo and Humana and Nike and Apple everywhere. Part of what I'm doing in my role is to continue to certify people in that model, whether you're a workshop graduate or a enterprise practitioner or a survey administrator. There's just a lot in the team performance ecosystem, and so, I've been brought in to help with that.

Then there's another product called strategic visioning, which is basically the Grove's Visual strategic planning system. That instead of a V it's a figure eight, but it's also based on past, present, future and the four flows and going back before you can go forward and moving that kind of vertical continuum of ultimate freedom to ultimate constraint, from vision and strategy down to implementation and operations. That's another product that has a lot of offerings around, again, training, certifications, workshops, things like that.

There's also just kind of one-off consulting work that may or may not be based on either of those models. There's also the fundamentals of how to be a graphic facilitator. Then there's the one-off of, you know, we need somebody to come and help us facilitate a session. We're working on some kind of org change or goal setting or, you know, sometimes it's just like a customer experience journey, whatever they need. So it's real similar to the work I was already doing, but at the heart of it is the products offerings and services that the legacy offerings that the Grove already has in place.

MR: That's really fascinating. I hadn't realized how extensive, how broad the offerings were. I see what's going on. I'm on the mailing list, so I see things, but it was pretty interesting to hear it in that concise way. The idea of team dynamics is really fascinating because I think there is a real challenge, right? With we see the pandemic and how that's caused both hybrid teams and remote work. That has to be a challenge that companies are facing, right? They have to deal with these things. And how do we make our teams work regardless of the medium, right? Whether you're in person or not, or maybe it's a mix, right? That's gotta be a challenge that they face. So it seems well timed in that regard.

JO: Yeah. Yeah, hybrid is the bane of my existence right now.

MR: I think it's challenging for a lot of people. I know I've gone to my office usually once a week on a Wednesday. I used to go on a Monday, and I bailed on that because in Milwaukee, in the downtown area, nobody's there on Monday because of hybrid. They hit the middle of the week, so Mondays and Fridays are tougher. Actually, if you want to go Monday and Friday, that might be the day to get work done 'cause nobody will bother you and there's nobody around, right? So you could strategically use that. But it's an interesting dynamic that we—

JO: For me as a facilitator, it's just easier if we just pick one, you know? I don't care if you're a hybrid team, but spend the money to bring everybody into a room and let's be there and feel the chemistry and the energy together and read the body language and feel the intention of each other or let's do it remotely and we'll use Zoom and we'll use Mural or we'll use Teams or whatever. This attempt to include everyone, even if we're half there and half out, it's never been successful to me, you know? And it's never felt like those people are really there with us.

The most successful we've had has had a co-facilitator facilitate with those virtual participants. You've got some stuff going secondhand to them, and then maybe they're in a breakout of their own, and then that person will report out for them, but that then they're not in the room and it's like, you're still only hearing from one person, and it's not an elegant solution. So there's just no replacement for getting people in the room and being able to lean back in your chair and whisper behind somebody, which that's the speed of life, that's the speed of business, that's the speed at which these meetings need to happen. To me, it's still important to get people in the room for the important ones.

MR: That feels ideal, yeah. I think like you do all remote if for some reason you're spread across the world.

JO: Yeah. Sure.

MR: Maybe in that case you just bite the bullet and bring everybody to one place that's central, right, and take that opportunity to connect people together. That's ultimately the, the point of much of this either teams or a strategic visioning, right?

JO: Yeah.

MR: You want people in the room represented so you get the full picture 'cause otherwise you could produce something that doesn't include somebody, and then you end up having to tear it up and do something else in the future if you don't get it right the first time as much as you can, right. Interesting. Well, this is feels like a good time to shift to tools. We haven't talked a lot about your specific practice, but I suspect you still do analog work as well as digital. You mentioned Mural. I would love to hear—

JO: I don't, surprisingly.

MR: Really.

JO: I mean, sometimes, if I'm in the room and we're doing some graphic facilitation, I mean, you can see behind me, I'm still testing big Neuland markers. I mean, I still use markers on posters or boards. But I'm not myself doing the analog graphic recording or sketchnoting you might say, that I was doing at Ridge. At Ridge we had a team of like six graphic recorders that were doing this work. I would train them and work alongside them, but I eventually just kind of got out of that work and did more of the facilitation and the consulting and the coaching.

MR: Got it.

JO: I do in a pinch when it's just me in the room and somebody makes a joke about the organization is a sleeping giant or whatever, the membership of the organization is a sleeping giant, I might run to the wall with a marker and draw a giant laying down with Zs coming outta his mouth. It's just in me. I cannot do it, you know?

MR: Yeah, exactly. What about you personally? Is there, when you process information, like you're thinking and brainstorming and things, is there anything you do there that might be analog? Are you pretty much focused on—using tools you're like Mural to do that work? Where do you do that work now?

JO: Yeah. Mural, I mean, it's just my comfort zone. It's where I have a little like design shop if I'm working on concepts or process maps. I've got a project board that's just like task to-do list kind of things. If I'm taking notes in a meeting, I'm usually the one to say, "Hold on one second, let me create a Mural real quick." And starting to put stickies on and sharing my screen or inviting people into it. It's just become the place I lean to work visually.

MR: Sort of a good center place.

JO: Yeah.

MR: Do you make use of any of the—I believe it's Mural, the one or Miro, the one that has the iPad app. I think it's Miro. Have you used any of the drawing capabilities of a tool with an iPad Pro? Is that something that's possible?

JO: Yeah, yeah. The Mural has an okay—and I love Mural, but it has an okay drawing, you know, it has like maybe two or three different pen tips and that's about it, you know but you can draw on the mural and then that drawing becomes an object that you can move around. We've had graphic recorders in the Mural with us, drawing directly on the Mural and annotating if you would, but iconizing stuff and visually commenting on what's happening during the workshop. But for the most part, if there's a graphic record that needs to exist as a document, that is a takeaway, we just have them sharing their screen and doing a graphic recording in Procreate on Zoom, so you gotta look at Zoom to see the graphic recording and look at the Mural to do the work.

