Sketchnote Army Podcast

Lena Pehrs, a change management consultant, shares how she uses visual thinking and collaboration in her work. She discusses the benefits of visual thinking, her preferred tools for facilitating collaboration, and the journey of rediscovering drawing through graphic facilitation. Lena also talks about her excitement for a book on change management, the challenges of book writing, and her favorite analog and digital tools. The speakers explore the use of fountain pens and waterproof ink for sketching with watercolor, the challenges and excitement of working in a new format, and the joy of drawing with kids.

Luke Kelvington, Commander of a submarine, uses visual thinking and sketchnotes to shape decision-making on the USS Pennsylvania. Topics include sketchnoting Admiral's speeches, effective communication on a submarine, tools for sketchnoting, the power of storytelling, and where to find more information about Luke's work.

In this episode, Elizabeth Chesney shares her approach to teaching design concepts coupled with handwritten notes to help her subjects understand how design concepts work and why they work.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Elizabeth ChesneyOrigin StoryElizabeth Chesney's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Elizabeth ChesneyOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Elizabeth’s WebsiteLinkedInInstagramComic strip camp case studyToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Uniball black rollerball penSharpie highlighterKraft brown paperOttergami dotted notebookSamsung Galaxy TabSamsung PenConceptsTipsThere is no standard.Create playbooks or scrapbooks of your work.Get away from your desk. Take a break.CreditsProducer: Alec Pulianas Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro Subscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with Elizabeth Chesney. Elizabeth, how are you doing today?Elizabeth Chesney: I'm good, I'm good. It's evening here in the UK, so it's quite relaxed and we've got a bank holiday, so it's even more relaxed.MR: Good, good, good. Well, you'll be laid back and ready to answer all kinds of questions and let us see inside you, the way you think. So I brought Elizabeth on because I follow her on Instagram. I don't know how we crossed paths, but I'm glad we did. And she does a lot of sketchnoting that she shares online, but also taking design concepts, which I really like.Her approach is taking these design concepts and then breaking them down with handwritten notes on top of them to help you understand how these design concepts work and why they work, which is really helpful education, especially for people who sort of sense something's going on, maybe they're not trained as a designer, but they sense something's going on and they're curious about why it works that way. And you sort of fill that gap, which I love that. I love education, I love that whole thing.So that is how we crossed paths. And I thought Elizabeth would be a great person because very recently, you were doing some sketching for a project, then it turned into a full-blown sketchnote. You shared video on Instagram. So maybe we can even talk about that project. And I thought this would be great to talk with her and see how sketchnoting fits into her everyday life, and the stuff she does. So, welcome.EC: Thank you for having me.MR: Yeah, you're welcome. So why don't you start by telling us a little bit about who you are and what you do.EC: That's great. So I am basically in England, despite my accent, I'm actually Scottish, so any of the British listeners are gonna be going, "No, doesn't sound right." But so I though mainly work from home. I am a freelance based marketing designer. I do two types of things. On the average day, I'm either building assets for commercial teams whether that's sort of layout design, landing pages, websites, and a lot of that is UX based as well.So I've kind of got UX interweaved quite a lot in the background. Very similar to yourself, Mike. It's kind of something I've grown into or using skills I've learned before and applying them in that way. And then the other part of me is actually working with seed-level startups, so people who have an idea but actually don't have anything behind them to help them with the funding.So actually, I build lightweight brands. I call them diet brands 'cause they're like mini logos and brand sheets rather than these big brand books. And then helping them with like a commercial slide deck to help with their sort of buy-in when they're presenting their idea. And then some flat user interface design concept. So they kind of got like, this is what we're looking to achieve.And I also work with 'em in a marketing sense of like, how's the best way to present that information? So they might talk to me for 10 minutes and I say, "Well, this is how you frame it, this is how you'd phrase it." And that's part because of the big marketing background, which we'll get into that I have. And so it's kind of like a unique sort of offering for these startups. And I've done a couple now and it really helps 'em look professional at that seed funding level.So I kind of do two arms, one of this sort of big marketing aspect with sort of SME, B2B companies, so you're sort of quite medium enterprise companies and then right at the start founders. So it's quite nice. I've got a mix that I work with.MR: And I suppose the ideal client would be someone that you helped at a seed stage who turns into the middle stage, right, where they grow, and then you can stay with them ideally, I suppose at some point in the future, right?EC: Yeah. Coincidentally, this is my anniversary today of when I decided to go freelance.MR: Really?EC: Yeah. So a year ago, last year is when I went, "I'm going to do freelance. I'm going to make this sort of decision. This is what I want to do. I wanna work in a sustainability climate action sort of sector as well." So purpose-driven businesses. So it's been really nice to sort of work with some of these seed founders who have got these ideas to try and help the planet or help people.And that's the thing, helping people, planet, or animals. That's kind of my three pockets. I'm quite happy at the minute that I'm working with a lot, which has actually enabled social connectivity. So actually, ironically from some tech issues we had at the start of this podcast, I'm working with one which has actually enable telecoms to more rural areas, so lightweight telecoms.So it's cheaper, it's quicker to put in. So giving a lot of rural areas in Scotland and Wales and Ireland, better access to the internet because the pandemic showed how just proportionate access to technology and internet was. And that's what one of these companies I'm working for at the minute, is doing is these startup telecom pools and cabinets to be able to be put in these places so everyone's got access to the same level of internet. So it's quite nice. It's quite nice to see sort of the different ways that these people are helping communities in their own way.MR: That's really cool. So you obviously, just been a year since you've gone independent.EC: Mm-hmm.MR: Talk a little bit about what got you to that point, what did you do before that, and a little bit of why you decided to go independent. That would be really interesting, especially I think about the audience that's listening here, a lot of times they do sketchnoting or visual thinking on the side or as a side thing at work. And there comes a point for some people that they wanna go independent. I know several people, so it might be helpful for them to hear your journey and your thinking and all that.EC: Yeah. Well, I would start my journey really, you know, 20 years ago now. Which makes me feel even older. I was like, oh, brilliant. [Unintelligible 05:56] for a minute. All right. Monty, come here. Sit. Sit. Wait. I don't know if somebody at my door next to -- so hold on. Wait.MR: Okay. We can cut this.EC: He's very agitated, which makes me think it's our door. Calming down. You are calming down. I know. It's making for interesting TV.MR: What kind of dog do you have?EC: He's a Golden Retriever.MR: Oh.EC: So he's a big loud dog, hence the noise. But I do have my bribery box, so he knows that when he gets a treat, he's quiet. So I told you it was gonna be that subtler. Good boy. Good boy. Right. I think that's it. I think they've gone one tea. Right. We're going through it all today.MR: Makes for a fun time.EC: Right. I'll start again. 20 years ago, making me feel old, I did a dual degree. It was design marketing, so it was about 70 percent design, 30 percent marketing, and it was design-focused as well for marketing. So packaging design, point of sale design, print design, very traditional design. Unfortunately, I am that old where, you know, websites really were just becoming a thing.You know, I went to uni when it was zip disks. That was the biggest thing that you could store everything on. And I remember thinking brilliant. And it was Yahoo search rather than Google search. I was very traditionally taught in design, so very much pen and paper. I think my entire first year was markers, pens, and fine liners. It wasn't digital. And then we moved into digital and the Mac labs and all that side of things.From university, I was very fortunate, got a job straight away into a marketing team doing design for the marketing team. Exactly what I did for about six years. And it was really interesting. You've got telling so much about marketing, it's so much about the inner workings of a business as well and how everything works and the commercial teams, sales guys, you know, all that side.Then lucky for everybody who's old enough to remember as well, then we had a financial crash in 2008 where especially in the UK, most people weren't wanting in-house designers, agencies weren't hiring. It wasn't seen as something people wanted. So I kind of, luckily enough having the degree I had, I flipped my degree. Basically, I flipped my career. I went from doing pretty much pure design with a bit of marketing. So, you know, I used to do marketing admin to started department marketing.So I went up in a journey in marketing. I quite rapidly went up to manager level, but I was very employable because I could do design and I could save companies thousands of pounds 'cause I could do everything they were paying somebody externally to do. Or at least I could take some of the load of that budget off.I think because of that, it meant I had a secure job, luckily. And when it got to about six years of doing that, so early 2010, '11, I was like, right, this is definitely the career path. So I kept going, kept doing the marketing management side, and went into digital marketing specifically to really upskilled in web design and really start to take, without knowing it, a UX approach to website design.I was always data-driven. I was always nerdy about where do people go, what journey did it go, what are they clicking on, and you know, speaking to users and all that side of things. And it got really interesting. But I was getting to a point in my career where, unless I went to the director level where you're just managing people a lot of the time and not doing the work, and I like doing the work.I like doing the job. I don't wanna manage people doing the job. I want to do the job. Because of the financial crash, people still weren't hiring in-house designers. So I decided to take quite a bold step and I decided to retrain as a teacher. So about 2014 '15, that was, I think it was, I retrained as a teacher. And a design teacher specifically. You know, I wasn't randomly gonna go and do geography.So went to do design and that's actually when I came across sketchnotes because I'd obviously gone from being hand drawn-taught, very traditional taught to then being thrust into pretty much computer-first design really. And always going to the computer first, it becomes habitual. And I suddenly realized how I'm gonna be teaching kids that some have never designed before.They may have done art at at primary school, so I always taught secondary school. So high school level. And it was like in America it would be like middle and you know, top high school. I realized I was gonna teach 'em these kids how to draw in terms of design versus art. And then I thought I needed also a way of me relearning how to teach them to design 'cause I can quite instinctively draw a box and I'll draw it in a particular way, but how do I communicate to them, how do you draw this box? How do we annotate?MR: Yeah, it's a process.EC: Yeah. How do we annotate it? And I think as you touched on at the start, I got so used to having to teach annotation side, tell you why this thing does this. And that's why I label a lot my drawings educate and saying this is why it does this and this is why this button does this or side of things now. But back then I was struggling. I was like, "How do I teach them this?"And the funny thing about learning to teach, they teach you how to teach not how to teach your subject in a way. It was quite like, "I'm gonna learn how to go back to basics to draw." And I just by randomness came across your book and I was like--and you know, it was one of those things you think, "I'm an experienced designer buying a book about drawing." And you just kind of think, "This doesn't seem right. But also, really right at the same time." You kind of go, it's like somebody buying me a coloring book. You're like really.So I got the book and then I just fell in love with the methodology more than anything 'cause It really works for me, the logical side, the iteration side. And I thought, this is perfect for teaching kids. It's perfect for actually getting me back into that traditional design, but more importantly, I was trying to find one so I could show you these traditional homework sheets of basically if you were a top end student, I'll give you the end picture, and they had to backwork it in the building blocks.And if they were a lesser able child or one that hadn't really experienced any type of design or drawing, I gave them like little shadow boxes. This is kind of how you build up. So there was like, you can really skill it for different skill sets, but it was also, I was using that principle of, right, well how do I do this? And getting the kids to break things down, it was like, "Look at that object, tell me what shapes it is." Or "Draw those shapes under paper," right.Now, we can combine those shapes under paper. And you could see some kids, their light bulb and their head go in. I never thought I could draw a camera. And then suddenly they just thought, oh, it's actually, I was saying it's a serial box. So they could visualize a serial box with like a round circle in front. That's all it is. And it was interesting where you could just see the thought process of realizing it's not art and it's not got a standard, it's not one plus one equals math. There's a different approach to this.And then I really liked the methodology of sketch notes and it sort of kept it since then. And I would say the biggest decision I made in my life was training to teach. And I would say the hardest decision in my life was deciding not to continue. Because it was quite a big debate to admit saying this is not a route for me, 'cause sometimes you just think, "I've committed to this, now I'm just gonna have to stick with my guns." And I was like, "I've become one of those statistics where people go, ah, there's many teachers leaving in the first year of teaching. I'm now one of those statistics." Which I was like, well it's not really 101, but I'm one of them.MR: You have to be real, right? I suppose.EC: Yeah. And I was very conscious, and yourself and your listeners would be aware that if I was out of industry for a certain length of time, it would be very hard for me to get into a certain level in industry rather than start this at the bottom again. So I had to take quite a big bold step halfway through my first year and go, "This is not for me. At the end of this term, I'm going back into industry." So that's what I did.I then went back into industry working for a manufacturing company, and I love how things are made. So that really ignited my passion again, I think. In a way, it was like taking a career break that I think that teaching it was kind of proved to be that sort of, well year and a half of a career break in a weird way. But it realized that I like design. I do like the marketing aspect in a smaller portion, but people are investing now back into design back into branding, regaining the customer base. So I went back into design, which I really enjoyed.And I was focusing now on more sustainability as well. Sustainable business energy sector, which I work a lot in. And then action and climate change. So I've done quite a lot in sustainability. Learning a lot about that side as well. And I'm really focused on helping people with a purpose succeed.And I got to about four or five years into the company