Journey from Visual Storytelling to Strategic Design

In this episode, Alan Chen, co-founder of Sh8peshifters, shares how his passion for drawing, comics, and film helps him blend sketches, human-centered design, and storytelling principles into clear, impactful visual solutions for his clients.

Sponsored by Concepts

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Running Order

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

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Sh8peshifters website
• Sh8peshifters Instagram
• Alan on LinkedIn
• Alan on Instagram
• Think Visual! Sketch Lab course
• Book: Designing Tomorrow
• Book time with Alan

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

• Moleskin Sketchbook
• Staedtler 0.3mm Fineliner
• Zig Art & Graphic Twin Brush Pen
• Zig Kuretake No.22
• Small Post-card Watercolor pad
• Tombow ABT 725 (Hot Pink / Fuchsia)
• Copic Ciao RV02 (Pale cool pink)
• Copic Ciao W-5 (Warm grey)
• Pentel Aqua Brush
• Koh I Noor - Brilliant watercolor Disc
• iPad Pro
• Apple Pencil
• Procreate
• Adobe Photoshop
• Hunion Kamvas

  Tips

1. Aim for your creative minimum.
2. Practice on paper more than on digital if you can.
3. Try to link your habits.

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 Alan Chen. Alan, thanks for coming on the show. It's so good to have you.

Alan Chen: Thanks for having me, Mike. I've been really wanting to meet you.

MR: You as well. We were talking a little bit about meeting on LinkedIn and how that platform seems like it's become very visual. I've asked a few people wondering, "Is it just me? Am I following visual-thinking people? And so the algorithm is feeding me visual stuff," but I think I got the sense that there's some kind of a change happening on LinkedIn where visual people are actually having an influence on that platform. Do you sense the same thing? Or what's your impression?

AC: Yeah, I definitely agree, Mike. I probably am much less active on spaces like Instagram where, you know, ordinarily you think illustrators might be sharing their stuff. But you know, I use Instagram, maybe just kind of like a place for references, whereas LinkedIn, I actually have a lot of interaction with people. I share things and I see amazing work from other practitioners. So, LinkedIn is definitely the spot.

MR: Interesting. Okay, it's not just me then. Okay. Well, let's get this thing rolling. With every one of these interviews, I'm really fascinated about you. I want to understand who you are. So let us know who you are, what you do, and then jump right into your origin story. How did you get here? What were the things that shaped you? What were the events that happened that sort of directed you along the path to what you're doing now?

AC: Awesome. I love the questions. I guess at my core, I would describe myself as the dreamer. Somebody who has endless passion and ideas for all things, you know, related to stories and art. You can probably tell I'm a bit of a geek. I love collecting comics, books, and toys, and, you know, that stuff's all around me, as you can see. And that's kind of rubbed off on my daughter Aria, who is probably one of my biggest sources of inspiration. She, mind you also takes visual notes and she's seven. I'll show them to you some time.

MR: Okay.

AC: Now, whether it's drawing, painting, writing, or making movies or sculpting, I find myself deeply interested in telling stories. And that kind of relates to the work that I do. 'Cause I'm also the co-founder of Sh8peshifters, which is a small visual communication agency based in Sydney, Australia. I get to use a combination of illustration, human-centered design, and storytelling principles to help companies improve the ways they communicate the way they solve problems. And, you know, generally to help them better understand their strategy.

Now, in terms of the origin story, everybody loves a superhero origin story, right? Not a superhero, but I love superheroes. Now, I think I've loved drawing for as long as I can remember. I was a big fan of the '70s and '80s films like, you know, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and lots of horror films as well. And I also loved Superman, Batman, and, you know, all the kind of comic stuff.

And the thing is, I used to sketch from you know, being inspired by all of these things constantly. One time, you know, if I think back to when I was little, I was left alone at home, and I ended up drawing an entire story across my living room wall in permanent marker.

MR: Oh, wow.

AC: My folks amazingly, they didn't absolutely lose it. They were in fact, kind of supportive, and they left the drawings up on the wall as a bit of a permanent fixture for a number of years until they renovated. So, it was really cool. Yeah, they're very, very supportive. But on the flip side, at school you know, this was the, you know early mid-'80s, well, my teacher in kindergarten at the time, she was the opposite. She was very much against drawing in her classroom. She said, you know, "Drawing has no place in my classroom." And every time she caught me doing it, she would cane me.