MR: I see. Switch a little bit. Okay.

JO: Yeah.

MR: It sounds like maybe I'll just open it up to whatever tools you find interesting right now. You talked about Mural, so obviously that would be one. What are some other tools that you like? They don't have to necessarily be pens or pencils or notebooks. Sounds like you're not using that anyway or maybe you are, I don't know, but.

JO: Yeah, I don't know. God, that's a good question. Mural virtually. I mean, the Neuland markers are still the go-to. I've got these cuddies I carry them, you know, everywhere I go. I will tell you a hack I found recently. This is a little case for electronic devices. You're supposed to put your cables and your chargers and your whatever, your iPad or whatever in it, but really this thing is great for—is to hold markers and tools. And then in the bottom is all my tape and my tennis ball that I usually use as a teaching tool. Like all that stuff is in the bottom half of it. The device tote is my latest favorite tool 'cause it's carrying stuff. I used to carry it around in a little like cardboard box, and now it's like in a nice little thing with a handle on it.

MR: We'll have to hit you up for a link to the one that you like and share it for those who are curious about those objects and then they can filter what makes sense for them. It's kind of nice to have a go-bag, right. You can just have it all ready to go and grab and go.

JO: Yeah, and I've seen people use travel shower totes too, where you would hang it on your shower head. You know, those things that kind of fold down vertically.

MR: Yeah.

JO: That same thing.

MR: You can be creative in the tool that you're using to carry your tools.

JO: Yeah.

MR: I suspect you might take that to a meeting and maybe you don't touch it all. Maybe you spend your whole time in Mural, but maybe that's the meeting where the sleeping giant isn't announced. You can grab your marker outta your go-bag and go over and visualize it on a wall, right?

JO: I have a chime like a bell in there too, with a little mallet that if people need to stop the breakouts or become present again, I hit it and it cuts through all the noise, you know, yeah.

MR: Wow. That'd be interesting to hear what you use for that. We'll follow up in the show notes for any of these tools.

JO: Yeah, cool.

MR: We'll share 'cause they could be useful. I never thought about having a little bell like that.

JO: Yeah.

MR: That'd be nice.

JO: Yeah, and there's these too, which are the, you like the fries are up kind of bell.

MR: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

JO: But the one I have is long and cylindrical. It's like, you can get it at any like Sam Ash guitar center or music store kind of thing, and it's only about five inches long and it's really just cuts through and has a nice sustain and everybody just quiets down.

MR: Gets to their attention. Is there a certain note that seems to work best or is it just [crosstalk 33:55].

JO: No, I don't even know what. Well, and the thing with chimes is like, they're not really tonal instruments. Same with like symbols on a drum set. They're kind of like all tones and frequencies at once. They're not really keyed in that way, so I wouldn't be able to tell you what key it's in.

MR: Okay. Nor does it matter, right. It's just that object. Interesting. Any other tools that you can think of as you're starting to scratch through the corners of your mind here?

JO: Well, SessionLab. I mean, shout out to SessionLab.

MR: What do they do?

JO: They're a website or an app I guess you would call it nowadays where you plan your agenda. For those of us who have had to like do them by hand or in a table or spreadsheet, every time a chunk in your agenda, a block in your agenda goes from 20 minutes to 45 minutes, you've gotta redo the fricking math from that point down, all kinds of things fall through the cracks and sometimes you make mistakes. This is an app that's block-based and you just tell it what block you wanna bring in. It's a report out, it's a Q & A, we're having break here, it's lunch here, we're doing this activity here.

You set the times and then it adds up your total. You can export or print different views or versions of the agenda detailed or abbreviated. It's just a really great tool. They've got a little community. I say little, it's huge community around the tool that is always sharing best practices as well. That'd be a good tool for people to know about.

MR: Yeah. That's even if, let's say you're a graphical recorder, sketchnoter, and you're responsible, you could build your own schedule to know, like for different reasons. Like, where can I sneak outta this thing if I have to go to the bathroom or whatever. There's ways to use it in multiple ways.

JO: Yeah. I always call that meeting with the client, the content mapping where it's like, okay, you have these panels or these whatever pieces of content or right on top of each other. When is the graphic recorder going to the bathroom? When are they eating? You know, is this the time where we maybe talk about having a second graphic recorder on site if you want all of these things captured, you know?

MR: Yep.

JO: But that content mapping meeting in my mind is where yeah, you would pull up an agenda and say, okay, this is happening at such and such a time. And they usually provide something to you as the client does, but it's usually, yeah, again, a table in Word and it's cumbersome and it's, you know.

MR: That could be nice too, even if you worked with that customer as an interactive tool where you're actually building it with them and say, "Okay, well, if we do this, like, okay, if they were to go the bathroom? Oh, okay, we can steal some from the next session. You can come in 'cause we're gonna do introductions, so you got five minutes." That gives you this way of working together to kind of nail down how things will go. And then they get a copy, right, so they know too.

JO: Yep.

MR: That's pretty fascinating. We'll definitely get some links for you all so you can check these things out and as much as we can. Joran, can we talk a little bit about tips now? I'd love to hear at least three. You can go beyond three if you like. And I frame it as someone, as a visual thinker that are listening to the show, watching the show and maybe they feel like they're in a rut, they just need a little bit of encouragement or a different way of looking at things. What would be some tips you might share with that person?

JO: Lemme step away for just one second. I'll be right back.

MR: Okay. All right.

JO: Okay. The tips I will share, the three tips that come to mind first are from this book that I wrote with my wife and it's called Visionary Leadership. It's three steps for any leader who feels like they are stuck or at a crossroads or experiencing pushback or conflict or just something's happening with them. Based on all the interviews we'd done and all the consulting work we'd done, it felt to us like there were these three things that if leaders did this, they could break through those crossroads’ moments. The first step was to own the problem. Whatever is happening around you, it's sometimes easy to point your finger and deflect and blame and do all these things that aren't really taking responsibility for the things you can control, you know?