I was working for previously last year, and I sat there and thought, again, "I don't wanna go to this marketing director level." I was getting to the same problem that I was like, I just, I like doing the work and I like project managing, which is a bit weird when you think, I don't wanna be a marketing director, but I like managing project, but I don't wanna be that director level. It's no interest to me and not everybody's career path is to go to the top of the pyramid. There's a lot of us like to sit a couple of steps below that.And that's when I thought I'm gonna do freelance properly 'cause a lot of creatives, I've dabbled with it here and there and I've dipped my toe in and I thought actually -- and you know, it's a year ago to the day that sat, I remember on holiday went, "I think this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go freelance. I'm gonna work for purpose-driven companies. I'm gonna work for marketing teams because I know what assets I have to that team 'cause They understand marketing teams."So I come from a very practical approach to what they do. It's like, this is engaging content and it's practical and I talk marketing. I understand how they can get the budgets for what they need to do. I understand all that side. And then the other part of me was going, if I work on that, then a small part of me now is focused on working with seed founders to help their ideas within purpose-driven, whether it's in climate change or whether it's in animal welfare, whether it's telecoms to level up communities. Whether it's all that.And a lot of the time I'm working with them nearly at cost as well because I am a firm believer in giving back. And I know these ones are wanting to do good. They're not doing this to make money, they're doing -- but side note, some of these are not-for-profits anyway, the way they're setting themselves up. And the a quote that's always stood with me and random person that I heard it from, I don't if it's actually him originally, but it's the person I remember saying it, which is the rapper/singer Pitbull of all people.MR: Okay. Yeah.EC: And he said "Money does buy you happiness, you just have to give it away." And I thought it was a really interesting way of framing it. And I was like, so I worked with these smaller projects to try and give back in a different way. So enabling them to have something that will do good at the same time working for these bigger SME marketing teams.Yeah, so for nearly under a year now, I've been doing freelance. I attempted freelance at the started of the year. I have a contract job with a marketing company which secured my time because of the experience I've had. They were like, "Well, work for us for 20 hours a week." Anybody who's freelance will know, you know, any work 60 hours a week, I'm working for myself as well sort of thing. You know, there's no real, "Oh you only do 40 hours freelance." It's like, 'cause you're also marketing and accountant and HR and social media.MR: Right. Yeah.EC: Yeah. So you know, social media. Video grapher is my thing at the minute. So it's interesting because that journey, all those things I've gone through and experience I've had like the financial crash made me more prepared to be freelance 'cause I knew what I had to put in place to cope with those sort of events. The pandemic also had the same effect. I know what I need to do to that. So hopefully, this is now my journey.MR: Wow. That's really great. And I would think too, you know, going back to your education, you took that year and a half to kind of potentially switch careers and it was clear that it wasn't the direction. But I would think that that education on how to educate as much as, you know, it didn't fit for you to be a full-time thing, you found ways to integrate that.That's what I think attracted me when I was on Instagram. I see you doing that kind of work in the things you're doing. And I imagine for those seed-level startups, you're teaching them how to position themselves and how to reframe, what's the narrative, right? All those things are things you can teach out of your wealth of knowledge in marketing and then teach them in a way that fits their situation. Would that be a fair way to think of it?EC: Yeah. And myself, I'm a constant learner. Like one of the master classes was actually yours, an Interaction design foundation. So, you know, I've watched one of your master classes, I think I've done one of your other ones as well, one you did as an independent webinar. And I'm always wanting to learn and I always like to experience how other people teach as well thinking, oh, I like that or I like that --MR: Me too.EC: -- that technique. And I'll be like, "Oh, I'll write that down." And funny enough, I have that in my sketch notes. I have my playbook, which we'll probably get to in terms of tips and that. And I write everything down and I'm always wanting to learn, even if it's subjects that are totally nothing to do because I've just got an interest in subject. I've done a criminology diploma because I was just really interested in like CSI and things. I was like, "I just wanna know more about this." I have no interest in doing it as a job, but I wanna learn more.And through my sort of social media and part of what I've tried to do with some of the, you know, here's the buttons and this is why this is this and like trying to break it down to people, like trying to understand to them why like three lines of text, why it should be orientated like this and the different shapes it should do. And it's really nice getting feedback from a couple of people who are actually junior marketing people that are following me going, "Oh that's just made it look so much better now my PowerPoint."And they're applying these little concepts in different ways and it was so nice. A woman was so proud, they sent me like, "Look at this. I took your ideas." And I didn't even know they were following me 'cause I've never interacted with them. But they were so tough just to say. And I was like, it's like that teaching approach. And I've got like a whole program of other things that it's just getting the time unfortunately of other things I wanna say like this way, this is why it looks better than this way. Both are fine, but you know, let's have a look, breakdown.So it's kind of that, it's so nice to see little things I've done just to try and like help and part that information, and as other people are sucking in, like the little silent people, they don't interact, they don't like your stuff. They don't comment on your stuff, but they're clearly just sit --MR: You're having an influence for sure. Yeah.EC: Yeah. And I get like little messages going, "How did you edit that in?" Like they go, "Well how did you do that in Premiere Pro? And I'm like, "Well I didn't. I used such and such to start with. I said, "It's far easier, if you're not a pro with something like Premiere Pro or something like that." Goes, "Use Canva, use Adobe Express. Just use something that's easier." Sort of thing. Don't think you have to use its big software 'cause the big boys use it. You know what I mean?MR: Right.EC: And I always say, you know, "Use something that's just user-friendly." And that's the kind of the wins.MR: Yeah, exactly. I mean I use iMovie for almost everything, podcasts. I've used it for my teaching. So when I do my training and I cut it up and turn it into a video for sale, I'm just using iMovie. I mean, I've always believed this, like a lot of times we tend to think that we need the big software when simple software that's default on your machine is often more powerful than you realize because you just overlook it and that there's opportunities to really push it further than you really think it could push.EC: And I think like going back to my secondary school education, the most advanced type of art software was the equivalent of whatever paint was back then.MR: Yeah, exactly.EC: We were drawing everything in paint. And I have one of the first things I ever did upstairs, it was a little folder that my mom -- my mom was obviously like, look what she drew sort of thing. And you know, we just think that's cringe. "It's cringeworthy, mom. But now I'm 40, I think that's actually quite cool that I've got something that I did digital or way back when."And I remember looking at every time going, but on the other hand, paint could do a lot back then. And that was 20, and on CorelDRAW, I think we were using and quo we were saying with layout design quo and things. So, you know, I'm in the age with Dreamweaver, used to be owned by Macromedia rather than Adobe. And I do sometimes think like -- I always say to people, Microsoft Paint can actually do a huge amount. 'Cause I'm a Mac -- not a Mac user, I'm a PC user.I use Notepad by default for a lot of things, typing up notes. And it's so great if you are doing web development 'cause it strips all the code out, it strips all your formatting so you know, you've got a clean copy and paste when you're putting in something. So I do think that we forget the simpler things.And it's the same, we've going back to just sketching, going back to that idea of stop forcing myself to use Illustrator straight away because I'm not a pro at Illustrator. I have to keep Googling stuff 'cause I always forget stuff. When you have to remember how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and InDesign, and Figma on your average day, you get to the point of "There's only so much I'm gonna remember how to do." Sort of thing.MR: Yeah, yeah. You focus on the things you use often, right? And you Google things you use occasionally, which is fine. I mean that's -- those tools.EC: I wish Google when I was learning would've been brilliant when I was at university.MR: No kidding. Well, we're on this discussion of software. We sort of hinted at this when we prepared for this, talking about the drawing and software, and so, I think agree in this sense that I think it's important that you do your concepting on paper with pen to get the idea and to think through the idea before you get into software.My theory or my view is, the problem with software as powerful as it is, even the simple stuff, is once you enter software, you tend to adapt to the things that the software lets you do or even to this discussion we're having now. You adapt to the things you know how to make the software do, which is a narrow subset of what the software probably can do.But by using pencil sketches or sketchnotes or whatever technique as ugly or beautiful as it is, it helps you think through where you're gonna go before you ever touch any bit of software. So you're coming with this approach that's not hindered in any way by what the software can or can't do. It's more like what's the solution that we're solving for the person, the customer, the user using this thing. Let's start from that point, which, you know, that's our UX perspective. And then work back to making it happen and then bring the tools in. Would you kind of track along the side of that and have you seen that I would apply?EC: Yeah, I would. And actually, I would say it pretty much aligns with exactly a project I've just sent to print. I've nerve-rackingly sent to print. It's always one of those moments, especially if you're so used to digital design, you've got send something to actually print. You're like, "I'm gonna check this 500 times." So I'm gonna actually a bit show. This is useless for people just listening rather than those watching.MR: If you're listening to the podcast, look on the link for the YouTube and you can check it out.EC: So this is something -- I'm gonna try and get it in screen. There we go.MR: You got it on there. That's all in.EC: There we go. So that is actually quite a few sheets worth of work. But this was deliberately designed in a comic book style. And it was something that I knew if I went to the computer, I'm gonna go and default a couple of things. I'm gonna look at some stock illustrations that can get me the boxes and the styles and the effects. And then I'm gonna go quite rigid and I'm gonna do this.And I'm thinking, first of all, I've got to think it through because it's about actually how product is made from -- it's that telecoms brand company. So how someone gets from that sheet of metal all the way through to a roadside cabinet with a telecoms pool coming out of it and a wifi device at the top of it and all the stages in between? And I've got to remember what those stages are.And I think taking it back to pen and paper, it was kind of a big sketchnote gone wrong. I was starting to actually do it as very -- I did say it was a sketchnote gone wrong 'cause I did originally plan just to do like little sketchnotes, going right, this would be this and this will be this. Then I took another sheet and went, "Oh no, I'll just draw it out properly."And then I got to the third sheet 'cause and I'll add a little bit of marker pen. It literally just started to build up. I was like, "This is quite funny. This is me really not doing sketchnotes now." I was like, "I've abandoned it. It's not a sketchnote, it's a full-on illustration." But the best thing about that was, it took me maybe a couple of hours to draw all out, get the concept, a few annotations kind of like the teaching side as well.Just took a picture of it and sent it to the MD and went, "This is the idea and I don't wanna spend time doing a illustrate if you don't like the concept of this being this comic book superhero theme." And he was like, "I like it. I really like it." Luckily, he's got a good vision. He can see what's gonna be the end result as well. He knows what I'm capable of so he knows what would be produced. And even when he looked at this very basic sketch, he went, "Oh by the way, it's not called that, it's called this so you need to google this."So you already gave me feedback just because the sketch was just good enough where you could get what it was supposed to be, but you could pick up on, "Oh you've not quite got that terminology. So just point in the right path." So my next version of that was fine and then fine lined it, took pictures of it, and then took it into Illustrator.And I think it's better because it's, a lack way of putting it got that one key approach. And my lines aren't quite parallel. Like curves aren't perfect because I've traced the image of that. And it's given a very hand-drawn effect. And rather than if I had gone to illustrate straight away, I know I would've done really nice straight lines. A really nice arc. And it would've looked too polished.And whole point of this was, it's supposed to be somebody sketched out like a story like you do with comics. Sometimes I have to remember that's actually gonna be a better approach. And I think that's why stripping back to pen and paper and having that base skillset really helpful in trying to convey an idea as well and get buy-in. Before I go and invest 40 hours of my time, "Are we all right with this one hour of time I've invested?"MR: Well, and you have to think that way as an independent especially, 'cause that means if you spend 40 hours going all the way with that, that's 40 hours you can't spend on something else that maybe you should be, right? It's sort of a seed idea that, "Hey, is this right?" Even if it gets you arguing over the concept, at least it's movement. And then you can move from there. Either you'd say, "No, that's too loose. I don't want that." Or "Hey, it looks great, he chose that way, but at least it gives him an option and is our invested." And you can now choose your adventure based on that.EC: I think the reason behind doing it as well goes back to maybe the last two to three years of really getting deep into UX design in terms of websites where really starting with pen and paper wireframes. Pen and paper wireframes, then even moving into just block design and saying, "This is where the hero shot's gonna be. This is where the interest's gonna be." And laying it out blocks like that before even building it.And again, web design, we get so carried away from going, getting a brief and going right bang, here's your website. And then going, "Oh actually we don't really like that and it doesn't flow here. But doing it in that stage work, which does take more time, but then that's kind of part of the investment with UX rather than just going straight into web design.And that's part of what I've been trying to do when doing freelance is going, but even when I approach the marketing teams, I go, "I don't do your brochure straight out the bat. What I do is I go, here's the general skeleton structure. This is what your page layout's gonna be." And I give them like a skeleton grid of their say 16 pages. These are where your content blocks are. This is roughly where your imagery is gonna be. This is the idea. And I'll give them a like a mood ball going, "And this is the visuals." And then they can buy in on that.So when they produce the end result, it should be pretty much on the button rather than coming