MR: Oh, wow.

AC: She would literally smack me across the hand.

MR: Ouch.

AC: Yeah. It was pretty extreme. But you know, that was her way of kind of communicating to me like, "Nope, don't do this". I was pretty lucky because in Year 1, my teacher was super supportive. She was a bit of a cool hippie kinda lady. She was like, "No, no, Alan, you express yourself. You keep drawing. Do not stop under any circumstance." So I'm very lucky that I had some people around me who kind of were really supportive.

But I think, you know, when it comes down to it, I reckon all of this began because I recognize that I learn a little bit differently than other people. So when I hear things, when people share ideas, and when they speak, I have imagery instantaneously appearing in my mind. So I can see words as images instantly.

But on the flip side, when it comes to me communicating those things in written format or in in more detail, it used to take me a long time to formulate these things. And I think at the time, my teachers would often describe me as being slow, or, you know, having head in the clouds, or they thought that I was not listening. But the opposite was true. I was listening and I was just trying to formulate my ideas.

So I think, you know, these days we might call somebody like that being neurodivergent. It was almost like, you know, some form of dyslexia. I'm not exactly sure. I've never been diagnosed about it. What I used to do was, I would draw what I would hear, and I would sketch and take notes at the same time. Which we now call Sketchnoting.

MR: Yeah.

AC: You know, it wasn't so appreciated back then. And maybe because I was drawing it in my textbooks as well as my workbook, any surface that I could draw. And I was like, okay, this works—

MR: Fair game.

AC: - this is fine. Huh? Yeah, it's fair game. That's exactly right. So yeah, that's kind of where the visuals and the note-taking stuff actually began. But then, you know, fast forward a decade or two later, I studied fine arts at Sydney University for a year. But then I quickly left that when I found out about this place called Enmore Center for Design, which is a really cool design school here in Sydney. And I ended up studying there for three years. And I loved learning about type and layout. You know, and I learned how to use imagery with all of that.

But to be honest, I found graphic design work kind of dull. It just didn't do it for me. What I really loved was probably the things that were linked to my childhood, which was, you know, making movies. I always wanted to make movies. And I applied to study at the Australian Film School, and I was really lucky to get in. And then I can say I found my passion, which was storytelling. The moment I was in there, I knew that this was the right kind of thing.

And I guess you can tell, because it led to, you know, over a decade of me working in the film industry. I started off as a storyboard artist and a concept artist. So I did a lot of you know, rapid prototyping and illustration for directors and producers you know, who just like spouting ideas really, really quickly. And I just had to do things in a way that was fast and clear and concise.

And, you know, then I moved into concept art for Hollywood films. You know, this is like designing cool things. I mean, I got to work on, you know, superhero films. Like, you know, the first two Wolverine films with Hugh Jackman, I was designing costumes and superpowers. That was kind of a bit of a dream job for me.

MR: I bet. Wow.

AC: Yeah, it was a lot of fun because, you know, you get to draw things that don't exist, right? And you're like, this is awesome. I think what that did for me was it helped me understand the fact that no idea, no thought was too complex. Nothing was off limits. I could draw anything you know, as long as I put my mind to it. So that was a lot of fun.

But I think one of the things about you know, working in these creative industries is I constantly was seeking something new. So it was like, if I wasn't storyboarding or doing concept art, I'd be then doing production design or costume design. I even ended up, you know, becoming a director, producer, and writer myself. And I've done, you know, loads and loads of films. So I've probably worked in the way of hundreds of films—

MR: Wow. Wow.

AC: - over the last decade or so. And, you know, I even got my wife Anita working with me. So it was kind of fun. 'Cause, you know, the crew felt like a big family. And all the kind of different work, it kept me very motivated and excited. But the common thread was that no matter what I was doing, I always managed to incorporate illustration in all of my work. I think my drawing skills helped me explain complicated ideas. And it helped put everybody on the same page. It also helped me win pitches and get funding because I could express those ideas really clearly.

MR: Yeah. Yeah.