Owning the problem is step one. Step two is to then break the big thing 'cause It always feels like a big thing. It always feels like a big rock, a boulder, an impasse. Break that big thing into smaller things. We compare that to, if you had an organizing project or you were cleaning out a closet, you'd basically pull everything out and you'd start to chunk it. Like, here's certain types of things, here's categories of things. I'm gonna get rid of these, and these are maybes, whatever, right? But you break the big monster Yeti of a thing down into smaller, digestible pieces, right?

That could be just on paper, that could be in Mural, that could be physically, you know, organizing the work doesn't matter, but you gotta break it down into smaller chunks. Then that third step, and this is I think some of the best leaders I've worked with have the hardest time with this. The third step is ask for help. I think a lot of the times we want to do it. We have something to prove. We feel like we're leading by example, by, you know, taking the work back away from somebody and doing it ourselves. We think we're showing them how that's done.

We're showing them how to take work away from somebody and take more back on our plate. That's what we're modeling in that moment. The asking for help piece is huge for, you know, not only scaling yourself and in a fast-moving complex, chaotic environment, but also kind of to keep you sane and centered and healthy in the midst of all of that. So yeah, own the problem, break the big thing into small things, and then ask for help.

MR: Now those are three. Oh man, I love that I could apply that to my own life, like right now.

JO: Yeah.

MR: That's pretty great. I love it.

JO: The other reason I ran to my bookshelf was, 'cause I don't know if you've seen this, this is my latest book, Facilitation. Let me just real quick find the page that you are on.

MR: Oh, wow.

JO: Let's see here. Yeah, we've got a whole section called MVGD. It's Minimum Viable Graphic Design.

MR: Oh, nice.

JO: It's the basics that any facilitator will need to know about working visually, right. We take Brandy Agerbeck's idea of like layers and levels, right. Things like that. You are the first section here in your seven types of sketchnoting composition.

MR: Oh, yeah.

JO: We just want to give you a little shout out here.

MR: Oh, thank you. That's really cool. I'm very honored. That's pretty amazing.

JO: So hopefully we've been pointing some people your way too.

MR: Well, that's good. That's what I like about this community is it seems to me at the years that I've been in it, it's very much a everybody wins kind of community.

JO: Yeah.

MR: People wanna help each other, people wanna do things together, and they celebrate each other's wins. That's something else I've noticed. It's less of a, "Oh, you won, so I lose," you know, zero-sum game. It's more of a growth mindset. Everybody wins together. You know, every time you win, it makes it easier for me to win in the future, right?

JO: Yeah.

MR: I feel like that's true throughout the community and in all the cases that I've gotten run across it. I just wanna thank you for the work you're doing now with The Grove and that team, but also the work that you've done in the past and all the influence you've had that make my life easier. Thank you for doing that work. I appreciate it.

JO: Yeah. Thanks, Mike.

MR: This is where we wrap up the show. What would be the best places for people to find out about you? I suspect the Grove would be one place. I don't know, off the top of my head, what that URL is, but I'd love to hear your other places too.

JO: Well, now it's, yeah, thegrove.com. You can find me there. My email address is Joran_[email protected], and I can provide that to you. You can feel free to reach out to me anytime in the notes. Of course, there's books. I've written books visual, meetings, field Guide and Visionary Leadership, and this new one on facilitation. Of course, the Grove has a wealth of books out there. There's the visual series on Wiley, on visual leaders, visual teams, visual consulting all kinds of amazing books on graphic facilitation. Gisela, our new CEO just published a brand-new book called The Liminal Pathways Study. This is all about organizational change and how to navigate the complexities of change.

MR: Which I think we're all dealing with right now. If anybody's listening and there's some way things are changing, we just touched on AI and how that's probably gonna change things, but there's all kinds of other change that we deal with and we will continue to deal with. It's part of being alive, I think, right, so.

JO: Yeah. It's not going away.

MR: It's really cool. I know that you're also on LinkedIn. Are there any other places where people might follow the stuff that you do and the things you share?

JO: No, I'm on LinkedIn a lot. It's one of the tabs that stays open, so I would partly invite people to connect with me on LinkedIn. I mean, it's pretty clear if you're a spammer and trying to train people on how to sell or make videos. It's pretty clear the people I don't accept friend requests from, but I accept most friend requests, so please connect with me on LinkedIn. Yeah, absolutely.

MR: Great. That sounds good. Well, for anyone who's listening or watching, that's another episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Till the next episode, talk to you soon.

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Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

Mike teaches recorded, live, and in-person workshops to accelerate your sketchnoting practice and provides personalized coaching for your specific visual-thinking challenges.

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©2026 Mike Rohde, Sketchnote Lab

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

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 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 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 learning templates to bring people through problems. Facilitation is also about you not being the star, but the group being the star. So learning to get the focus off of yourself and into the group.

MR: Yeah. You're a little bit like my friend Steve Silbert. He's an agile coach but like a scrum master in his perspective as someone who eliminates blocks from the group. So to let them flow and keep going, in a lot of ways the facilitators doing those same things, but in a room, in a meeting, in a set time. I could imagine in a meeting like this, talk about "problem children," someone who keeps throwing in some outside of the agreed upon scope of what we're gonna talk about and drawing the group into argument or something. And being able to shut that down and redirect, those are really important skills.

EM: Yeah. And I think those skills lend themselves well to any profession, even if I never end up pursuing facilitation, I'm really glad I took the workshop.

MR: So here's a question that's I didn't think about until we got into this discussion was, what if you're an introvert, someone who's not a people person, do you think you can be a facilitator or would that be challenging?