back going, "Oh actually, we'd rather it was a bit like this. And could those be amalgamated together?" Don't go it wrong. You do get ones like that. Where you've somehow, it's been lost in translation. But again, it's to try and help me knowing that that's kind of way marketing teams work as well. If you can give them an idea. If you've got somebody with a remote bit of creative brain, they can visualize it already in their head as well. They kind of know what the end result's gonna be.And it just helps and gives them confidence that they know I know what I'm doing. So I kind of strip it down even if it's digitally kind of blocks. But yeah, I think going straight into the actual design end phase. And in a way that's what sketchnotes has taught me is to not always go for that sort of thing. Not always go for the end result with a color and a fine line and all that. You know, use a pen and paper, use a pencil sort of thing.MR: That seems to work. I've been doing this for many years and sometimes I'll jump right to the computer and stop myself and come back and get out my iPad or a piece of paper and just sketch the concept. And it always seems that those projects turn out better. They iterate better, they're smoother. They're more thought out. Like all those things that you want in an end product, ends up getting bound into them when I approach 'em that way.And typically, I do, but there's times when, if I'm in a hurry, I might forget that step and I'll have to like, "Okay, stop. Let's go back let's do some sketching." Even if it's just a little bit in my bullet journal, just to think through the process, that might be enough, right. It doesn't have to be some crazy detailed thing, but a little dump of ideas and seeing it helps reinforce things and give it direction, which is really valuable.EC: Yeah. I even do that with quite a few of my social media posts. If they're gonna be actually illustrating a topic or I go for one that's about buttons. You know, I've got them in one of my notebooks where I was going, right, this is how it's gonna lay out, these are the buttons I'm gonna talk about. Giving myself the space and oh that's not gonna work. Do the next one. The next one. Rather than going straight into these ones were done in Figma. So rather than going straight into Figma and going, "Oh no, I have to resize this and I have to move this." I already know what it's gonna be.MR: You got the map. Yeah.EC: Yeah. And you can go straight in. And I do think going digital first sometimes isn't the best way. And I think that's one of the big benefits of having the career that I've had where, you know, my first year university was pretty much analog and that set me off success. You know, we learned proper old school market techniques. You know, with the blending up and sort of thing and you know, and having to use masking tape to keep your line script.So I've learned all of those skills. You wouldn't think that looking at some of my designs. I look at some of my sketchnotes and going, "I have no idea how I've got the degree I've got sometimes. Or how I was allowed to teach children how to draw." But then that's kind of one of the things I try and do is go, "Don't get hung up on the way it looks. Just get it down." Sort of thing.MR: Yeah. Functional, functional, functional.EC: Yeah.MR: That's really cool. This is a great story and it's brought back a lot of memories for me as well. So that's encouraging. Let's shift a little bit. I'd love to hear the tools that you like to use. You've hinted at some on the design on the marketing side which you can certainly go into. You can start either analog or digital, whichever way you'd like first.EC: Well, I think we should start analog because you know, we're saying we should go analog first. I'd like to say I'm a black pen enthusiast. I have a lot of black pens, those listening to the audio, there. I try lots --MR: A bucket full black pens.EC: Yeah. Obviously, some of them are different thicknesses and some are like brush tip and normal tip. But doesn't matter which black pen I use, I go back to an actual Uniball finite pen. Just 'cause it's a really simple, nice black pen. And I like it 'cause it's reliable and it's consistent. And usually come in packet of like five 'cause I seem to lose them. I don't how I'll lose them. It's like batteries, you know, they just disappear. But I really like the Uniball high fine pen.And you can get them in like every supermarket here in the UK. Especially, at the minute it's back-to-school stuff. So, funny enough, I've just bought another packet. I like them as well 'cause they're consistent. It doesn't really matter what paper I use, they come out the same. They don't really bleed and it's just got their nice crispness to it. And then with them, if you think I'm a black pen enthusiast, you still need to see the amount of marker pens I own.But I have a huge amount of color and marker pens. But for the sketch notes side, I found I was trying to focus too much on the color instead of just giving it a bit of a highlight and a bit of a punch more than anything. And then my brain tweaked them I was like, well just use highlighters sort of thing. So one of the things I really like is, these are the Sharpe highlighters. So the s-not and they come in about20 or so colorsMR: Look like nice pastel colors. If you're listening, they're not the traditional intense crazy colors. It's more like pastel colors.EC: Yeah. And I think that's why we like 'em because they've got a bit of a punch of a traditional neon sort of highlight. You know, they've got a bit of that punch, but they've got the softness of the pastel sort of very zebra, I think bring out a pastel range. I've got twitch, I've got God knows how many of them as well.MR: Oh, okay.EC: But they're kind of very vibrant and they come in a whole range of colors. You wouldn't get that -- you know, there's no neon, real true neon, but them combined, they just give that highlight. And what I try to do is I look at what I'm taking a sketchnote off. So if we go back to -- they're always learning. That's what I use my sketchnotes for is always like watching the webinars and using it to remember what I'm learning. Or when I read books, I try and condense a book I've read into one or two pages of notes.So one of the things I do is, so I've got quite nicely got to actually a page use those. So I try and use the colors just -- I pick a couple of colors to match maybe the brand of the person that I'm watching. Or it could be to do with the topic because then it helps me remember it and learn it. I'm that design nerd, so I'm kind of thinking he needs to have a nice theme. I can't just rock up with any random color.MR: Yeah.EC: So that's kind of how I do. I always have a Uniball pen on me. I've got them in my bags. I've got 'em in the car because they are just so relatively foldable as well. They're really quite cheap. It's only like a few bucks for a pack of three or five, however many they come in.MR: That's great. Yeah.EC: And paper-wise, I'm quite particular. So when I'm doing the actual UX design, so when I'm doing wireframes because I really don't want to use color. These are black and white and I know if I use white paper I'm gonna add color 'cause I know what sort of person I am.MR: Interesting.EC: Yeah. So I use Kraft brown paper.MR: Oh wow.EC: So deliberately you put color on that, it doesn't really show at all. So I've got like a nice sort of spiraled brown and it's quite a nice size as well. So sort of landscape orientation, it's kind of monitor then portrait orientation, you've kind of got more of a mobile style. I've got a couple of these now and they're quite thick as well. So if I wanna use a heavier-duty thicker black pen, they work really well.MR: They can't bleed.EC: Yeah. And so I use Kraft, and it forces me not to use color. It forces me to keep -- this is purely about wire framing. This is where the base element's go in the page. And then I use post-it notes to highlight up to like, this is where it's gonna move. In terms of the notebooks, it was funny enough, I was just looking at the sketchnote one the other day.But I use quite a thick, really thick gram paper. And I like nice notebooks. It's one of my things. I don't like just using generic paper as well. And I think 'cause those sharpies can be quite heavy duty. It's a Sharpie at the end of the day, you know, it's gonna have a bit of a bleed through the page. So I'm quite conscious of having a really heavy gram paper. And I like dot grid. I can't do the blank paper. 'Cause Even those comic book strips, actually it's on the reverse side of blue graph paper. So I can roughly see the graph through it. So I've got an idea of where the lines are. But I like dot grid. All of my general notebooks are dot paper or grid paper, depending on how people call them. And that's kind of what I like analog-wise, I'm quite traditional. I think. I'm not really into anything fancy.MR: So for the heavy gram notebook, that looked like a LEUCHTTURM, if I were to guess. I don't know If that's the brand.EC: No, I'm gonna pronounce this wrong. I already know I'm gonna -- OttergamiMR: Oh, okay. Ottergami. I haven't heard that. There's a fun shot now. So for bullet journalists. Or bullet journalists and they have quite thick paper.EC: Yeah, it's really nice quality. From my sustainability side and also, 'cause I am actually a vegan as well, so I'm very conscious about them not having real leather on the covers and things. And it is a bit like your own one, which -- that's how I came across it. 'Cause I was looking for notebooks that weren't real leather covers. But I do like it because it is so heavy duty and it's got that nice quality.And I think if I'm gonna be writing something I'm gonna look back on, I want it to feel nice. You know, I want that tact. I like the tactileness sort of thing. And I think that's, again, goes back to being old-school print design. You like the feel of the paper and it's got the nice gram effect, et cetera.MR: Yeah, exactly. Now what about if we switch to digital, assuming that you don't have any other analog tools that you'd like to share? What would be the tool?EC: Well, I have a lot of analog tools, but I don't think any of them are -- I've got, you know, every type of color pencil going. Digital-wise, 'cause I'm not a Mac user, I am a Windows user, so I've got a Samsung Galaxy Tab. And I use Concepts because it's just a brilliant app.MR: That's a great tool.EC: Yeah. The Concepts app. And I would say in the last two years, the Samsung Pen has been really up its game with its sensitivity. It works like my old Apple iPad Pro, what was it called? Yeah, iPad Pro that had the tablet. I had one of the first edition ones and then Procreate stop supporting it, so I sold it. And that's when I was like, well actually it was the last piece of Apple products I had.So I thought, well, this is the time I'm gonna move to Galaxy Tab. And I wanted something smaller because this is small enough to go into, you know, a small like rucksack. So in a out and about. And I love the Concepts app. Really been looking at using it in the last year or so.I like the never-ending art board as well, although sometimes it kind of feels like you don't have scale. So I've noticed when I've gone back and looked at sketches I've done or UX wireframes where some look proportionally fine and then I zoom out and then somehow I've managed to do giant boxes and tiny boxes. But because it's vector-based, at least you can start to resize things.MR: Yeah. You can size it. Yeah.EC: But sometimes you kinda lose the awareness of where you are 'cause it's obviously a smaller screen 'cause it's a Galaxy Tab rather than like a big iPad Pro. But I do like the Concepts app. I've tried a few and they just didn't seem to have that sensitivity with the Samsung Pen. But equally they didn't have even just a free version of Concepts, the wide range of colors, wide range of pens available and not. So yeah, I do like sketchnoting though, because you can press Undo and you can change the line that you just thought it's a bit dodgy.MR: Yeah. That's nice.EC: And it does the smoothing out. I was like, "Oh, I like this. Why can't I do this a real life for a pen and paper."MR: Yeah, exactly. So the tab I think is more like an A5 size?EC: It is. To be fair, it's not far off the size of notebooks.MR: It'd probably be closest to an iPad Mini if someone's used to iPad. It's probably more in that range.EC: Yeah, it is a nice size. And I got that 'cause I wanted something that was bigger than my phone for actually learning because a lot of learnings now online you can't get books for a lot of things anymore. But I didn't wanna have to keep using my phone. And when I've spent 11 hours of the day at my computer, I don't wanna have to have my computer on an evening. So I bought it originally to be able to read eBooks or do some of the courses I've signed up to.MR: And do a training. Yeah.EC: Yeah. And even like your webinar, I think I watched it on my Galaxy Tab or potentially drew it on my Galaxy Tab. I can't remember now. But I use it for that. And then it's like the penny dropped. I was like, "Well, why don't I do some sketch notes on this?" And then I've started to use it more for the wireframes because it's easy then to take that and then put it into likes of Figma. And that's I found rather than having to take pictures and then move them in. So I'm using Concepts more for wireframes than sketchnoting. I think the tactlessness of the notebook for sketchnoting.MR: Well, that's really cool. We don't have lots and lots of PC-only users or Galaxy Android users. So it's good to have represented because I know there must be more out there. So it's good to hear that. Good feedback. Yeah.EC: Well I was like -- my computers all the way through university, even all the way up to near enough when I went to teacher training, were all Macs. For those who are watching, you'll see I've got in the background probably you can just see I've got an original iPhone, an iPod on the wall. Still have a better battery life to old iPhone 'cause they still work. And I had the old school, massive Mac, the Blueberry Mac with the big blue colors. So you know that I had one of them. So I've always been Mac from training.And then it just got more into PC-based because I knew a large portion of my audience were using PCs. The market teams teams were using PCs. It was an easy sell to people to, "Well, we don't wanna put a Mac into the IT system and things." So I got used to using a Windows-based ecosystem. And then gradually as things in my Apple ecosystem died off, they just replaced with a Windows and Android.MR: Yeah, makes sense.EC: So I kind of smoothly moved over.MR: That's pretty cool. Well, thanks for sharing your tools. People always like to have this section so they can learn about new tools and try things out. I know I learn about tools all the time from this section as well, so.EC: When I walk the dog and listen to the podcast, I'm always like, "Oh, I didn't know that." Or, "Oh, there's another pen I'm gonna -- I think that's another pen I'm gonna buy." And then go back to the Uniball. Hence the tub of nearly 50 black pens that I own.MR: Wow. Well, let's go to the next portion of the show, which is your three tips. So I always frame it as someone's listening, they're individual thinking, whatever that means to them. Maybe they've gotten into a rut and they need just some encouragement. Like what would be three things you would encourage them to do to kind of get back into a good rhythm?EC: I think the first one, and this is something that I used to champion a lot when I was teaching and trying to get kids to get out the mindset of. You've just come from, you know, maths or you've come from geography or history or wherever it might be. And you've come and sat in this room, you've gotta get kids credit 'cause they've gotta suddenly switch from one class to another. And I'll just be sitting going, I can't get my head into this mindset. Or it's not perfect or it's whatever it might be.And I used to say to them at the level they're doing, or the level that most designers are doing, there's no standard. Don't worry about a standard. Try and remember there's no standard. This is not maths. One plus one doesn't equal two. So your standard is not my standard. Your design is not my design. And that's why I actually love sketchnotes 'cause everybody's is completely different. Everyone's styles are different.And trying to remember that unless you're doing architecture and building regulations, design is quite free. And don't you put that pressure on yourself? So give yourself a break. Remember that you are setting the standard in a way and try and give yourself a break. 