AC: So that was a big kind of an unexpected boost to my kind of abilities. But, you know, simultaneously alongside the filmmaking career that I had, I began lecturing at different colleges and institutions. You know, initially, because teaching was a really good way to fill in the gaps between filmmaking. 'Cause filmmaking projects are super unpredictable, you know? One minute you are working for 14 hours a day for three or four months. And then suddenly there's nothing for two months. So it's kind of crazy like that.

I started teaching because it helped me fill in those gaps. But then I found that I really liked nurturing and mentoring students. I've ended up mentoring many students in different fields. And I taught illustration filmmaking, and design. All the things that I was actually doing, I was teaching.

So, you know, I was trying to be very practical about it, and I was trying to, you know, bring in a sense of, okay, this is what the industry is doing. This is what I'm doing in the industry. This is maybe something that's useful to students. And everywhere I went, I was always rewriting courses. Like, oh no, this is too academic. We need to make this more, you know, hands-on, more practical.

MR: Need some practical, yeah, exactly.

AC: Yeah. Yeah. So it was a bit of a thread. And then I think it was like 2015 I was given the opportunity to lead the visual communication department at Raffles College, which is this big international chain of colleges. And it was kind of hard leaving the film industry 'cause I was in the film industry for a long time already. But being able to have an opportunity to create something completely new was also exciting. And I love change. So I was like, "Yeah, I'm there. I'm definitely there."

And I also, you know, funny enough, I met my friend and Sh8peshifters co-founder Diana there as well. So it was really cool. It's like a, you know, serendipitous thing. Now, I guess the education thing was cool. It was fun, and it was really intense and chaotic for two years. But after two years, I actually stepped away and found myself in the world of management consulting and strategic design.

So I worked with a cool strategic design agency called Tobias. And it was unlike anything I'd ever done before. And I got to combine all of my drawing and teaching skills along with—you know, kind of a deep understanding of how visuals work in a space where I could actually see it making a change in companies and, you know, in their customers. So it was like, wow, this can actually affect people in ways that I didn't expect.

Prior to that, I was like, entertainment and, you know, just like crazy fun stuff. And I was like, wow, this is kind of grown up and, you know, didn't expect to be able to do this kind of thing and help people and, you know, be in these kinda serious environments. So my job description I remember was like a blank sheet of paper, and they were like, "Okay, we don't know how to use a person like you, so why don't you work out what you want to do here and, you know, we'll take it from there." Which was like music to my ears, right? I was like, "Yes."

MR: Yes, totally you, yeah.

AC: You know, totally me. Totally me. And I think I started using graphic facilitation in meetings kind of not instinctively, I've never been taught it. But that's just the way I teach at the college. So, you know, I'm always drawing things on whiteboards. You know, drawing diagrams and annotating, and I take notes really quickly on the fly, and then I draw another diagram to help explain what I'm saying. So it's just the way that I that I taught.

So I did that a lot during client meetings, and then I started graphic recording. I was really literally thrown into the deep end because it was just like, "Why don't you try this at events? And, you know, have you seen this sort of thing before?" I was like, "What? What's this?" And yeah. And I think that was a lot of fun. I even went to the States and I visited Dave Sibbet, Grove Consultants in San Francisco.

MR: Oh, yeah, of course.

AC: Yeah. Yeah. I found out about them, you know, when I was trying to research what this field was all about. I actually got spent a whole day with Laurie Durnell. And we just got to chat about the finer points of how to make visual thinking and scribing a viable business, because I was just like, "So you can make a living outta this kind of thing." I didn't know that. And then I think when the pandemic came that's when I actually branched out and started Sh8peshifters with Diana. And the rest is history.

MR: That's really fascinating to listen to your whole story. Like starting from, you know, writing a story on the wall of your living room or somewhere in your house to, you know, how it expressed. It seems to me that you're very much a generalist in a lot of ways, right? You like a wide variety of things. You like the new things, you like blank spaces, and you're able to kind of meld all these experiences as a fine artist, as a graphic designer, as a filmmaker, and then having teaching ability to kind of put all these things together to make sense for students.