EM: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it probably depends on the person because I think we all express our creativity and introversion and extroversion on a spectrum. Like me, I'm definitely an introvert, but I can turn on the extroversion. I might step into a facilitation role and thrive, but then I might need to take two days off after that.

MR: Yeah and restore.

EM: So maybe the extrovert can do that and then they just jump into work the next day. So maybe it's more about the recharging and less about the ability.

MR: So sort of knowing yourself.

EM: Yeah.

MR: So the things you might do as an introvert would be, "I know this is stressful for me, so maybe I make sure I get rest on the front end. I do a lot of prep. I know my people, I read my information." Which is always good practice, but maybe that gives a introvert structure and confidence. And then knowing that I should not organize some brain-heavy thing the day after, would be just knowing yourself so that you don't do things that put yourself in a pinch.

EM: Introverts might actually be in an advantage now that I think about it because an introvert doesn't want to be the star versus an extrovert—

MR: That's a good point.

EM: - who gets to be a facilitator, they're just like, "Oh my gosh, look at all these people looking at me. This is great." Versus an introvert who's like, "Let's get the attention off of me as soon as possible."

MR: Yeah. I've been fascinated with restaurant stuff lately. You think about like, so there's back of house in front of house. So back of house where they make the food, the front of house is where they take the orders, but there's someone who, they call it manning the pass or running the pass. You're the one in between those two places.

You take all the heat from the customers, but you don't often tell the people and back. You relay it in a nice way. And then you gotta yell at these guys, "Hey, I need a hamburger. Come on, I need a hamburger." And you're managing the expectations of the front of the house. So in a lot of ways that facilitators a little bit like that role.

EM: That's cool. I love that.

MR: Interesting. You've done this education. Do you have a sense whether that makes sense as another offering you might offer or is that an experimentation, you're gonna do?

EM: It's definitely an experimentation. I think just having done graphic recording for nine years, I don't feel stagnant, I'm always looking to make things better. And I think it's easy to hit a wall and just stay there because I'm comfortable and it's, "I've hit my groove, I've hit my stride, I know what to do." But once I just keep showing up in the same way, it's like, "Hmm, I don't think I could keep going like this forever, how can I, I don't know, shake things up?" That's the best way I can phrase it.

MR: And expand your skills so you could—if the job was maybe—so coming back to this is, I've heard in past discussions with people who do this work that often they'll have a facilitator and a visual person together in a room because it's really hard to do both.

EM: Right.

MR: It can be done. There are people that are really good that they could do it. The first person that comes to mind is Brandy Agerbeck. Really good at both, right? But that's like the unicorn skill, right, to be able to both do management. Manage the room, you know, stop the "annoying kids" from causing trouble and getting visuals on the wall, is really challenging.

EM: Yeah, it is a lot.

MR: Did they talk at all about that kind of setup where you maybe partner with someone?

EM: Yeah, they did. They mentioned it's good to have all the skills so you can do what you can by yourself to the ability that you can. The instructor said he always works with another graphic recorder. Even if he knows how to graphic record, he hires somebody else because they're passive. They're in the background constantly capturing. And then he can always interact with them because he has that graphic recorder experience. They speak the same language. He can direct them in a way that helps create that artifact for the group.

That, I think a graphic recorder could do by themselves, but the facilitator can help direct the graphic recorder. So many times, we get in a live event and we don't know what's gonna happen. We don't know if the speaker's gonna go over or if something's actually important or if it's a tangent. The facilitator can tell the graphic recorder, "This is a tangent, don't capture it." Or, "This is actually really important, draw that huge." So it could be a really cool partnership.

MR: That makes me think too the way you partner. You could have two graphic recorder facilitators like a tag team in wrestling, right? Like, ding and you tag in and this person goes to the wall and they're drawing while this person's facilitating and then you would switch back, and you could have this kind of dual thing. Maybe there's strengths that one person has that the other doesn't have, and you get more out of that situation.

EM: Yeah, I think partnerships would be really important moving into a group like that.

MR: And I imagine too, as you do that work, a facilitator might like say, "I can do visuals, but it's not my strength. I really like the facilitation role." And they look for people who understand the dynamic but can do the wall stuff. And then the people that do the wall stuff could then have these partnerships and know, "Okay, I got this situation where I need a strong facilitator so I can focus on the visuals 'cause it's important." Then you would partner. So you have these options to mix and match based on what you wanna do.

EM: Yeah.

MR: So I heard you telling a story, and this will our last discussion on this space 'cause it's really fascinating, is you were just at the IFVP event in New Jersey.

EM: That's right.

MR: And you put yourself out there to say, "Hey, I will sketchnote the opening session." And then suddenly you got called up to the front. Tell us that story. I don't wanna lead too much with details, so.

EM: Sure. So IFVP is the International Forum of Visual Practitioners. They have a conference every year. For the keynote and some of the workshops, they had a sign-up sheet for graphic recording those sessions, kind of on stage to the side. And it was just like, "Hey, if you wanna practice, get your practice in." And so, I just signed up for the first keynote 'cause I thought it'd be fun.

MR: And you said nobody else signed up for it either, right?

EM: Right. No one else. The keynote speaker is a facilitator and a consultant who's very experienced. He's written books. And so I think people were a little weary or wary of recording in front of him. It was like high pressure. But I didn't know who the man was. I'd never heard of him before.

MR: What was his name?

EM: Chris McGough.

MR: Okay. I don't know him either. So I mean, now I'm learning things.

EM: Yeah, we're all learning together. And so, I guess some people were a little intimidated by that, but since I didn't know, I didn't know any better, so.

MR: Which is probably maybe the good trouble you can get yourself into, right?

EM: Yeah, so I signed up, I got there early and I made a little title. Chris pulled me aside a short minute beforehand and said, "We're gonna work together. It'll be fine." And it was very—

MR: What does that mean?