'Cause I think we all kind of get a bit too hung up on, "Oh, it needs to be like this." And it's kinda like, no, just, there's no standard to design really. It's, quite freeing.It's not as free as art. Granted. But that's very expressive. You know, you've got the fine line. You know, we do have some standards, you know, we're not going to the really, really fluid art world, but yeah, try and remember that you are the one giving yourself a hard time. So let up on yourself. There is no standard. So I would say that's probably number one.The second one is a bit something that I wish I did a lot early on in my career. And I've only started doing in the last, I think five, six years actually after I finished teaching, really, I'm gonna get an example, is I create playbooks 'cause a hybrid of a sketchbook, a scrapbook, important notes. Things that I find I think are really interesting that I want to sort of scrapbook.And the reason why I wish I started this earlier -- so for those listening, I'm sort of holding up some like cutouts I've done and I've annotated them and things that I've found online or logos and packaging that I like and I cut them out and I sort of stick them in and I write why I like them or why it's worked and so annotating them.But I also do my sketch notes in it from the books that I've read or the webinars I've attended. And I have one for each year. And the reason I like them is sometimes it's really good to just, if you've got that mental block, is go back and look at something, pick a subject you've read and think it could inspire you.Or if you think, oh, this is no good, look what you were doing five, six years ago. And it's like, when I look at the thing I designed when I was 15 using Microsoft Paint or whatever it would've been, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I've actually come quite a way since then." Sort of thing. So I wish I did these earlier because it's so interesting to look back on. But more importantly, I get inspiration every time I look at them because it is personalized to me. It's my journey. It's my type of design and it helps inspire me to look at it and go, "Oh yeah, why didn't I try that?" Or "Oh wait, I forgot about this."And sometimes it can spark that idea or give you the confidence boost. You remember you can actually do this, right? It's like when I draw badly or -- I wouldn't say badly. It's not a word I like to use. But I draw in a way where I just think, "How do people pay me to do this?" Sort of thing.I deliberately sometimes go -- and I've got like some really nice hand-drawn, colored in really heavy-duty, 20 hours sort of pencil colors drawings in my playbooks, in my sketchbooks because it's just to remind myself I do actually have that talent. It's just my brain's not using that talent at the minute. It's clearly using it for something else. You know, it's worrying about, "What I'm gonna have from a dinner." So it's nice to look back and it kind of reaffirms where you are, but also gives you that inspiration.And I would say the third one is probably a classic one is walk the dog. The amount of things I can solve by walking my dog. I take him out for a walk, 45 minutes later I'm either re-inspired, I fixed a problem while either walking the dog. I might think, "Oh, this is a different way to approach it." The dog is brilliant 'cause I talked to him like a crazy dog owner I am, you know, and he doesn't answer back. He has a good go, granted, but he generally doesn't answer back.And I would say, so take that tea break, go in the garden, walk the dog. Like during a pandemic was harder. So I used to go in the garden and just walk up and down a few times throwing a ball with a dog because as soon as my brain -- it is that adage of, to be creative, you also have to be bored. You have to have that bit where your brain is not thinking about what you're trying to think about. And that's why we have our best ideas in the shower when you're going to sleep because you've suddenly switched off. So I try sometimes a dog, it's four walks a day.MR: It's a lot I'm sure.EC: Yeah. Well, it gets to a point where it's like, "Oh, do we have to? Do we have to?" So I think we really underestimate getting away from your desk. Get out to nature, walk the dog. Just, you know, that fresh air is something about it that for me really works to help me get over that struggle. And it could be any struggle, it could be a design struggle, it could be from the marketing stuff that I work on teams with, saying how should we approach this? So I find it's one of the best things I've -- well say it's nine years in now. It's the best thing I've had really in terms of my tools as well, is very analog tool.MR: Yeah. That's good. That's good. Reset.EC: Mm-hmm.MR: Well, those are great tips. Thanks for sharing those, Elizabeth. Very helpful and encouraging. Making me wanna take my dog for a walk now, which maybe I should do after this 'cause I've been sitting for an hour, soEC: Well, yeah. One of my friends, she says she plays with the kids. She says she'll go and she'll just build Lego with the kids or she'll go and color in with the kids because it is one of the few friends I've got that's in a relatively similar role. So she gets it as well. And she says sometimes just doing that and drawing it back to a more basic level makes her go, "Ah, that's how I could approach this problem." Or "That's how I could do this logo idea." 'Cause She's very much logo design and she's like, ah, that's -- you know, it's like the penny drops moments 'cause she's doing something related, but at the same time not thinking about it. So I really do think sometimes you have to give yourself 10 minutes to go do something else.MR: Yeah. Let's your subconscious work for a bit, I guess. You know, so it can kind of churn on things and give you back some ideas.EC: Yeah.MR: So Elizabeth, where can we find you? What's the best place to locate you? A website, social media? Where do you hang out?EC: My website is Below Two, so spelled out T-W-O.co.uk. And that's pretty much all of my social media is the same. So it's Below Two Studio. So whether it be Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, the whole lot, very rare. I've managed to secure it on all of the platforms. Especially in today's world where so many things are taken up. But you can find me there. I'm generally mostly on LinkedIn and Instagram. I've quoted Twitter there, which just start getting called using X, that's the term. But yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram mainly and my website, which is a key thing.MR: Okay. That's really great. And you can go check that out everyone. We'll have of course, as always show notes and samples. And if we can get some samples from Elizabeth, we'll link to those as well so we can, she can throw 'em on our website and send us some links and we can see some pictures of her playbooks and some other things that she's talked about, if you're listening.EC: It'll be great once this has actually come out, the thing I've just done a comic book stuff, we'll actually have all the end results.MR: Oh.EC: It's part of a huge exhibition that the entire standard is now gonna be comic book superhero design. So we've done the whole lot to that sort of style now.MR: Wow. Cool.EC: So hopefully, I'll have some quite like, literally here's the idea here. Is it now fully?MR: That would be cool. Yeah, that'd be great.EC: So hopefully I'll have that.MR: Great. Well, thanks Elizabeth for all the sharing and teaching you do on Instagram that I've seen and for your generosity and hanging out with us and telling us your story and laughing and having the dog bark and the network flake out and all the things that we've gone through. It's been a joy just to hang out with you.EC: Yes, thank you very much for having me. It's made a nice start to the bank holiday weekend here.MR: Well, that's great. That's great. For all those who are listening or watching, this will wrap up another episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Until next time, talk to you soon.

Jono Hey, a visual representation expert and creator of sketchplanations, discusses how he simplifies complex ideas. They talk about the value of cross-training for educators, the role of purpose in motivation, and the importance of using the right tools for sketching. They also express admiration for Jono's dedication to his work.

In this episode, Ingrid describes the evolution of her visual thinking journey which now plays a crucial role in assisting both creative professionals and business owners in understanding their client's experiences through Big Picture storyboarding.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Ingrid LillOrigin StoryIngrid Lill's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Ingrid LillOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Mike Rohde’s Big Idea Sketchiest with IngridDonald Miller's book - Building a StoryBrandTim Urban's book - Wait But Why?WebsiteMembership siteLinkedInYoutubeToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.ConceptsiPad ProAdobe IllustratorWacom CintiqProcreateNeuland flexible tip markerNeuland art markersBlack fineliner penInk tinsPencilsWaterbrushWatercolorA3 Smooth paperTipsMessage first. Use your drawing to communicate.Keep it simple.Experiment. Use your art on your everyday use.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike, and I'm here with Ingrid Lill. Ingrid, it's so good to have you on the show. Thanks for coming.Ingrid Lill: Thank you, Mike for having me. You're one of my heroes, one of the first ones who taught me how to sketch note.MR: Oh, thank you. That's so nice of you. Well, you know, probably we'll get into it a little bit is some of the work that we did together, but I think before we get into that discussion, I would love for you to sort of set the context. Who are you and what do you do with the work that you do?IL: My name is Ingrid Lill. I'm originally from Germany. I've been living in Denmark for 20 years on the countryside. And I—should I tell my whole story already now?MR: Sure. That was my next question is how did you end up in the place where you are? Maybe start—IL: Maybe first, what I'm doing now.MR: Yeah.IL: I am a communication designer turn business coach with a pencil. I am helping coaches, consultants, and creatives, and whoever needs to do that, clarify their message through visual thinking, and I do that on several levels.MR: Cool.IL: Yeah.MR: And you've done that with me. So we can talk about that in the future. I would love to hear now, how did you end up in that place? You talked about being a communication designer. It sounds like from our discussions before, what you did wasn't so far away from what I did when I came out of university, which was graphic design.IL: That's true.MR: Yeah.IL: That's true, graphic design, yeah, yeah.MR: Really old-school graphic design with pens and—IL: Really old school.MR: —rulers and all that old stuff.IL: Yeah, yeah. I mean, as a child, I drew, and as many people who are drawing and want to also make money, I studied graphic design. And I had drawing and painting at the side as an artist and made graphic design and all this visual communication stuff to make money.When I started out on it, when I graduated, there were no computers, so we did actually hand-drawn layouts which was fun, but that disappeared when computers came on the scene. And then for many years, all the drawing was really only hobby and computer was it. And I was also happy for it because I didn't really like the manual graphic design work.Yeah, and then I worked as a graphic designer and an art director, and several jobs in this thing. Also, on my own, had my own business. And at some point, I got tired of it. I was tired of having this divide between the really creative me on one side and the job, the making money on the other side. So I wanted to bring it together. And when I heard about, or when I saw the first graphic facilitation things on the internet, I thought, "Huh, what is that?" It was like a revelation.And I started investigating, and it was a totally new way of drawing for me. Before, drawing was art, and then I found out drawing can be communication. I've never done my own illustrations when I was working as a graphic designer because I thought I'm not good enough for it or something, whatever I thought.But this kind of drawing, which was so simple that I thought, I can do that. And so, I learned that. And I also knew if I wanted to get out and make a business, build a business that is more me and more fun and more creative, I needed to draw, I needed to dare to be visible with it.And I started posting drawings on Facebook. And I remember the first time I posted something, a drawing I did was in some thread a discussion on Facebook. And I did a little drawing and I uploaded it, and my heart was pounding, and I thought, "Huh." I don't why.MR: What did I do?IL: What did I do? Yeah, yeah. But nobody even noticed. It was just, I had a point to make and I did a drawing that illustrated that point. It was not about that the drawing had to be beautiful. And that was kind of the—how do you say that? I crossed the boundary with that. Drawing is useful, can be useful, and it can also be fun and all other kinds of stuff, but it doesn't have to be. It just has to convey a message. And that's where all my—MR: Functional.IL: Yeah, functional, but also expressing your personality in a way it always does. And that's what all my work now is revolving around. I did also some graphic recording here, locally in Denmark. But what happened then was when I posted my drawings on Facebook, people liked them. I was actually telling my story about finding out what to do next. People liked it, and then I started giving drawing classes, and my business evolved in other directions.MR: Something interesting I thought of when you were talking about, you saw a graphic record or you saw a facilitation, and up to that point you thought, "Well, I never used illustration in my graphic design work 'cause I didn't think I was good enough." I thought the same thing. I always thought of myself as a graphic designer.And for people that don't understand that about that time, if I'm thinking it's about the right time, that was like the golden age, the peak of illustration where people could make a living doing illustration work. Like many people. If you were a good enough artist, you could make a living. And it was really great quality stuff.So when we say that, when Ingrid and I say that we weren't good enough, it's because we were up against the best illustrators in the entire world were at their peak, and we really weren't good enough to compete at that in that game, in the game that they were playing, which was, you know, stuff that people are using like AI to do now, or mid-journey or something like—IL: Airbrush stuff. Oh God.MR: Right, right. So there was very, very specific skills, and because there wasn't really computer capability, it was all analog stuff, which is really hard to do, and therefore it costs a lot and only the best organizations could afford to do that. So there was like this whole—when you say, "Oh, I just wasn't good enough." And you think, well, you know, in that context, there really was amazing work being done, and we really weren't good enough to play that game.So what we realized, I think you and I was, well, what if we play a different game? What if we play a game where we just do our simple drawing to communicate and it's functional? And that was the thing that blew Ingrid's mind. Am I right in kind of guessing at that?IL: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But also, what didn't occur to me back then was that I could make my own game. That I could make a business out of the drawings that I'm capable of doing. Maybe it would've been possible, probably but it didn't occur to me. I thought I needed to follow some mainstream something. And only when I became older and thought, now it's enough of trying to follow other people's ideas, now I'm making my own rules for myself.MR: Yeah. So now let's step into the work that you and I did, which is representative of the kind of work you're doing for your clients. So about, I dunno, it was about two months ago or something like that. We're talking in August, so it was about two months ago maybe. Ingrid reached out to me and invited me to do a session with her over Zoom where she would talk with me about what I wanted to do with whatever I wanted to. So I chose, well, I've got these two books and I'm trying to figure out like, what's the next thing? Where do I go next?So basically, Ingrid walked through with me and started going back into my history and asking me questions, and then visualizing this journey and starting to make sense of like what was in my head.So in a sense, she was sketchnoting my thinking, but it was more than this. It wasn't so much just recording what I said. She was also facilitating by guiding me and asking questions, probing questions, and then visualizing it and sort of making sense of it, in the moment so I could see it all unfolding on the screen as she worked.And then eventually, we finished that session, and then she kind of fixed up some things and added a