And then further, like, all those things sort of combine together to then do what you're doing now, helping businesses and people express. So it's really fascinating how you've sort of melded all this, your whole experience into like, it's all part of you. Which is not always true for everybody, right? They tend to go, I do this, I'm a stockbroker, and then I'm a baker, and then I'm a this thing, right?

Like, very separate, you know career paths. And this one feels almost additive. It's like the ball just kept getting bigger and bigger until you had quite a wide variety of skills that you could spin and call on, you know, whenever you needed them. That's really fascinating to me, I think.

AC: Yeah. Cool. Thanks for reflecting on that. Yeah, I think I've always enjoyed being able to just kind of create my own path. I don't think there was ever any clear pathway for what I wanted to do. And I think that's just what I like. I was like, "No path suits me, just fine."

MR: Yeah.

AC: In fact, you know, the first scribing gig I ever got was at the film school where I was lecturing at the film school, The Australian Film School, and one of my colleagues, an amazing writer called Mike Jones. He just said, "Hey, Alan, can you come along and do the thing that you do in classrooms with those students, but do it at a client space with me at this—you know, it was at a museum, Australian Maritime Museum.

And I said, "Yeah, sure, but what do you want me to do?" He was just like, "Take their notes and chat to people the way you do." So that was it. I went into a room with, you know, museum curators and researchers, and we were talking, and I was just illustrating what they were saying, and suddenly the entire room was just filled, you know, from edge to edge with sketches.

Because of that, there's a permanent exhibit now, you know, sitting on like, probably one of the most iconic parts of Sydney's Darling Harbour. There's this huge, kind of like a spaceship there, and there's an exhibition with all of my drawings—

MR: Wow.

AC: - kind of wrapped around it. So I was just like, "What? I did not know this could be a thing. This is amazing." That was my first gig, you know, as a visual thinker. So, it was kind of cool.

MR: You mentioned too that you sort of didn't know about this space. Was that sort of the 10 years ago experience when you stumbled into this? What did your brain do when you like, "Oh, this is a thing?" That must have been really fascinating.

AC: Yeah. I had no idea. Whereas Mike, he was saying, "Hey, I've seen these little clips on YouTube. You should check these things out." I was just seeing people drawing on whiteboards, and I was like, "Hey, that's the thing that's the kind of stuff that I do, except I never film it. You know, I'm just in a classroom doing it." And he was like, "You should do this, you know?"

And so, I found out about visual thinking then. But I never really looked too far into it until I began consulting. And then the other guys that were with me at the company, they were saying there are people who actually do this in front of crowds. And I was like, "Wow, this is cool. I'd love to give that a go. I've never tried drawing in front of a big crowd before, but I'll give it a go." Trying something new was lots of fun, but I honestly had no idea that this could actually be a viable business. This was just so much fun.

MR: Wow. Well, you know, there's always need for people to have their stories told. And I think, you know, having it visualized is really powerful, right? And especially in your case, you know, specifically, you were so quick and built all these skills for storyboarding and such that you could almost immediately take those ideas that are coming outta somebody's mouth and then turn it into an image of some kind.

I wonder too, I haven't really talked about this before, but like, as someone's idea is visualized—you know, if, let's say, you know, you and I, we are skilled in visualizing our ideas. So we can explain and draw and we sort of bounce back. It sort of reflects what we're thinking and it changes what we think. I wonder, like, if people see that live in real time, it must change the way they think, right?

Because they see this thing come to life and either they say, "Oh, no, I meant this thing." Or then they would build on it, right? So there's like, once you see it, you can now turn it around like three dimensionally and think about what's on the back and how does this impact this? And like, that reality helps you, I dunno, take it further. Is that a interesting or a realistic way to think about that?

AC: Definitely. I think one of the things I always lead with when I facilitate you know, kind of ideation sessions is I always say, "I'm not here to be right. I'm just here to create things for you. It's your job to be right. You guys are the experts in your field. What I'm an expert at is eliciting ideas from people and kind of reflecting them back to you. So please don't feel like my drawings are the be-all and end-all. By all means iterate and continue doing that. And you'll get the best result when you actually do that."

So I wholeheartedly agree that that is something that happens because of visual thinking, because of visual facilitation. And, you know, if more people do it, they probably understand how much of an impact it can have on, you know, improving your own ideas.