EM: I was like, what does that mean 'cause I'm very used to being in the back of the room. No one talks to me, no one interacts with me. It's kind of different that it was on stage, but it's IFVP, we're all watching each other. It's professionals. So I kind of understood it. Well, then he gets 10 minutes into his keynote and which is about facilitation and working with a graphic recorder. And it was kind of meta. He was like, "And the artifact that Emily is creating is really important, so why is she off in the corner? Let's bring her up to center stage."

MR: So he used as an opportunity to do a—

EM: A teaching moment.

MR: A lesson. Yes.

EM: So he brings me on center stage. That was kind of intimidating. Again, I'm used to being in the corner and I love the corner.

MR: As an introvert, that's a place you wanna be, your happy place in a lot of ways.

EM: So be like me, dark, happy corner. So then he brings me up and then he talks about how it's a partnership. Like we were just saying, the facilitator and the graphic recorder have experience with each other's skills and strengths and so they can work together. So he was saying, "We're working together as a team and we also wanna involve the group." So he stopped kind of the keynote and reached out to the audience and was like, "Okay, so we're about 45 minutes into this presentation, what did she miss? Is there anything missing from this graphic recording that is important enough to add back in?

There were some comments about gender. There was some comments about what kinds of drawings were there. Chris also had two flip charts that he was working on. And so, some of his images didn't get translated onto mine 'cause I was busy drawing what he was saying not what he was drawing. So I was like, "Well, he's got the flip chart, should I copy that? We already have one version." That was a lot for me to navigate.

MR: Where you've got two streams of information and you have to make decisions. Yeah.

EM: It was kind of a little overwhelming. I was just like making quick decisions in the moment saying, "Well, it's already on a flip chart. I don't wanna copy it. I'd rather just continue moving on."

MR: You could capture it later if you needed to.

EM: Right 'cause it's written down. I feel good about that. But then when he pulled the audience it was like, "Well, that thing Chris Drew is actually missing. We need to put it on the artifact." But I actually really enjoyed that process of involving the audience and getting their opinion because it's for them. It's great that I have this lens that I'm listening through, but if this artifact is for them, why don't they get a say? So that was a new concept for me. It kind of blew my mind. I was like, "That was actually really fun." It was stressful, but it was fun.

MR: I guess that reminds you that you're just one individual with two ears doing your best. And you can't be omniscient and know everything and stop time and rewind it and stuff in a live moment.

EM: Right.

MR: It's a good reminder.

EM: That also reminded me, so when people were giving their feedback, I also kind of just came to this realization on stage like, I can't please everybody in this audience. And so, I had to make decisions based on what I thought would be good for the group as well. One person said, "Add more emotion and color." And some person's like, "It's great as it is. Don't change anything." I can't please both people.

MR: Right. They're going two different directions.

EM: Right. So you just have to pick one and someone's gonna have their feelings hurt. That's just the reality of the world.

MR: Well, and I think, if I'm not mistaken, graphic recording, there's a real emphasis to try and be as neutral as possible.

EM: Right.

MR: And it's impossible to be completely neutral 'cause you have a perspective.

EM: Right. We're all biased.

MR: So that, you just have to accept and you try your best to kind of neutralize that. But I mean, probably in the moment, it wasn't great to have people like throwing darts at you. "Emily did this wrong. You did that wrong."

EM: Yeah. Afterwards, I had a few people come up to me and say, "I would've cried if I had been put on the spot like that." Or, "Oh, I'm glad it wasn't me."

MR: Yeah, yeah. But I think that's when you learn. The other thing too is just like here at this conference, you're kind of among friends and people who, they're not there to beat you up, they wanna improve so you learn. So you take all of that in that context, which is really good.

EM: Yeah. If it had been any other conference, I would've been probably way more scared to do that.

MR: Oh yeah.

EM: But if it's like, oh, we're all graphic recorders here. It's okay.

MR: It was a lesson for everyone else too. They were taking notes. I think back in time of moments when I've done that kind of facilitation, it wasn't that formal, but I worked in a software company. I was the only designer and there were 50 developers and project managers and stuff. And the way we—I just made the decision because I knew I was a bottleneck. How can I alleviate a little bit of this bottleneck?

So our solution was that business analysts and I, we had a big whiteboard in the space, and we had Whiteboard Mondays. And so, Whiteboard Mondays teams would rotate through and say, "Okay, what's the feature you're working on? Let's look at how it's done in the old app that we're replacing. Let's talk about what kind of stuff we think would be cool. While we're doing that, Mike will go up and draw what you're saying." And I would talk with people and try to capture that. So I would draw and then annotate in another color.

EM: Cool.

MR: And the cool thing was as we got into a rhythm where they got to expect and know how it worked. And I loved it when someone would say, "Hey, I have this idea, can I draw it?" I was like, "Yes." So I'd hand the marker off and they would draw their thing. I wouldn't redraw it, we would just leave it the way it was.

EM: That's cool.

MR: But they felt confident enough that they could come up and express their ideas. What I found was some of the most difficult features needed the developers to come up. The other thing was we would do sessions. I remember one session, it took like four or five or six iterations of sessions rehashing that idea 'cause it was complex. I think on the seventh one, before everybody came up, I drew like a tombstone and I wrote the feature on the tombstone and we were just having fun with it. But I think people really appreciated.

And some of the most innovative stuff was those hash out sessions where we had to go over it over it again and developers are drawing, but we came up with really cool stuff that way. And I think probably in the end, seeing that it was facilitated that was most interesting was if someone said, "Well who designed that feature?" It's like, "We all did."

EM: Yeah.

MR: It wasn't me, it wasn't John, it wasn't Mary, it was all of us together we're feeding and building this thing and reacting and giving comments. And ultimately, the sketches we did would then be taken by a developer and built. And there was modifications at that level. But that was a kind of a cool feeling to feel like this is a real collaborative environment. And that's probably—

EM: And it's not all on your shoulders if something fails.