little bit of color, and then there is a finished piece. Well, I'll put a link in the show notes for you so you could see what this looks like, including there's a recording of the session that you can watch that Ingrid has shared. So you can watch it happen and then see the final output.As a visual thinker to go through that experience is really fascinating because it's sort of dawned on me a little bit what other people often feel like when I do visualizations of what they're saying. I think I kind of do something kind of similar, maybe in a different venue in my user experience design work where I'm extracting their thinking and trying to make sense of it. But it's the same kind of activity.So talk to me like, when did you come to that specific expression of the work that you're doing? Is that a pretty recent thing? How long have you been doing that?IL: No, that's several years. It's not recent. It's evolving. And the thing that you have been on is my very new big idea sketch cast which is my idea or at the start of a YouTube channel that I'm trying, and I'm interviewing interesting people. So this was only a little thing. Normally when I do with people, it's much longer.MR: Yeah.IL: There were several things coming together. One was that I needed to build my business, so I wanted to build my business, and I had to learn how to do that. Before, as a graphic designer, I was only doing stuff that was coming to me anyway. I showed my portfolio and didn't really think so much about my message. And then when I wanted to have my business more as an expression of—or I wanted to direct it in a certain direction, which is more drawing, more me, more creative, I studied more marketing.And I read Donald Miller's "Building a StoryBrand." That had a big influence on me, and I thought, "This is it. He's right." I knew he is right, but still, I couldn't wrap my head around it for my own business. And then I heard—I don't know if it was—I think it was him who said, "If you can paint a picture of it, your message isn't clear enough." And that kind of flipped a switch, and I thought, "I can paint that picture. I need to draw it. I need to draw this process."And so, that was the inspiration for this. I call it brand storyboarding and I draw the customer's journey. So if you have a website—if you're my client, it's not about it's not about you, it's about your clients. I draw how your clients feel before and after they have worked with you, and you're the guide. And then I added, with time, my own spin on it and other stuff. Yeah, that's how this started. Then I tried it out with some people and it worked, and I refined it.MR: That's always good.IL: And then it happened that I found many, or some people don't know yet what they want to sell theoretically. In a StoryBrand, they already have a working product, but some people who come to me, don't know that yet. And then I do a superpower diagram, which is also visual, which is overlapping circles. So I have several things, but this brand storyboarding, which is the before, after, and the bridge in between, that's the core thing that I'm doing.MR: Interesting. That's a really fascinating way to look at it because I think people do relate to stories and they think of themselves in a story, but not as the hero, but as the guide, right? That's the story, I guess process where you think about "Star Wars," right? Luke is the focus, but Yoda, or you know, Obi-Wan Kenobi, they're the guides that help Luke achieve, you know, his goal, right? And you're sort of casting people who you work with in the Yoda/Obi-Wan Kenobi role as guides, because then, you know, your customers are the Luke Skywalkers in a sense, right?IL: Mm-hmm. Exactly. So it's a little bit meta and it really helps me to have a drawing of it, so I can always go back—I don't even know if I'm a visual thinker. It's very spatial for me, this process, that I know exactly what is happening where, and I can always go back to it. And when we figure out the messaging, then I can go back to the guy with a problem to the hero and say, "Does this guy, we really want to hear that in this situation here."And another interesting question is how did he end up in this problem? That's a philosophical problem. Whose fault is it? And what is wrong with society that this could happen? So that is helping to get deeper into the whole story.MR: Right. Kind of like a root cause.IL: Yeah.MR: Looking at the root cause.IL: Which is also a tip often a good headline for the website.MR: And so, you've been doing this for a while. How do your clients react? I know how I reacted. I enjoyed the process and it's now a map that I can use. I can pull it up, and I was telling you before we started that my thought is in the fall when I start thinking about what I'm gonna do next, but that's gonna be one of the maps that I bring up and sort of think about what does it tell me? So How do your other clients like it and how are they using it?IL: One said, "It's part therapy, part magic, and all clarity." That was very nice.MR: Yeah.IL: And how do they use it? Some put it on their website, but that's not the point of it. It's more about having the clarity. Then the people who come to me who are creative and who maybe also draw themselves, I always encourage them to do their own thing. I have a template, and so, they can use it and then should do their own drawings and their own illustrations. But yeah, some people put it on their websites or on their LinkedIn headers, so.MR: I would think a good place to put it would be on the wall.IL: Yeah, yeah.MR: That I was hanging on the wall right here, so I can look at it every day and remember like, what am I doing here? Like, what's my purpose?IL: I don't know if they're doing that. Maybe they say it, but then I don't see it.MR: Right. You can't verify. Yeah.IL: I see it if they have it in their LinkedIn header, but what is also happening, as a graphic element, and I'm now the graphic designer's talking, there's a lot of stuff on it. So to use it on the website can be tricky because it's a lot of words and a lot of drawings. What I'm doing when I have been doing websites based on the storyboards, is I extracted several elements from it and made separate drawings from it.MR: Almost like a series of drawings that are connected. Sort of serves the same purpose, but it's not all in a single canvas, in that sense.IL: Yeah. And it tends to look to look better. Yeah.MR: I suppose the beauty of that too is you could take a piece of the story and zoom into detail on that piece of the story, right? If you do it in a series, you could start from the beginning and end up at the end and have detail on each piece, I suppose.IL: Yeah. And what you can use it for—I have done that now with somebody. We do your storyboard, and then I asked her, "And now tell me your story." And she looked at the storyboard and told me the whole thing, and she could just go through it, and then you have a structure for it. It's a picture to find the right words and to find the right structure so you always know where you are in your brand story when you talk about it.That's the basic thing. People tend to get, or I also, tend to get confused if we just talk about it without structure, and it's so clear on the left is the bad stuff on the right is the good stuff. And don't mix it up and don't talk about both in one sentence unless it's under LinkedIn headline.MR: I could see that also being a really helpful, almost like a filtering mechanism where it says, "Okay, I've been offered—" Let's say you're running a company, your own company, or you're doing a thing and someone comes to you and says, Hey, I'd like you to do this thing for me. And you could think about it and say, "Well, where does this fit on my map?"And if it fits in the old stuff, then it's real easy to say, "No, it doesn't fit what I do." If it goes over in the area where I'm heading to, then it's something you should consider taking, right? Or maybe the answer then is to come back to them and say, "Well, you're asking me to do this thing, which is what I used to do, but I found it wasn't effective for whatever reason. How would you feel about doing this new thing, which I'm doing, and let's fit it into there where I found that much more effective."So it could also be an opportunity to, I not only identify but then convert someone or guide someone to a more effective thing that you're doing now. So someone wouldn't even have thought to come to you and ask for that thing. Then it gives you this opportunity to shift them to the new—IL: That's true. That's true. I don't actually do illustrations anymore because it doesn't fit into my own plan. But what I'm doing sometimes is working on the messaging and the illustrations together with my clients. So we get into a Zoom call, and then I draw while we're talking and I do the illustrations. If they're happy with them, how they look like messy and sketchy, then everything is fine. If not, then—but so far they have been happy.MR: So here's a question. You've done it with these on Zoom, so, you know, the assumption is somebody remote or not in the same physical place. Have you done this with someone in person where you're both on the same board?IL: Yes.MR: And then what is that experience like? Do you have them drawing as well and putting information on the same thing? Or do you act as sort of the scribe for them? How does that work? And it must depend on the person, I'm sure.IL: Yeah. I haven't done so many of those, but I have. Now, the latest was on my holiday in Italy. I did one with my host. And I am acting as a scribe because I'm so used to it, although she's also drawing. But it would distract from the flow if I say, "And now you—" Then I would have to tell her where to draw and stuff. I didn't do that.MR: That makes sense.IL: If you're used to drawing digital, it can be tricky to go back to analog, and then you want to move something.MR: No "Undo," yeah.IL: No "Undo," and then I use scissors and scotch tape to put some somewhere else. And that also works. I mean, it's, it's messier.MR: So the last question around this is you do it for individuals. Have you ever done it for a team of people where it's many people giving you feedback? Does that get confusing? Is it possible that's something that you've ever done?IL: I've done it. It's possible. It's best done if everybody has their own—I did it in during the pandemic when everybody was at several places. And then there was no problem, I could hear everybody. It was a nonprofit organization about their website, and they needed to get onto the same page, although they were in different locations, and I was drawing the story. We were doing that together. It works well.What I did last week was talking with a group of people in one place where they all were looking at the big screen, and then it can be problematic because I need to hear what they're saying. So they need to talk into the microphone. It's mostly technical problems, but otherwise, I love working with several people because it makes so much sense to bring them together and have them agree on whatever it is.I did one session with management assistants at a conference celebrating their superpowers. So they were telling me what it is, they're doing, and then I was drawing the situations. That was just a celebratory thing, which was nice. And the last one that I did was about how to solve problems, and they came with ideas and I visualized them. I love working with teams.MR: Cool. That's good.IL: But mostly it's for—MR: Individuals.IL: Individuals right now.MR: Interesting.IL: It might change.MR: So, I always ask this at this point, and that is, is there something exciting that you are getting ready to start working on now that you can talk about? Any new project or maybe a new direction or something?IL: Not a new direction, but I have had these courses all the time, doing just as a, I wouldn't say hobby, but a little side thing, and my one-to-one work was the bulk of my business, which is still is, but now I am designing a—making it—because I have many courses by now, and it was getting too complicated, so now it's only one prize and one membership, and it's such a lovely group, and I decided to make a membership out of it instead of courses.And that's something I'm excited about. We meet every Tuesday and such lovely people. I always look forward to it, and we draw together, we work on our messaging together, and yeah, that's a next thing that I'm working on.MR: Kind of a diversification of, you know, the work that you're doing and doing something more. I know membership happen-IL: I'm teaching my methodology there, the brand storyboarding, and all the visual—there's so many things. Visual frameworks is also very, very useful. Is what you're doing a pyramid, or is it a flywheel, or is it a a linear thing? Like my brand storyboarding? Is a A, B, C thing.MR: Yeah.IL: So I have been analyzing that, and there's something about finding your style which is also interesting. If you only can draw a stickman, how can you use them to convey your message? Like, for example, Tim Urban. You know him? "Wait But Why" who has these ugly drawings and is so popular and he is doing the wildest best job in communicating the stories. He's one of my heroes too.MR: He's kind of leaning into his own, you know, limitations and making them work for him, right?IL: Yes. Yes.MR: I think that's what I love a lot about, when I see different sketch noters, at a certain point you can sort of identify, oh, that's a Diana Soriat. Oh, that's Nadine Rosa. Oh, that's Ben Crothers. Oh, that's, you know—they have a style that you can almost immediately identify just by looking at the work that they do, which is really interesting.IL: Yeah. Yeah. And I was always convinced that I don't have a style. I thought I just don't draw well enough. But these shortcomings are the style—MR: Yes.IL: - in a way.MR: Exactly. Exactly. They make your style you. That's for sure.IL: Yeah. Yeah.MR: So let's do a little shift now. I would love to hear about the tools that you use, and I think actually in many cases, I start with analog and then I go digital because the answer is pretty standard. But I think in your case, I'm going to go the opposite direction because—IL: Oh, really?MR: Yeah. You're so heavily focused on your digital work. I would love to hear the digital first and then talk about analog, like markers.IL: Okay.MR: We'll just do that for fun.IL: Yeah. Okay. My analog favorite tool is Concepts on the iPad.MR: Mh-mm.IL: Yeah. Because it's vector if anybody knows what that is. You can move stuff around, you can scale it, you don't have to worry about resolution, and you have an infinite canvas. And that is just perfect for my work. I find it perfect for simple illustrations. If you work more painterly then Procreate is better, but otherwise, I'm very much in love with Concepts and it's getting better and better. So that's what I love using on the iPad.Otherwise, I'm often using Adobe Illustrator, although I don't love it because I've used it for so many years. I have an old Cintiq that I bought long before the iPad was. A Wacom Cintiq that I can draw on. But I wouldn't buy that anymore. But now that I have it, I'm still using it.MR: Just use it. And for those who don't know, a Cintiq is basically, it's like a tablet screen that you can draw on. It comes with a high-resolution pen with a tip, and I think an eraser. I had one of these a long time ago, it's got huge bulky cables that you plug into your machine. It's not portable at all. It's really meant for illustrators at a desk.Pre-iPad, the Cintiq was amazing. Everybody wanted one. And once the iPad came out, I think that probably killed their business or much of it, unless you had a specific need for a desktop tool like that, which some do.IL: But it still works. I bought it maybe 15 years ago or something like that.MR: Still going.IL: And it's still working. I just had to get an adapter for this old DVI back.MR: Oh, yeah.IL: Yeah, very old. Very old.MR: Interesting.IL: But it still works.MR: Oh, that's good. That's good. That's been a good investment then. Your system is pretty—I think that when you did my work, you did use the Cintiq and Illustrator. You have the way you process stuff.IL: It's not portable. It's plugged in here. Everything is just working, and that's why I'm using it.MR: Yeah. Exactly. Great. Are there any tools—IL: So that was digital.MR: Okay. Got it. So now let's switch over to analog. What do you use in your analog side?IL: When it's just functional drawings, then I use Neuland pens and markers. I like best the Neuland flexible tip one. That is—oh, no, I don't have one here. Light blue and a flexible tip. And it's the fine—yes, exactly. This one. And for shading, I use art markers, Neuland. You have them there? No.MR: Yep. I think so. Somewhere here. Yeah. I think they have the flex--they have almost like a brush nib.IL: They have a brush nip. Yeah. My two favorite ones for that is the light gray. I