MR: Yeah. I think that's a lot of why I like teaching people even the basics. Because even a rudimentary skill to be able to express yourself even badly, is better than no skill at all or to not try. So, you know, using simple shapes to communicate—it's kind of amazing when I teach this, like within an hour, even using simple shapes, people really feel more confident. It's weird.

It's like, how is this possible that you could teach someone basic skills in an hour and they can already see an application? That's super powerful. And, you know, not everybody pursues it and really practices, but, you know, some do. And you know, if you're faced with a whiteboard in a meeting, you would feel maybe a little confidence like, "Well, you know, I'm just using these five shapes to build stuff." Right? It sort of reduces the pressure and it just becomes a way of thinking.

So hopefully, we're making that impact on people as well when they see it. I think always there's the challenge, like, "If you're too good at it, then people think, oh, you're an expert. I could never be as good as you." I hear that all the time. And so I try to turn it around as quickly as possible. What was your experience being both an educator and then also someone who formed curriculum for students? How did you deal with that specific challenge? You know, "I'm not good enough, or I can't do what you do," kind of stuff. How do you deal with that?

AC: Well, I think one of the things that I do is I show people how I started off. And I definitely did not start off as being really, really good. I don't think anybody starts off as being really good. You know, we are all in a way still kind of building up our own abilities. And I firmly believe that even as you said, even the most basic skill set can actually help you build this ability within you.

Oftentimes, the way I kind of got around the "I can't draw" thing is there's a couple of icebreakers that I do with people. And those icebreakers, I give people very little information. It's usually like, "Hey, give me three things that you're interested in and just draw an icon that represents these three things." And then I say to them, "You've got a minute to draw this," and that's it, you know? And in one minute, usually people have three, sometimes five things.

MR: Wow.

AC: And you know, I'm always astounded. I'm like, "Guys, you got the brief. You get it. We're a visual tribe. This is what we do. And everybody can do it. I think you just need to be able to recognize it in yourself." So there are a couple of exercises I think that are really good to help people get around that fear of, "I can't do this. You are the expert." And they really work. I've tried them out for years and years, and they really do you know, warm people up really quickly.

MR: The other sense that I have is like, the more powerful you are inside an organization, the riskier it is to draw. And the way I would explain that is like, say you're a CEO, let's say your drawing skills are not great. Like, there's a little bit of fear, like public speaking, that if I draw like a seventh grader, 'cause that's the last time, you know, when I was, you know, 13 years old, I'm gonna draw like a 13-year-old and that's embarrassing. So I don't want to do it. Or my ideas might be bad.

Like, because you're not skilled in that skill, you're worried that I might, you know, say the wrong word or do something dumb and I'll look dumb. And I think some of it is just simply getting over the fear of like doing something and it being wrong, and that that's okay. Have you experienced that as well?

AC: So much. The fear of failure mindset it's damaging. It's really damaging. I think failure is—you learn so much more from failure than you do from, you know, being in power or winning. It's something that I kind of try to teach my daughter a lot is not to worry if she makes a mistake. Not to worry if she draws outside of the line or, you know, just, just to keep going.

So yeah, I experienced it a lot. Actually, Diana and I recently—not recently actually it would've been about a year ago, we ran a workshop for CFOs. And, you know, these are people who understand finance really well, who understand tables and columns really well. But we showed them how to use columns in a way that they'd never thought about. And it was a lot of fun because, you know, I think they started off thinking, "Hey, what are you guys gonna show us about columns that we don't already know?"

We just think about these things slightly differently. So there were a lot of fun simple drawing exercises for, you know, people who are you know, sitting in the c-suite and who've never really had to do this. And then suddenly, they're able to communicate to their team so much more effectively. The results that kind of came out of it were really amazing. And I think we're very grateful that we had that opportunity.

MR: And I think that's where our calling is, right? I always think of like, all the opportunity for everybody in this community is that there's so many people that feel like they can't do it. Like there's an opportunity to even move them one step forward to like, I can do basic stuff maybe for some people in their life that's good enough, right? That's all they really need. Like a CFO being able to do simple drawings that communicate, you know, 50 percent better is like a huge forward jump, right?