MR: Right. You're just one part of the team and even if things would go wrong, we would correct it. There was always this feeling like there was the ability to have a say and correct things as we went through the process. I really enjoyed that. Now that is in a comfort zone for me. I knew that topic and I had a system. I wonder how I would do in unknown topics. And that's the challenge, right. You're always going into these unknown topics and trying to make sense of them. I guess you have the advantage of being an outsider. You hear and see things that the insiders miss 'cause it's now a blind spot for them.

EM: Mm-hmm.

MR: That's really interesting. That's exciting to hear that you're doing that and you're thinking about adding that, augmenting your skills that way.

EM: We'll see what happens.

MR: Yeah. Yeah, that's really great. Maybe you'll get some work from this. I don't know. So, we'll see. Probably the other thing that I think is big since you were on last at least that I'm aware of is, you were single at that point and now you're married. You also lived, I think in Nashville at the time.

EM: Mm-hmm.

MR: And now you live somewhere else. Talk a little bit about the transition personally and where you're at.

EM: I met my husband in Nashville. We were actually both from Colorado and we both moved to Nashville for job opportunities. And then we met at a drawing event that I was hosting called Drawing in Donuts.

MR: I remember you promoting that. Yep.

EM: So that worked out great. We were in Nashville seven years total. Neither of us are really big city people. I grew up in Colorado Springs. He grew up in Pueblo, which is like a south of Colorado Springs. I think we're both introverts. He's a little bit more extroverted than I am so big cities just aren't really our vibe. That's the best way I can put it. We also just had trouble connecting. I think Nashville's a different culture than we were used to. The South is very different from the Rockies and even the West coast. So, we just couldn't really adapt and fit in. And it just got old after seven years.

MR: Banging your head against the wall for seven years, right?

EM: Right. We just kept renewing our lease. Like I guess we'll stay, but after the pandemic, my in-laws, one of them retired and said, "Hey, we're gonna go on a grandkid tour. Why don't you come live in our house for free for a year?" And so, we were like, "Yes."

MR: Wow.

EM: Saving money is always a great thing especially after the pandemic. And we wanted to buy a house and Nashville was booming even more than it was when we moved there.

MR: Super difficult to find anything.

EM: Yeah. We were just kind of getting priced out and we didn't love it. So it's like, "Why are we here?"

MR: Right.

EM: So we just decided to go live with my in-laws for a year and then just figure that out. We thought maybe we'll go back to Nashville or maybe we'll go to Colorado or maybe there's something else that we haven't thought about. That was just a very temporary, like, "Hey, let's go figure it out. Just take the next step and we'll figure it out as we go." So we lived in my in-Law's house for a year and we loved it so much. We stayed. We moved out, got our own little rental in Bend, Oregon.

We love the culture there. We got connected to a church community really quickly. We made friends faster in Bend than we did in Nashville. And so, it just felt like a really good personal fit. I was a little worried moving from a city to a smaller city for work 'cause I do live events and all these conferences. And my work has shifted. I obviously don't do as many big conferences anymore, but I am doing a lot more virtual events.

MR: Which has also changed after the pandemic.

EM: Right. As people have been asking me here at the conference, how much are you working? What's your travel ratio? What's your graphic recording to illustration ratio? And I just say, "I am sorry, I don't have a good answer. Everything's been weird since the pandemic. Some years have been really great and other years it's been a struggle and I can't really pinpoint it to any one thing." I just kind of have a lot of things factoring into why business might be good or bad. And moving and pandemics don't really help with your data.

MR: Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of all mixed up.

EM: Yeah.

MR: It sounds like you found the right alignment. It sounds like even making friends with people was probably due to alignment. It aligned with the way you guys thought and were.

EM: Yeah. And I think just, I'm happier in drier climates than I am in humid ones.

MR: Yeah. Like everybody is maybe, I dunno.

EM: I got into birding during the pandemic. That was my hobby.

MR: I see that.

EM: And so Nashville has great birds and then we moved to Bend and it was just like, "Ooh, new birds." And so, like spending out time outside hiking and discovering the nature there, it's just been like personally fulfilling and really fun. I feel like I was creatively stifled in Nashville 'cause it wasn't a personal fit. Now that I'm in Bend, I feel like I'm personally thriving, but professionally, it's a little wonky still.

MR: Maybe I think that will come into alignment 'cause you're personally aligned.

EM: Mm-hmm.

MR: Which is, you're talking about doing facilitation, so that's another challenge.

EM: Right.

MR: And I would suspect that's a kind of a thing that you have to do in person more often than virtually.

EM: Mm-hmm.

MR: Which is probably also a challenge for you, right. You can't be in your dark corner, you gotta step out. Even though you're not the center of attention, it requires you to physically be somewhere.

EM: Yeah. And Bend is a resort town, so a lot of professionals from California and Portland and Seattle come to Bend for their retreats. So I see an opportunity interesting for maybe being a local facilitator or graphic recorder at these resorts. Maybe they don't have to bring in somebody from out of town. Maybe I can be the option.

MR: You wouldn't travel anywhere.

EM: Yeah.

MR: Hmm. Does Bend also offer a reasonably large airport so you can get places easily?

EM: Yeah, we have about five airlines.

MR: Oh wow.

EM: We have two baggage claims. It's a tiny little airport, but it connects to a good number of places.

MR: Oh, that's good. Well, and if you've got resorts there, people are at least coming in, which means they have to go out again.

EM: Right.

MR: So seems like it's worked out pretty well.

EM: Well, I'm only two years in, so I guess it can only go up from here.

MR: You've always got options, you know. So, let's talk a little bit about tools. We talked in the past, I don't even remember what tools you said. I'm sure you used Neuland markers at the time. What are you using now and are there new things that you've discovered that you might wanna share that people can check out?

EM: Yeah. One thing I've learned in the past couple years is I just got really bogged down in my tools. They were holding me back. So I used to use this—gosh, whatever that standard Moleskin size is, like the half page.

MR: Five by eight, or something.