think it's 102 shade and yellow. These are the two shade. So that's functional graphic facilitation drawings, and I don't use too many colors with it because it has to be fast and—MR: Simplify. Yeah.IL: Yeah. And for fun, I'm using also a black fine liner and ink tins, pencils, and a water brush.MR: So you use some—IL: I love watercolor.MR: Do you have like a watercolor book that you use for that? Or are you doing it out in nature?IL: Yeah, I do it everywhere.MR: Okay, you have like a little—IL: I don't even use—sometimes also A3 bigger ones.MR: Oh, really? Okay.IL: Yeah. And I don't use—I mean, I love watercolor paper, but I don't use it that much because when I then photograph it, then I have the paper structures, yeah, the texture so I'm using smooth paper.MR: Okay. Well, if you know what you're doing, then that works well.IL: Yeah. So I love that. Watercolor is my favorite look for drawing. It's fun. There's this messiness and I like it if it's expressive.MR: Have you ever used—IL: That's—what?MR: That's your tool set. I was wondering, have you ever used Procreate or Paper with their watercolor tools? And how do you feel about those?IL:I'm using Procreate for another thing that I'm doing that is very fun. And that is projecting drawings on houses.MR: Uh-huh.IL: I'm doing that at city festivals and stuff. I got hired to do that. And so, people come by and I draw them, and they get sometimes very big projected onto a facade. I'm using Procreate for that because the presentation mode is working best with that. And I'm using some light pens there.MR: Uh.IL: Yeah. I found them. They are pre-installed called Light Pens and they have wonderful effects, so you don't have to do much. It looks just great.MR: Oh, cool.IL: And then I do portraits of people with some light effects around them.MR: Ah, nice. Well, we'll have to see if you can send us some samples of this so we can put links in the show notes so people could see.IL: Yeah, it's called Illuminations.dk.MR: Ah, okay. Illuminations.IL: Yeah. I sent you the link.MR: Great. Great. Well, we'll definitely have links to everything we can get from Ingrid so you can take a look at her work and see the breadth of the things that she's up to.IL: Yeah. I've had it for many years, so it's there.MR: Some opportunity for inspiration, I think for someone to think, "Oh, I'd never thought about that. Maybe I could do that in my town."IL: Yeah.MR: That'd be fun.IL: Mm-hmm.MR: Well, let's shift to—this is the part where I like to have people talk about tips, and I like to have three tips that you would give someone. And I frame it as imagine someone's listening, they're individual thinking. Obviously, if they've made it this far into the podcast, they're somehow interested in visual thinking, but maybe they feel like they've hit a plateau, they need some inspiration. What would be three tips that you would give that person to encourage them or maybe change their perspective?IL: Three things. Message first. Don't worry about how it looks to start with and just say something with your drawing. If there's something you want to say, then make a little drawing out of it. And it doesn't have to be grand at all. It doesn't have to look great. Just have it say something.And that then works in two directions. When it doesn't quite say what you want, then you maybe develop your drawing, but it can also be that when you see it on paper, then your message maybe evolves from there. So it's not only about drawing, it's also about the storytelling. What is it exactly you want to say? And that's why it's so useful. Yeah.MR: That's a good one. I like that.IL: Otherwise tips. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. Don't try to make art. Keep it simple in every way possible. Use only one color. I use black lines and one color. That always looks good. Or shading, and one color. And that way it doesn't go wrong. And especially if it's light and bright colors, that's a secret.MR: Good contrast with black, I think, right? yeah.IL: Yes.MR: I tend to lean toward Aqua. Aqua is my favorite contrast color. A bright aqua with black. Anyway.IL: I remember I copied that from you back then.MR: Good. Good, good, good.IL: Yeah. But I switched. When I'm only using one color, I always use, nowadays yellow.MR: Yellow, yeah.IL: And if I have two colors, I use gray and red, but that's also just—MR: The gray, I suspect would probably be your shadowing and such, right? Little shadows.IL: Yes.MR: Yeah. What about a third tip? What would be the last one for you?IL: Experiment. Maybe try watercolor and several apps and use it in your every day. I think that's something—and either in work or to communicate that. That's it. Use it to communicate. That is the whole difference between making art. If you're just drawing to make something pretty, you don't have a direction. And if you use it to—for example, make a drawing for somebody and say, "Thank you." And just a little smiley and write a bubble—MR: Just a little something. Yeah.IL: Yes. That gives a different dimension on it. That makes it easier to draw. And also you get nice feedback and nobody will say, "Oh, that looks terrible," because you have a nice message with it.MR: I have a little something here that my friend William, he wrote a book called "The Conquering Creative," and he sent me—it's so bright you can't see it. Yeah.IL: Yeah. No, no, no, no. I see it. Yeah, yeah.MR: It's like a little note. It's a little note with a drawing. Really nice for them. And I've set it up on my table here. I look at it every day just because it's such a nice sentiment.IL: Yeah, exactly.MR: Well, this is really great. It's been so fun to have you talk about your process. Talk about where's the best place to go see your work. Is there one place or a couple places that would be a good place to start?IL: I have a website called lilbranding.com. And from there I link to my new membership site called visualminds.org. where there are all the courses. I do a webinar every month, a free webinar idea. It used to be called Little Branding Cafe, but maybe I go away and call it now Visual Brand Visual Minds Idea Workshop, where people come with their ideas and challenges, and then I draw it. It's like what we did, a mini session, for free. So I do that.MR: Like a challenge for you, right? Yeah.IL: Yeah. And then it's usually very nice because people also come with advice and with their ideas in the chat. So that's a fun thing, and I try to do that every month. On my website, there's a button to sign up for that.MR: So lillbranding would probably be the best place to start, and everything, link from there. Yeah.IL: Mm-hmm. lilbranding.com.MR: That sounds great.**IL:**And right now I'm mostly on LinkedIn. I try to post regularly there. Now with big idea sketch cast, I'm also starting on YouTube, and maybe I will also go back to Instagram at some point, but I didn't have so much time.MR: Yeah. You have to choose your battles, right? You have to pick the places where it makes most sense.IL: Yeah.MR: I would think that your focus on LinkedIn makes sense in the context of the work you do, to me.IL: On business. Yeah.MR: Cool. Well, thanks so much for being on the show, and thanks for all the work you're doing. I'm so thankful for you being in the community and sharing your work and being a teacher. And the kind opportunity you gave me to kind of work through my things and talk with me through the stuff that I was thinking about at the time, it was just so generous.I really love your attitude and your welcoming nature, and you're so calm and relaxed. It's just nice to have another person like you in the community. Thank you for all you do.IL: Well, thank you for inviting me and for doing the session with me. It's an honor because you were one of the first people who—where I learned sketchnoting. I took a workshop a few years ago, and yeah. So thank you for that.MR: You're so welcome. Well, everyone, this is another episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast wrapped up. So until the next episode, we'll talk to y'all soon.

In this episode, Dr. Bryan Vartabedian shares how he is creating a child-centered, family-friendly healthcare experience using visuals, to achieve better healthcare outcomes and a positive experience for all involved. Dr. Vartabedian is Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children's Hospital Austin, he is also a full-time faculty member at Baylor College of Medicinea and is professor of the practice at Rice University as cofounder of the Medical Futures Lab.Dr. Vartabedian is the author of Looking Out for Number Two – A Slightly Irreverent Guide to Poo, Gas and Other Things That Come Out of Your Baby (HarperWave, 2017) and Colic Solved – The Essential Guide to Infant Reflux and the Care of Your Screaming, Difficult-to-Soothe Baby (Ballantine/Random House, 2007).Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts’ infinite canvas lets you sketchnote in a defined area while still enjoying infinite space around it — to write a quick note, scribble an idea, or keep pre-drawn visual elements handy for when you need them most.The infinite canvas lets you stretch out and work without worrying if you’ll run out of space. When combined with powerful vector drawing that offers high-resolution output and complete brush and stroke control — you have a tool that’s perfect for sketchnoting.Concepts is a powerful, flexible tool that’s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH “Concepts” in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Dr. VartabedianOrigin StoryDr. Vartabedian's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find Dr. VartabedianOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.Dr. Vartabedian on LinkedInDr. Vartabedian on X33 Charts NewsletterRob Dimeo’s Scientific Sketchnoting33 Charts SketchnotesThe Sketchnote WorkbookToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. EXPO Low-Odor MarkersHeavy grade notebookWide nib fountain pensSigno Uniball 1.0mm gel penTipsBe Intentional.Look for a role model.Keep it simple, keep it clean.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike here, and I'm here with my friend Dr. Bryan Vartabedian. Dr. Vartabedian, it's so good to have you on the show.Bryan Vartabedian: It's great to be here. I think we've been planning this for a number of years, and it never really happened, right?MR: Yes. Yeah, well, we're both pretty busy people.BV: Right.MR: You being a physician and leadership certainly, you know, demands your time for very important things. Probably more important than Sketchnote podcasts many times. But, you know, sooner or later we figured we'd catch you, and it's worked out. So I'm really happy to have you here.BV: Great to be here.MR: So, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.BV: By training. I'm a pediatric gastroenterologist. Spent most of my career as a full-time clinician. Over the past couple of years, I've gotten into medical leadership and I helped Texas Children's here in Houston build a couple of their community hospitals, and they recruited me to open our new Austin flagship hospital in Northwest Austin. So I'm merging into medical leadership and it's been kind of fun, a little different.MR: Cool. And I know that Austin is growing leaps and bounds, so I imagine the demand in Austin for those services has got to be pretty significant, I would imagine.BV: Yeah.MR: That's good.BV: Yeah, big tech explosion going on there. And so, a lot of demand for pediatric services and so we're also offering women's services there too. So high risk kinds of women's services.MR: wow.BV: It's a beautiful hospital up in Cedar Park in Northwest Austin, if anyone listening wants to know.MR: I don't know that I've been in that region, but I've been to some other regions around Austin so I'll have to look on a map when we're all done. So you've been doing that. I'm really curious now, like — so we talked a little bit, I warned you that we're gonna do, they call it the superhero origin story. Like, how did you get to the place where you are. We know where you're now, but how did you get here?And more importantly, for this audience, how did visual thinking using your whiteboard to explain very complex topics to patients is what I remember we talked about in my book 10 years ago. How did you end up integrating that into your practice? 'Cause it doesn't seem like that's something — I mean, you know, the big joke is "Doctor's handwriting are impossible to read," and it sounds like your handwriting is quite legible. So how did you end up in that place? I'd love to hear that story and—BV: Mike, it's a good question because I think I have been using large whiteboards in my exam rooms, I guess now for over 20 years. And it started with these little whiteboards, these little tiny whiteboards that they used to have in exam rooms that would sort of tell the nurses — you've seen these in like hospital rooms?MR: Yeah, yeah.BV: The nurse's name, like who the assistant is and what time the lunch trays are coming in or whatever. And so I used to try to — I found myself sort of sketching pictures on these little tiny boards. And it was sort of unsatisfying 'cause I was so constrained. And maybe it was around Y2K, I had the manager invest in some larger boards and larger dry erase boards, which really expanded my ability to kind of develop a kind of an intentional use of graphics in the exam room with families.And I just sort of fell into it. And the real tipping point, you know, around the time smartphones were kind of new, and I noticed mothers would hold their phones up and take pictures of what I had drawn. And it was kind of at that moment, and the remarks that I got from families about how images, and even just bullet lists and arrows and things were so instrumental in helping them understand what was going on with their child. As you can understand, you know, physiology — you know, anatomy can be tricky to describe. A gallstone in a gallbladder.MR: Yeah.BV: Or a poop back up in the colon. When you make a picture of that, it really, really is a lot easier for someone to understand. Even beyond pictures, you know, even just bullet lists, a bullet list with arrows or two bullet lists with an arrow going between the two. Something as simple as that for a young mother with an eight-week-old child who's exhausted, if you try to explain some of this stuff without any supporting media to help them even remember what the five things in the list are, it's impossible. So I don't even know how people practice medicine without this kind of visual.MR: I think back to like when I've had x-rays done, like you could show me the x-ray and you could explain to me how it works, but it still doesn't make sense to me because I'm not practiced in understanding how to interpret that. So you almost really need, like, what you're talking about. And, you know, I'm looking at the Sketchnote Workbook sample that we have here. You're talking about a gastroparesis likely—BV: Gastroparesis, yeah.MR: — you were sort of drawing this symbol, and we'll put a link to this in the show notes so you can see what I'm talking about. You almost need — so there's like the situation and there's a conceptual component to it where you're explaining the concept of what's happening, why it's happening, and how we're going to address it in this simple way. Because even showing pictures like X-rays are not gonna be helpful to, again, a mother who's tired and has this eight-week-old who's crying because they hurt, you know?BV: Yeah, absolutely. And you know what's so interesting is that we — are you in Wisconsin?MR: Yes. Yeah. You remembered. Yeah.BV: Yeah. So we use the biggest EHR program I think in the world called Epic, Colorado, Wisconsin.MR: Yeah.BV: Big Wisconsin company. And, you know, I think our hospital paid 15 million to implement it. And it has some amazing abilities, but something very, very interesting, and it's funny, has happened, I'll go through a 30-minute consult with a child who's not growing or whatever, and I'll make a note, make my impression docs. Have a thing called the impression, which is what we think is going on. And that's often we refer to when we go back in the notes, what was I thinking back then?But I've had parents, I've gone through the chart. You know, a patient comes back two months later, I look at my note and my note maybe isn't that great? Then the mom pulls out her phone and shows me the sketch note that I did on the board. And within seven seconds I can see like everything that we discussed without even, — you know, more than seven seconds, I can just tell. So it's so interesting that a visual can be a better way to document kind of what I was thinking, what I was doing even more than, you know, a hundred million dollars software package.MR: Yeah. I've had this theory that it's something to do with the mapping or the use of space and the mapping ability of a visual. So you're not only working with words, but you're always putting them in