So that's kind of where the opportunity lies, is moving people from zero to one, and then some people will take off with it, right? Maybe there's a CFO who secretly loves art and is just visual and never felt like the permission to express themselves. And this might be the little spark that sort of kicks that off for all we know, right? So it's really interesting opportunity that we have before us for sure.

AC: So much. That's right.

MR: Well, we've kind of gone off on this philosophical discussion, but I've loved it. I'm trying to do more of these as we get to the end of the origin story. 'Cause I think it ties in there and it sort of relates to application, but what I'd really like to hear is what are some of the tools that you like? And we'll start with analog and go to digital after that, because it seems like I always discover some funky tool that I'd never heard of.

And by tools, I mean like pens, pencils, brushes, notebooks, paper, any kind of stuff that helps you communicate. And that, in the analog space. And then of course, if you use some digital stuff, it'd be interesting to hear the tools you like there.

AC: Cool. I think it's a general rule. I never leave home without a sketchbook and a pen. Never. My default sketchbook is I think a four and a half by seven-inch Moleskine. So that's like roughly A5, you know, according to Aussie stuff. And I always carried with me a Steadler 0.3 fine liner as well as, I don't know if you've heard of these but a Zig Art and graphic twin brush pen. They're these Japanese pens that are just amazing. I love the ink. The other one that I love to use is the Zig Kuretake number 22. And I'll share these with you later if you like.

MR: Okay.

AC: But these things, I find like there's a combination of, you know, tight stuff where I can write really crisp things and I can kind of draw almost diagrammatic stuff. But I love the brush pens, because I love to draw. I love to paint. So the Zig pens are really loose and they're very easy to use for me. The other thing I carry around with me usually when I go traveling though, is a small postcard-sized watercolor pad. As well as a pentel aqua brush.

These ones are amazing because you can fill them up with water or ink. And then if you use dry watercolor pigments, you can do some crazy paintings with very little mess and, you know, very little fuss. And that's kind of why I like it. So I can sit by a poolside, I can sit on a train, and I could do a watercolor painting really quickly, and, you know, not take up much space.

Yeah. So, I also really think paper is king, especially if you are building skills because these skills can actually carry across to digital. But the other is the other way is not true. So digital skills can't carry across to analog, but analog does for both. So it's awesome.

In terms of digital tools, nothing really exciting, to be honest. I have iPad pro, Apple pencil, Procreate that does 90 percent of the lifting for me. The other thing, obviously if I have really large artworks like murals and, you know, things that are kind of wall sized, which I occasionally do I go straight to, you know, Photoshop and like my huge, it's called a Humion Kamvas. It's like a 22-inch massive screen that I can draw across.

And it's really nice. I guess the iPad is probably the easy pick in terms of the digital tool, probably for most of us 'cause it's fast, right? Like, you just open it up and within seven seconds you can actually start drawing, which is almost as fast as when you start drawing in a notebook. Almost as fast.

MR: Yeah. It's close.

AC: Yeah. So that's close, you know. But the digital stuff I think is pretty predictable, right? I can see why you're more interested in the analog tools.

MR: Yeah. I don't know that I've heard of Zig markers. Now I'm curious. I think I have to go to someplace and find them. And I've seen the dual tip, so I'm guessing is one side a brush and the other side a point or something like that?

AC: Yes.

MR: Or are they two? Okay.

AC: That's right. Yeah.

MR: You said the colors you like are? Did you say gray and black? Are those the two or do you typically carry gray in a color? What are the two colors?

AC: I've got gray but I also carry pink. I think pink is probably one of my favorite colors to use just because it's difficult, actually. It's difficult to use because I like using it in its most rich form. So fuchsia and bright pinks. And adding that into graphic recordings or sketch notes can add like this crazy spark. So when you see, you know, pink or orange or, you know, these vibrant colors, they suddenly pop and they kind of really catch your eye. So I'll share with you the exact pink shade I use.

MR: Yeah, we'll definitely put it in the show notes so you can go check those out. In the same way, I love, Aqua. Bright Aqua and Orange are my two—I love those together, and I like them individually.

AC: Oh, that's awesome.