EM: Yeah, five by eight. That was my go-to for eons. Then I realized I wasn't creating as many sketch notes because the page was too big. It just felt like a lot of work and I was like really busy with illustration. And so, my fun sketchnotes took the back burner.

MR: It become work.

EM: It became work. And I was like, it's too much to do. It's gonna take too long. So I just stopped. But once I got a smaller sketchbook, I felt like I was doing it way more often. I switched to these pocket Moleskin sketchbooks that are—

MR: And they're kind of horizontal, right?

EM: They're like a three by five. You can orient them horizontally or vertically. I really like those. I'm vacillating between those and, let's see if I can remember the brand name, handbook. It says hand.book on the cover. It's a sketchnote or sketchbook, that I found. Mike Lowery, who's an illustrator uses them a lot. I got the tip from him about these sketchbooks. They're square. I think it's maybe five or six by six. The paper is pretty thick and I really like those. So, usually have, one of those two sketchbooks with me.

MR: Going on. Okay. And I suppose the other thing too is those smaller books, a lot of the reason when I started Sketchnoting, I used a pocket-sized Moleskine was because I could stick it in my pocket, and only travel with a pen and the book. And I was always ready to go at any time. So like cycling or birding or hiking. That's the kind of thing you could take anywhere.

EM: Yeah, yeah. The big Moleskine journals, I never took them anywhere.

MR: Too clunky.

EM: My purse wasn't big enough.

MR: What about pens and things, have you found any different, have you gotten into any watercolors or anything like that? What stuff are you using in the books?

EM: U Brands has a felt tip pen. They're pretty similar to microns. You can buy 'em at Target or OfficeMax. I really like those. They're not very black, but they're pretty light, not light fast. They don't bleed. So I can write with the U Brand's pen and then put yellow over it and it doesn't bleed. I love that. And they don't bleed through the paper, which is great. Bleed through is my number one pet peeve right now.

MR: Okay.

EM: I do like Tombow Mono Twin pens.

MR: I love those too.

EM: Those bleed, but they're also really black suits, like pros and cons.

MR: Trade off. Yeah.

EM: And then, I don't really do watercolor. I'm still pretty much on the marker train. I use Tombow dual brush pens and zebra mild liner brush pens. Neuland, I don't have the fine tip Neulands as much. The ones I have are probably 10 years old. So the nibs are starting to wear out and I haven't replaced them, but Neuland fine ones. And then iPad, I use Adobe Fresco.

MR: Okay. So it sounds like maybe you're not doing as much board work as maybe you have in the past if your Neulands are getting old and they're getting frayed.

EM: Well, those are the fine ones. I still have the number ones and the big ones that I use for the board work. But yeah, board work has definitely decreased over the years.

MR: Hmm. There's an interesting company called Art Toolkit. We interviewed the person who runs that right in Oregon, up the coast, I think Port Townsend. I'm not sure how that looks.

EM: Oh yeah, that's in Washington.

MR: So that's in Washington. That's Maria Coryell-Martin.

EM: Oh, cool.

MR: She does something called Art Toolkit. She's really interesting. You'd probably really vibe with her. She went on expeditions and so she kept on squeezing her tools down. She's into—

EM: Oh, wow.

MR: - watercolor. But what she's produced now is like these little zip up books with the nylon, like ballistic nylon cover. Inside you can put whatever notebook you want and then these little square tins and you can buy the colors you want. They're magnetic.

EM: Oh yeah, I've seen those.

MR: And you snap 'em in this little thing. And then they include a water, like a syringe. So you could suck up water from a stream and then you can do water coloring with it.

EM: That's so cool. I haven't tried that yet.

MR: They make little kits. It's called Art Toolkit. We'll put a link in the show notes and then link to her interview. That's kind of cool if someone's listening or watching it into outdoors.

EM: Yeah.

MR: I've got one that she sent me and I took it on a train trip we did with our family and it was a lot of fun. I need to do more outdoor stuff so I can actually use the dumb thing so I don't feel like I've lived up to her expectations, but she's always really nice about that, so.

EM: That's cool.

MR: Well, that's really cool. We typically do tips. I don't even remember what tips we did back in the old days.

EM: Me either.

MR: The way I frame it is someone's listening or watching, they're a visual thinker, whatever that means to them, and maybe they've hit a plateau or they're just stuck. What would you say to someone like that to encourage them or to give 'em ideas for how to maybe break out of it or do something new?

EM: I would say just keep experimenting. I've been doing visualization for almost 10 years and I feel like I've hit those plateaus before. And sometimes the experimentation looks bad and it feels bad, and it feels like you're stepping backwards, but that's actually making progress. So just keep experimenting is my advice.

MR: Cool. Gimme two other tips.

EM: Ooh, two other tips.

MR: I wanna go for three. See if I can get two more outta 'ya.

EM: Ooh, let's see.

MR: Kind of on the spot. Sorry.

EM: I would say maybe try something outside of your practice, but still creative. Take a pottery class. Go for a photography, outdoor walk, or just something creative that you wouldn't normally sign up for. 'Cause I think so much of our creative advice really translate across fields, and sometimes it's fun to go eavesdrop on another field and see what you can learn from it.

MR: For me that's been learning how to bake bread and make pizza.

EM: Oh my gosh, you're pizza. I'm gluten free now, so every time I see it—

MR: Well, we're going gluten free, so we're having to figure that out.

EM: No.

MR: Yeah. I think we're going sourdough probably, so that helps. But yeah, that was my experimental space too. And I think it's important to be a beginner somewhere. And then you can, like, I've always talked about overlaying, so the sketchnoting skill overlaid on something like for you birding or cycling or hiking or whatever travel, your travel work that you've done.

EM: I think one last tip would be just be very careful of when sketchnoting becomes work. So whether it feels like work because it's too big, too intimidating, too complex or if it's work because maybe you're starting to do it professionally. I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying be aware of when it starts to feel like work and then find something else to supplement that joy factor. The sketch noting can have joy, but if work is attached to it, maybe there's something else to fill the joy bucket.