context to each other. So there's more implied and even explicit relationships that you can draw but because it's using the space where typing and text gets crunched into this text, even a list, right. Like it's got its limitations.So it'd be interesting to see, you know, does Epic allow you to upload your pictures? That might be an interesting way to solve that problem, right? Well, while the mother is taking a picture, you are too, right?BV: So it does, it absolutely does. And I've yet to pull the trigger on that. There is a very interesting thing that's come up, which is, what about liability? When I write on a whiteboard, does that become part of subject to what's called legal discovery. Let's say I made a mistake with a diagnosis, could a mama pull out my whiteboard picture and use that in a court of law?And probably, honestly, so it's probably the good if our hospital attorneys are listening, they're like, "You need to get those in the chart immediately." But I think it's always bothered me a little bit that I do these images and they're honestly very powerful, but I think they do probably carry — I haven't gotten in trouble yet, but I do think they can and should be part of the medical record.MR: Yeah.BV: You know, you were talking about, I don't know, giving context maybe to what we're discussing. One of the things that happens when I have these whiteboards and once I launch into a discussion with a family, these visuals become the center of the discussion, and it becomes really powerful with a family that doesn't speak English.If I have a migrant family that speaks Spanish, maybe not super educated, and, you know, I draw a simple picture of a stomach or a colon or a liver with red hash marks to mean inflammation, it's almost universal.And we gather around the board —I've even had patients participate in the sketch noting to sort of add things that are missing. And especially, it's really powerful with kids who are probably pre-teen and older who can really kind of add to it or correct what I've put up in terms of symptoms and that sort of thing. But the point being that it kind of becomes this center, and even when I have a translator, the translators know me and they go to the board and they're pointing. And so, it just all kind of works, you know.MR: There's some collaborative nature to that. I know in the work that I do, when we collaborate on boards together, it's much richer than if it's just me preaching to the other people. I invite people to come up to the board and it becomes much more valuable because then everybody's really adding to it and adding dimension, because you can't know or see everything, right? You can't feel what the patient's feeling. So you have to rely on their ability to describe to you, and maybe they don't even think about it until they start writing, and that might reveal something they couldn't verbalize, right?BV: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, the past 10, 15 years we've been seeing this rise of participatory medicine where patients are more empowered with what — you start with the web and all that. It used to be the doctor was a priest and the priesthood and all that sort of thing. Now people are more —- there's more participatory.And there's also, there's a movement called shared decision-making in medicine where patients participate in deciding on the plan in a collaborative way. And when we put four or five options listed one through five on the right side of the board, which is where I always put them, we can negotiate that a little bit. And it just lends to weighing things when you can see them written down.MR: I would imagine too that the idea of a collaborative to whatever degree with the patient would also mean their buy-in to actually, so if there's a part that you do and then there's a part they have to do. Medications, physical therapy, I don't know, variety of things that they are responsible for, that if they feel like they've had a hand in making that choice, they're gonna be more likely to actually fulfill their part of it, which means a better outcome, right?BV: Yep. There's some evidence to support that, but I can just tell you I see that firsthand and yeah, for sure, once they're involved in it, they definitely are more invested for sure.MR: Yeah, I know I am. I can only speak for me, I guess, but that's pretty cool.BV: It's been a fun journey and we've had interest from — the docs of the Mayo Clinic have called me and it's like, "How do you do this?" And I think we even kicked around maybe a decade ago. I thought I should make like a white paper to teach doctors how to do this, and I never did it. But something that's sort of akin to sketch notes for clinicians, you know because I think I do have a methodical way that I do it, a way that I use the geography of the board to optimize the space and, you know, what do I use bullets for? Where do I put the plan? And so on and so forth.MR: Almost like a language.BV: Yeah, but I thought of formalizing it, which I haven't yet, but I probably should.MR: I have some potential inspiration. My friend and colleague, Rob Dimeo is a physicist. He started using it in his practice as a physicist and found it really valuable, even though he had to modify the way he did it. He wrote a paper that basically explains how he uses sketch notes in a scientific setting. It might be a really interesting reference to start from and see how he structured it, and then maybe produce something along the same lines could be interesting. So we'll put that in the show notes too, and I'll make sure you get that.BV: I don't just use visual thinking in the exam room, you know, in the spirit of Austin Kleon, who's sort of a cartoonist here in Austin, Texas, I keep a journal and I do a lot of my thinking and kind of visual thinking, not as beautiful as you do. But when I'm sorting through ideas, I use a lot of the sketch notes elements to sort of help me understand how I'm thinking about things from basic, you know, brainstorming to mind mapping to everything.MR: That's really great to hear that's used privately as well in your thinking.BV: It's maybe that's how I started doing it in the exam room too because this is kind of — and you said this just a moment ago. I don't know what I think until I write it down sometimes. I can't tell all of an idea, but it's like, until I put it into some sort of construct. There's also, you know, different media stimulate me to be creative in different ways. For example, I do a lot of writing and I type I use an app called Ulysses. It's kind of like writing—MR: Yeah, I use that too.BV: — app. But there are times when I'm stuck and if I take to a white sheet of paper with your sketch notes elements or just let myself go free things come out that would never come out on a keyboard.MR: Yeah. I use the same tool and I run into the same challenges when I do workshops. Sometimes I just need to take a notebook and go to the cafe and get coffee and dump on the page, and they're not beautiful, but I get so much information then what I do is I'll take that more mapped visualization, then I'll come back and then I can write again. It sort of opens up the, detail that I got stuck on when I'm trying to type. My typing fingers don't work as effectively as my visualization fingers, I guess.BV: I see.MR: If that makes sense. Yeah. How did you end up — so when I look at the work that you do, it seems like you got quite good handle on visualization. Were you trained in any way? Did you just naturally do this? Did you draw when you were a little kid? Where did these basic skills come from?BV: I did a lot of art when I was very young. So it's interesting you should say that. I never thought about it, but I did. And honestly, with what I do on the whiteboard, and I have other images too, the elements of what I do are pretty simple.MR: Yes.BV: And almost like what you outlined, it's got — and this is the reason why I think anyone can do this. Any doc can do this. And in a minute, I'll get into what some docs do and what they do wrong when they try to do this, but like writing, I think maybe in the book there's a picture of an esophagus and a stomach, and the esophagus is two lines going down. The greater curvature of the stomach is a big curve, and the lesser curvature is a little curve, and anyone can do that.Red hash marks are a inflammation universal sign. And a little round circle is an ulcer. And, you know, so I'm kind of a minimalist in terms of what I do on the whiteboard. I try to use basic elements. I try not to overdo it. I try to write it with the understanding that the mama's gonna take a picture of it, and I want it to be clean enough and legible enough so that when she goes home to dad over dinner, she can point and she can do the teaching.MR: Yeah.BV: One of the mistakes I've seen is some of my colleagues start getting very you know, hyper graphic and hyperkinetic and very, very busy, which can be kind of natural for some people, but the end result can kind of be hampered, I think, on some level. So I try to keep it intentionally on the clean, maybe in the way that you would do a sketch note at a meeting.MR: Right. Doing something clean and simple is actually harder than doing it messy because you don't have to really think, when I say this thing what is it conveying? Is it necessary? Those kind of questions you have to ask. I guess the other thing about leaving it open and clean is if you're doing this collaborative work, I'm looking at the sample here, you've got some stuff drawn in black, and then you've got a a movement shape in green. It looks like it's moving out of the stomach. And then you have Prevacid is one of the choices versus Bentyl.BV: Oh, yeah, yeah.MR: Indicate that Prevacid in that context that 15 milligrams is better, and you use a red marker to sort of circle that.BV: Right.MR: So you've got this language that it's really simple, but you're using this language to annotate. And if you pack that full of stuff, not gonna have any room to really do that annotation and still have it clean and understandable. You would think.BV: Yeah. And I try not to overdo the colors either. I tend to stick to two or three typically because it's the colors aren't that important but it can add an element that's helpful. It's funny, Mike, I sometimes tell my colleagues about this, and they say, "Oh, I do that, and I do it on the butcher paper, on the exam room table." You've seen the doc sketch with the pen on the paper, it's kind of a primitive kind of sketch noting, but my problem with that is it's not intentional. It's not intended to create a product at the end for the family. It tends to be, you know, scratched and scribbly. It's very hard to read.I think it's better than nothing maybe, but again, I think of the whiteboard, or even if you don't have a whiteboard, you can take a large oversized notebook and do that. If you're a doc listening, you can use a large oversize notebook with a Sharpie or a nice one-millimeter gel pen and get a good result.MR: Something that could be photographed. I could imagine some physicians might like to carry that book around with them from room to room. Maybe they don't wanna be leaving it on a board or erasing, that maybe carrying it's better for them. That could be—BV: I carried a whiteboard around with me in the hospital for a while, believe it or not. Yeah, it was sort of a trademark. But it became difficult because you'd forget it half the time, so.MR: Yeah. I know there's some startups that have happened. I don't know where they're at now, but there were these books, they were whiteboard inside, but you would fold it up and had a strap like a Moleskine notebook. You could get them in different sizes, like quite big. So you could literally carry it around, had a little clip for the marker so you could pop it open and do like a whiteboard drawing on the spot, which was kind of a cool idea.BV: You know, I've been tempted to use Procreate or something to sort of do these visuals on a pad, and then share digitally with a family. I just never quite get into that because I like the size and the grandeur of a large 5 ft whiteboard and the — you know what I'm saying?MR: Yeah. I think probably there's something about the whiteboard and the simple tools that makes it more approachable if you do wanna have family involvement. Drawing on your iPad or drawing on your notepad might feel like they're invading, whereas a whiteboard feels more neutral or something.BV: Yep.MR: And it's more common. One of the things I discovered when I started teaching Sketchnoting is I got fancy notebooks and pens and all this stuff, and I found out that actually, it was really intimidating for students to work with these really fancy tools. So now, when I do workshops, I just have them order a ream of paper and some flair pens and we're good. It sort of drops the level of the tool to the point that it almost is forgettable. You leave behind the paper or the pen and like, I'll just get another one. It's so simple. So I imagine that's the same thing.BV: And Kleon jokes — he's a cartoonist, again, I'll bring him up, but he's always joking, people email him and ask him what pen he uses, you know, as if, if they bought the same pen, they'd be just as talented. It drives him crazy because that's not the point, you know. Everyone's got their own favorite gel pen or the whatever.MR: You have to adapt it to your needs, right? That's part of the game. That's really interesting. So we sort of are stumbling into tools. So maybe we should just go there. Before we go there, I'd love to hear, is there something current that you're doing? Obviously, you sound like you've moved to a new location. Are you thinking about how you might use visualization in this new position? Or maybe start sharing these concepts with physicians there something new that you're doing that you might wanna talk about?BV: Yeah. Of course, the first order of business is to get whiteboards in our new clinics in Austin. So I've got that rolling. I have done workshops for my faculty locally here through the years and they love that. And as I suggested, people — they kind of do this on their own, but they've never done it with that intentionality of using it to create a product. So I do wanna pull it to Austin with me. I need to create some collateral material that teach people how to do this on the web kind of like you've done with workshops. And so, I would love to do that, but we're building this $700 million hospital and I gotta hire 200 doctors and—MR: Little time-constrained, Bryan.BV: Yeah, time-constrained. Time constrained. But my reputation precedes me 'cause everyone asks like, "You're gonna have the whiteboards?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah. Oh yeah."MR: Maybe we should cook up some kind of a weekend workshop where we'll record it with you and I'll be your host.BV: That'd be fun.MR: And you could get your whiteboard out and show us your practice and we'll record it, and then you can share it with whoever wants to learn your techniques. That'd be fun.BV: You know what's so interesting, Mike, is that since, you know, one of the great things about the internet, not like the internet's new or something, but there emerged this population of physician artists, and there are — I can, you know, point you to a bunch of illustrators and cartoonists who are, I mean, real professional cartoonists who are physicians who obviously with the emergence of the web, they became discoverable. Right before the web, no one, you know, how do you—MR: How would you know? Yeah.BV: How would you know there's a guide like sketching and so there's some real talent out there and what's amazing, we think of docs as sort of these narrow people, but there's a whole population of docs doing very interesting things with illustration and with graphics and cartoons. And so, it is kind of cool to sort of follow these people and see what they do.MR: And you are part of that community, in your own way, doing it in a different way.BV: Yeah, it is. What I do is very practical. You know, I'm doing it for a purpose and for an endpoint as a — well, I guess they are too, but you know, it's very different.MR: Their purpose is different, right?BV: Yes.MR: It might be more like medical illustration, which I'm aware of what it's explaining through medical illustration, which is a kind of a different, you know, practice, but you do need that skill to understand what something really is. If you misrepresent that, that could be pretty dangerous. Well, you know it sounds like your tools are pretty simple. I'm guessing it's whiteboards, and do you have specific markers that you prefer to use? Is there a certain color, certain brand, any of that kind of thing that you could share?BV: We use EXPO low odor. The odors of some of the whiteboards can be pretty strong, and for kids with reactive airway disease and other airway problems, it can be an issue. So we try to keep use the low odor. In my personal work, I have a thing for fountain pens, and so I use a nice heavy-grade notebook with wide nib pens. And so, I enjoy doing that. They require a little maintenance. Beyond that, I do a one-millimeter Signo Uniball, which is my favorite gel.MR: Nice broad tip. I like the one-millimeters as well. Kind of juicy. I say juicy, I like it juicy, so.BV: Yeah. Kind of slippery and all that sort of thing.MR: Yeah, exactly.BV: And I'll even practice on a notebook. Sometimes I'll be stuck in an exam room trying to figure out how do I express a concept of, you know, gallbladder motility maybe, and I'll just take out a sheet in my notebook and just start scribbling and come up with some real simple representations. And that's how I come up with what I use.MR: That's how you build sort of your library at the visual library that you use, right?BV: Yeah. I use probably 10 or 20 of the same kind of images suited to what's going on with the kid, and, you know, you mix and match them, but yeah.MR: That's a very simple tool set. And, you know, I neglected to ask this. So how do the kids react when they see this? Does that change your relationship with them? Do they feel more like they can enter the discussion when they see this kind of work?BV: Yeah, certainly for the teenagers, they definitely participate sort of on that intellectual level. What's so interesting is with a four-year-old who may not be engaged in the conversation that I'm having with the mama, when I go to the board, they light up and they see the colors. Oftentimes, I'll give them a marker and let them go to the lower part of the board and goof off and make — I've had kids try to copy what I'm doing, so it's kind of fun and cute. But yeah, they do.Kids are very drawn to pictures. And so, one of the funny things I'll do if I have a reluctant three-year-old, it works great with three-year-olds, who doesn't want to be examined, I'll have mom pull up their shirt and I'll say, "That whiteboard so that I can draw a picture of your belly button." So I look at their belly button like I'm studying it, and they'll make sort of a swirly figure on the board, and they just go nuts and they love it. And you get immediate buy-in. 