MR: Yeah. So those are sort of my signature colors. I guess if I were to say signature. We're sponsored by the app Concepts on the iPad, but I think it's actually a really interesting tool because as an Adobe person, you might be kind of curious to play with it. It's vector based, so it's got all the brushes and all those things, but you have an infinite canvas.

So like you talked about your large Photoshop thing, it might be interesting to explore that, which you can just open it up and just start drawing. Like on your living room wall, right, just keep drawing and keep going in all directions, which I've been exploring that app, in addition to them being a sponsor, it's actually a really fascinating app. And might be something worth exploring that might have some unique capabilities worth checking out.

AC: Yeah. I'm always keen to try out something new. I think the reason I've stuck with Photoshop is, you know, in one sense is just because it allows you to do kind of crazy things like oil painting kind of style stuff. You know, so I love that sort of thing too, so but I'd be keen to try out something like Concepts.

MR: Yeah, that'd be cool. You know, the other thing I would say too is I am a believer in using the tool you know, best. So, as an example, when I wrote my book, at the time, I was really heavily into Photoshop for UI and UX design, and I had the opportunity to use a Adobe's page layout program. I can't think of what the name of it is.

And I had to, for the front and the back matter, but for the guts of the book, I actually laid out and did everything in Photoshop because I was so fluent in it. I knew that I could be fast. There was a speed advantage by using this familiar tool. I didn't have to think about stuff. I just did it. It just happened and I could work with it. I was working with it all day during the day. So at night, I use that tool to kind of accelerate that process.

So I think there is something valuable in an a known tool where you don't have to think about it. And that's where that would come back to pen and paper. There's very little that you have to know about it, right? Once you have your tools, they kind of work the way they work, and then you can sort of forget about the tool and now focus on the content and thinking and visualizing and stuff. So that I've noticed as well.

AC: I think that's the key, Mike, is forgetting about the tool. Like the tool's almost unimportant, right? It's being able to come up with the idea and just finding a way to be able to execute that. So yeah, whatever, whatever tool kind of gets you there the quickest and with the least mental fuss is the one that you should probably go with.

MR: Yeah. Definitely. Well, let's shift into tips now. I asked our guests, imagine someone's listening, they're a visual thinker, and maybe they're in a rut, maybe they just need a little inspiration, maybe something practical or something to kind of spark them, what would be three things you would tell that person?

AC: Sure. I think one of the things I often say is whether you're starting out or whether you are, you know, somebody who just wants to improve you, let's say you're already you've already got a significant amount of skill and you wanna improve, I always say to people aim for your creative minimum. And what I mean is most of the time, you know, when we set out to learn new skills, we place this high expectation on setting aside time, you know, in the hope that our skills build as quickly as possible.

It's the same, you know, if you go to the gym and you beat yourself up, if you're not going every day or something like that, and you skip a session, you'll feel like everything's derailed. But the truth is, I feel like any skill visual thinking takes, you know, a good deal of time to actually hone. So don't aim for Spartan levels of training instantly. I feel like instead, you should start out by drawing for at least two minutes a day. It's actually so much harder than it looks, but if you keep it up, the results will definitely speak for themselves.

Another tip I would say is practice on paper more than on digital, if you can. Paper doesn't allow for undoing. So this is actually so much more valuable than people realize, because when you make an error, you actually get to see them, and then you could collect them, and then your mind gets a chance to register them as an error. And then you can make actually a conscious decision about how you wanna adjust that error.

But when you undo something, you actually don't have the benefit of seeing the error and you're so much more likely to make the same mistake over and over and over again. So yeah, definitely analog over digital is one thing. And, you know, I think, as I said before, analog skills, they carry over to digital because analog skills are hand-eye coordination skills, but digital skills don't carry across the analog.

And, you know, I've even found myself sometimes when I'm sketching stuff, you know, on paper, like double tapping the paper to try to undo something, and I'm like, "What am I doing? This is insane," you know? So, you know, it builds bad habits if you're doing that. Fortunately I don't do that too often, but like, I have found myself doing that once or twice, and I just have a laugh at myself.

The other tip that I would recommend is to try to link your habits. What I mean is okay, let's take for example, sitting down. Most people sit down a lot, whether it's for, you know, a meeting or a coffee or a meal. I think sitting down takes up probably half of our waking time. So if you can link sitting with sketching, I think you've already solved half of your dilemma.