MR: Yeah, that switches the pressure which isn't helpful sometimes. Two things I wanted to mention before we go. Number one, you got a great book, the Art of Visual Note Taking. Tell us a little bit about the status of that now. 'Cause I think when we first had you on, it was brand new. I think maybe it launched or it was close to launching. Maybe it was just before it launched. And now it's been a while. Tell us how long it's been out and how it's selling and what's your experience?

EM: It turned five years old in March.

MR: Wow.

EM: Or May sometime last spring or this spring. My publishing numbers are always six months behind. My last numbers were 19,700. Somewhere there.

MR: Wow, that's great.

EM: It's doing pretty good. My agent called me a while back and he was saying it's time to start thinking about book number two, but I'm actually pretty stuck there. I don't know what to write about next. I don't have an inspiring idea. I have a post-it system that I use every week. My back burner section is just stuff that I should think about. And my second book idea is just always in the percolation section.

MR: Sometimes it just has to percolate for a while.

EM: Oh, yeah. I don't wanna rush it.

MR: Yep. And then the other thing I was gonna mention too was, I really loved when you traveled to Sweden and Norway and I think Finland and Scotland or something like that.

EM: Yeah. We went to six countries in three weeks.

MR: I couldn't keep up, but you did really beautiful. And I think you were experimenting with those notebooks you talked about, right?

EM: Yep.

MR: The ones that could either be vertical or horizontal. Tell us what was that experience like?

EM: I've looked at travel sketchnotes a lot and I was so inspired and I wanted to do it. That was my first time in Europe and traveling overseas, so I really wanted to capture it. And so I made a commitment, I have to sketch every day. Before I go to sleep, I have to sketch at least one page.

MR: Something.

EM: It doesn't have to be a whole spread, but knowing me it's just like overdone and there's like five pages for day one. So I had to actually adjust expectations and like simple down instead of just overdoing it 'cause it's like, "I'm jet lagged, I wanna go to bed really bad right now. I'm just gonna do one page." I was kind of taking care of myself at the same time, but wanting to document visually in a journal so I can remember what we did and where we went.

I had pages where it was a traditional sketchnote where it's like little popcorns with a path of the time. Then I had others that was just text with a little icon here and there. I really had fun and played with it. I have spreads that are all realistic sketches and then I have pages with cartoons. It's just kind of everything.

MR: It was fun for me to go through and see your experimentation and how you're changing. I think later on you got sick.

EM: Yeah, we got.

MR: So you were dealing with like, "Okay, I made this agreement I have to do. What if you're sick, how do you deal with that?" How did you deal with that?

EM: I don't know what I had, whether it was flu or COVID or something like that, but we got to Scotland, and I was just fevery. We got off the plane and it was raining and the rain felt so good. It was just like, oh, thank goodness we're in a cold place 'cause Paris was so hot. We landed, we got to the Airbnb and I just slept for like three days.

MR: Wow.

EM: I did not sketch. I thought about it. I was like—

MR: I think that's probably where you can let yourself outta that agreement.

EM: I did, and so then I caught up afterwards. I left a couple blank pages saying, "Okay, nothing happened. I was in bed for three days." We'll just—

MR: Draw the picture of you in bed.

EM: - I'll just do a journal entry there. Then we went to Berwick-upon-Tweed for a little half day trip. And I started that sketch the next day. Then after we got home, that's when I did the journaling about being sick 'cause it was less interesting.

MR: And then you could reflect on it a little bit—

EM: Yeah.

MR: - in a way. Yeah, that was really cool. I thought that was a lot of fun. We'll, of course, include the link to the book and the travel sketchnotes so people can check it out. Well, it's been so good to have you on the show in this unusual setting.

EM: Thanks, Mike. And always a pleasure to listen and be on the sketchnote Army podcast.

MR: Yeah, not a problem. So for whoever's watching or listening, this wraps another episode. Till next time, talk to you soon.

Subscribe to the Sketchnote 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!

Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

Mike teaches recorded, live, and in-person workshops to accelerate your sketchnoting practice and provides personalized coaching for your specific visual-thinking challenges.

He is the illustrator of bestselling books like REWORK, REMOTE, The $100 Startup, Honest SEO, The Culture Playbook, and The Future Begins with Z.

Become a Supporting or Founding Lab Partner to support Mike’s work.

Some links in Sketchnote Lab posts are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools and resources I use and believe in.

©2026 Mike Rohde, Sketchnote Lab

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 Order

• Intro
• Professor Michael Clayton
• ISC24TX history
• San Antonio
• Sponsors
• Outro

Links

• ISC24TX 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/)

Credits

• Producer: Mike Rohde
• Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer

Subscribe 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!

Subscribe to the Sketchnote 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!

Sketchnote Lab is Mike Rohde’s space designed to bridge the gap between sketchnote theory and practice. You don’t need to be an artist to think visually. Join Mike and learn to use sketchnotes to clarify your thinking, solve problems, and move forward. Learn more about Sketchnote Lab.

Mike is the author of The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook, bestselling books that teach regular people how to start sketchnoting and build a regular sketchnoting practice.

He founded the Sketchnote Army and hosts the Sketchnote Podcast, where he interviews visual thinkers to understand what makes them tick.

Mike teaches recorded, live, and in-person workshops to accelerate your sketchnoting practice and provides personalized coaching for your specific visual-thinking challenges.

He is the illustrator of bestselling books like REWORK, REMOTE, The $100 Startup, Honest SEO, The Culture Playbook, and The Future Begins with Z.

Become a Supporting or Founding Lab Partner to support Mike’s work.

Some links in Sketchnote Lab posts are affiliate links. If you purchase through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools and resources I use and believe in.

©2026 Mike Rohde, Sketchnote Lab