Now the trick is, if you can have a sketchbook that you can bring with you on your body without it being a hassle, you'll reduce the level of difficulty by a lot. So small sketchbooks, I think, are the way to go. And then I always say keep like a felt tip marker or a ballpoint pen, or anything you can write with on you so that it makes that habit easier to actually achieve.

MR: Those are great tips. It's interesting you mentioned the last one. I just recently, I sort of got out of the habit of carrying a sketchbook and I just started doing it again. I had a little leather case made for a field note size, just roughly three by five inches. I don't know what that is in the A6 or something like that, but it's a little pocket-sized.

And, you know, most of the time I don't draw in it, but there's something comforting when I touch my leg and I feel that notebook. And I always have a pen with me. The feel of the notebook and the pen, and know that at any time I can bring out a notebook and I can capture an idea wherever I am, which is really great.

And the other tip that I'll tell people is if you have young kids like I do when you're in a restaurant waiting for your appetizers, you're waiting for your meal, I play the game with my sketchbook where I'll do a scribble and I'll say, I'll make the kids make something out of it.

So, and then they get to scribble and I've gotta make something out of it. And it's a nice way to pass the time. You're not on screens, you're having fun together, and it's a bit of a game. And then suddenly, hey, you know, the time has passed and the appetizer's here. So it can have some side effects as well for your kids in a positive way. So, an extra tip from Mike.

AC: I fully agree with that. My daughter and I call that game squiggle master, so we—

MR: Oh, there we go.

AC: - we do that a lot too.

MR: Yeah. Cool.

AC: We play that. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely, keeping it on you is useful for more than one thing, right?

MR: Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Well, Alan, this has been so much fun. Tell us what's the best place, obviously, it seems like LinkedIn is one place to find you, and we'll have a link to that. Are there any other social media places to go? What's your company or personal website that we can check out and reach out to you if we want to?

AC: Okay. Well, as crazy as it sounds, I'm not super active online. The best place, as you said is LinkedIn. So I periodically share the stuff that I'm working on. So I get the opportunity to do some really cool and unusual projects, I think, as I'm sure you do, you know, doing this kind of interesting job that we have. So LinkedIn's probably the best place to connect with me.

But the rest of the links you know, I think for my website, it's sh8peshifters.com. And for whatever reason, I think Diana and I, we went with instead of Sh8peshifter with an A, we went with an eight. So it's Sh8peshifters with an eight.com instead of an A. So, I don't know, it's kind of crazy.

I also do stuff on Instagram, but it's kind of personal art stuff. So I mean, people could find me on that. Again, I'll share it with you. The other link that people might find interesting is the link to Sketch Lab, which is where we share all of our teaching stuff. So it's called Sketch Lab Online. Diana and I have created one course on there, which is visual thinking kind of like a beginner's course. It's kinda loaded with all of our kind of personalized tips. Yeah. So it might be a good place to start.

We're just terrible at actually marketing the thing, but there's a full course there. I think I've written three whole visual communication courses for at universities. So we do have a lot of experience doing it, but we're just awful when it comes to marketing, like, "Oh yeah, we've made this course. It's gonna do its thing on its own now."

MR: You guys are too busy doing projects to think about that stuff. I suppose, so.

AC: I think that's our excuse.

MR: Is that the old adage, "The cobbler's children have no shoes" kind of thing, right?

AC: I think that's it. Definitely.

MR: So busy making shoes for other people that your own kids don't have shoes or something. I dunno. Something like that. Well, Alan, it's been so much fun to get to know you and have you on the show. Thank you for the work you're doing in Australia and in the world with all kinds of people, all the influence I'm sure you've had with students, all the influence you've had on the media that we love, like movies and stuff, and for sharing your experience. It's so good to have you as part of the community. Welcome to the community, and thank you for all that you do. I'm really happy to have you as part of this community.

AC: Thank you so much, Mike. I'm really glad I finally got to meet you and finally got to actually put a face and a voice to the person whose book I've been recommending for the past eight years. So, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

MR: You're so welcome. And for anyone listening to the podcast or watching it on YouTube, this is another episode. Until the next episode, talk to you soon.