'cause they see the thing and they look at their belly button and they say, "Oh, that's my belly button."MR: That could be a good trick for other visual thinkers who need to get the attention of little kids.BV: Right. So it's kind of fun. I may use it in a lot of different elements, so.MR: So this is a point in the podcast where we typically will do tips. I like to frame it that imagine someone's listening, they're visual thinking, whatever that means to them, and maybe they've hit a plateau or they just need a little inspiration. What would be three things you might encourage someone to do to help them break out of that rut or just to have a little inspiration?BV: Yeah. You know, I think that we talked about docs writing on butcher paper. You know, I might challenge people to sort of take it up a notch. Obviously, putting up a whiteboard as sort of a little bit of a challenge for a lot of people in clinics and it's wall space and that sort of thing. So again, a large pad can do the trick and maybe take that step to try to be more intentional with the educational material you're using. And you gotta kind of just jump in and try. So I would say, you know, be intentional. That maybe be one tip.The second tip might be look for a role model. I mean, you can look at the pictures that were in sketch notes, and I think I've got some online. I need an Instagram page, is what I need. But, you know, you can look up medical sketch notes, some of my blog posts I put on there. I just get a role model and see how people do it and what they do. And that's another thing to kind of get you unstuck. You wanted three, right?MR: If you got 'em three would be great.BV: So yeah, keep it simple. Keep it simple, keep it clean. I think that I'm a minimalist and I think families, again, you want to think about what you're creating for families when they go away and have fun with it. I mean, to me, I've had more fun in medicine doing this than anything else. You know, it's been a little bit of a side gig for me, and it's also great for families and makes it more enjoyable for me.MR: That's fun. And it serves the purpose and it communicates.BV: Yeah.MR: And in the best case scenarios, it integrates the patients with you which means better outcomes, which everybody's driving for, right?BV: Absolutely. Absolutely. Maybe that's the golden ring, is to try to connect whiteboards with disease outcomes, which if I had the right study design and the right person helping me coordinate it, I think we could do it. But so that might be a great project to aspire to.MR: That's the next thing after you get this Austin clinic all set up and rolling.BV: Yeah. And come down and visit. We'll give a tour.MR: Yeah. Maybe I can do a little teaching. I can teach some basics.BV: Yeah. We could do a live podcast from one of the exam rooms.MR: There we go. That sounds good. I will take you up on that. Austin's one of my favorite cities, so wouldn't be hard to convince me to come. Probably in the springtime though.BV: We'll get some barbecue. We'll get some barbecue.MR: Probably in the springtime.BV: Yeah.MR: Well, Bryan, this has been really great to have you on the show. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and sort of the way you approach things. Of course, we're gonna find a variety of things. I've got some things up here I can share in the show notes, but I would love to hear where are the places that you hang out most. Do you have social media that you hang out? It looks like 33 charts.com is your site and your blog. Are there any other places we should go to?BV: So I have a newsletter at 33 charts.substack.com, so it's the 33charts.substack.MR: Great.BV: I write a lot about — not a lot on visual thinking, which I should do, but a lot on technology and medicine and change and humans and how humans use technology. But you can find me there, 33 charts. I occasionally post there. People can reach out to me. You can find my contact, I think on my—MR: On that site. Yeah. On the site or on the substack shoe. Great. Well, thanks for making time.BV: Awesome. It's been great.MR: Yeah. This is a lot of fun.BV: It's great finally meeting you. Yeah.MR: Yeah, same here. And I wish you the best in your next venture, and for everyone listening, it's another episode of the Sketchnote Army podcast in the Can. So, until next time, we'll talk to you soon.BV: Take care.

Hey, It’s Mike Rohde, and I’m here to announce season 14 of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, which is launching on Tuesday, October 31st, 2023.This season we’re featuring 9 amazing guests, including:Dr. Bryan VartabedianIngrid LillJono HeyElizabeth ChesneyLuke KelvingtonLena PehrsRev Andy GrayGary KopervasAshton Rodenheiser…and of course the fan favorite All The Tips episode for Season 14You are going to love every episode!Special thanks to our sponsor, Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.
Watch this space on Tuesday, October 31st for episode 1!SEARCH ”Concepts” in your favorite app store for infinite, flexible sketching.Learn more: Concepts AppCreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerEsther Odoro: Shownotes and transcriptsSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

In this final episode of The Sketchnote Army Podcast season 13, we’ve gathered all the tips from 9 fantastic visual thinkers to inspire you!Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings — any time you like. You can nudge the curve of a line, swap out one brush for another, or change stroke thickness and color at any stage of your drawing — saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need — large or small. Never worry about fuzzy sketchnotes again.Concepts is a powerful, flexible tool that’s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH “Concepts” in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroKatrin WietekFilippo "Sketchy" BuzziniEric BakeyMaria Coryell-MartinJulia KnyupaTy HatchMawusi AmoakuEdmund GröplNatalie TaylorOutroLinksKatrin's WietekFilippo "Sketchy" BuzziniEric BakeyMaria Coryell-MartinJulia's KnyupaTy HatchMawusi AmoakuEdmund GröplNatalie TaylorKatrin’s TipsPick a project you are really excited about.Don't compare yourself to othersDon't overcomplicate things. Don't overcomplicate sketchnoting.Don't overvalue talent.Filippo’s TipsBarter your services.Ask your colleagues, connect, share, and give.Prepare your title ahead.Use Post-it notes.Eric’s TipsWhat problem are you trying to solve, who is it for, and what is the value of solving that problem?Where are you right now and where do you want to go?Be useful, resourceful, and know your five-mile famous world.Maria’s TipsUse a timer and set yourself a very small amount of time to do something.Give yourself the opportunity to play with color, what you see, and don't worry about composition.Paying attention to the world and just letting yourself start with notes just to start that attention.Trust the process.Practice not perfection.Julia’s TipsFake it till you make it.Work-life balance. Just continue learning every day, getting inspiration from everywhere, from your colleagues, traveling, and following people from different industries.Authenticity is the most important value nowadays so allow yourself to be yourself and be very kind o yourself.Ty’s TipsEverybody is creative in their own way, and that's okay.Enjoy what you do. You can like a range of different things, and that's okay.Set boundaries for the things that are really important to you, in your life that are not work-related. Set those boundaries, talk about them, and live your life in a way that reflects your priorities.Mawusi’s TipsContinue feeding your mind.Even if you go digital, keep drawing by hand.Don't overthink it. Just do it.Be open to trying something new.Listen to other sketchnoters.Share your work.Experience with other layouts, find out what works for you.Collaborate with your colleagues.Ask for feedback.Be intentional and tell someone your goal.Don't give up. Be patient.Edmund’s TipsBenefit from self-organized learning groups.Attend a LernOS sketchnoting circle.Zettelkasten with Obsidian is your second brain for sketchnoting.Take useful notes!Natalie’s TipsInvest and improve in what you love.Recognize what is your strength. Focus on your strength as you try and improve your weaknesses.Share your work.Write down your ideas.Get involved with the community.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!

In this episode, Natalie Taylor shares how she slowly built her sketchnoting skills and is now sharing her work through her channels.Sponsored by ConceptsThis episode of the Sketchnote Army Podcast is brought to you by Concepts, a perfect tool for sketchnoting, available on iOS, Windows, and Android.Concepts' vector-based drawing feature gives you the power to adjust your drawings — any time you like. You can nudge the curve of a line, swap out one brush for another, or change stroke thickness and color at any stage of your drawing — saving hours and hours of rework.Vectors provide clean, crisp, high-resolution output for your sketchnotes at any size you need — large or small. Never worry about fuzzy sketchnotes again.Concepts is a powerful, flexible tool that’s ideal for sketchnoting.SEARCH “Concepts” in your favorite app store to give it a try.Running OrderIntroWelcomeWho is Natalie?Origin StoryNatalie's current workSponsor: ConceptsTipsToolsWhere to find NatalieOutroLinksAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.WebsiteInstagramSylvia DuckworthThe Sketchbook Handbook by Mike RohdeDoug Neill's YouTube channelToolsAmazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast. Brush pens - Crawford & BlackSharpie gel pensStaedtler two-end marker pensCrawford and Black SketchbookiPad ProApple pencilProcreateEvernoteNoteshelfTipsInvest and improve in what you love.Recognize what is your strength. Focus on your strength as you try and improve your weaknesses.Share your work.Write down your ideas.Get involved with the community.CreditsProducer: Alec PulianasTheme music: Jon SchiedermayerShownotes and transcripts: Esther OdoroSubscribe to the Sketchnote Army PodcastYou can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube or your favorite podcast listening source.Support the PodcastTo support the creation, production and hosting of the Sketchnote Army Podcast, buy one of Mike Rohde’s bestselling books. Use code ROHDE40 at Peachpit.com for 40% off!Episode TranscriptMike Rohde: Hey everyone, it's Mike and I'm here with my friend, Natalie Taylor. Natalie, welcome to the show. It's so good to have you.Natalie Taylor: Thanks, Mike. It's so good to meet you, and thank you so much for inviting me on to the show.MR: It's good to have you and I love your accent. We mentioned this before we started recording. Your British accent into the north, which I picked up. It's fun to hear. I don't hear it all the time, so I will enjoy that as we have a discussion. Tell us about who you are and what you do.NT: I am Natalie. I'm from the Northeast, as you've mentioned, in a small seaside town. Full-time, professionally wise. I'm a market manager at a brilliant university here in the Northeast, and I'm an avid sketch noter on the side in my spare time.MR: That's great. We'll definitely dive into the sketchnoting details. That's what this is all about for all the crazy fans of sketchnoting who are willing to listen to a podcast or watch a YouTube video and learn. I think that's what it's all about. I'm really curious, so we know what you're doing now. Obviously, you've got some skills in marketing. How did you end up where you're at?Maybe particularly, from a visual thinking perspective, were there things that happened when you were a little girl that directed you, or maybe in your college years or, school years that guided you to where you are now? What would be those key moments if you were to give me an origin story, I like to call it? Like a superhero origin story for Natalie Taylor.NT: I love that. I love the Avengers origin story. That's what it always makes me think of.MR: Yes.NT: Looking back, it's interesting when I've listened to the podcast, I've listened to so many episodes and I notice a lot of people tend to describe that they've always been very artistic and very into doodling and drawing. For me, I used to think that I wasn't very creative, but looking back, I've always been quite creative, but more in the writing sense. I have always doodled, but I wouldn't sit and draw and do these kind of detailed drawings. It would be very basic, like smiley face, love, heart, and flowers.I would say it's quite a recent thing that I've got into sketchnoting. I say recently it's probably 9 or 10 years that I've been into presenting information in that way. Yeah, it's interesting 'cause I didn't have that artistic background if that makes sense.University, I studied media and communications, which at the time, it got given a bad rap a lot of the time as a degree that isn't sometimes as respected as some degrees. But looking back at that, that was very creative and a lot of the tools that I used in that degree are tools that I still use now. Things like Adobe InDesign, Photoshop, even setting up a website, creating a magazine.It was all creative and using graphics in that way. Like you mentioned, my professional background is in marketing and communications, so I've been in that for around 11 years-ish. It's a little long-winded way into how I got into sketchnoting but when I finished university, I wasn't quite sure what to do.It was just based around what jobs I was looking at the time and I thought, oh, PR and marketing obviously sounds quite fun and that's creative. It was creating leaflets and a lot of design work I suppose. That is kind of in the artistic realm. It was for the local fire brigades that was creating a lot of leaflets and newsletters for the local community about fire safety.That's how I got into marketing and having quite a creative role professionally. But it wasn't until my next role, 'cause that was a one-year temporary contract that I learned about sketch noting. I was working at a very, very small startup in the ed tech field.They had this brilliant software, which was the result of academic research all about collaborative learning. It started on this amazing technology. I dunno if you've ever seen the huge tabletops. When they were around, it was around 5,000 pounds, I think one of these tables.MR: I've seen the Microsoft Surface table, the original surface, years and years ago. Something like that.NT: Yeah, exactly. Similar to that. I think it worked on that and the Promethean giant tables. It was for this very specific hardware and then it adapted to be for iPads. But when I say small startup, it was me and the director, they were the directors, but not working full-time and then a computer programmer. I was doing everything marketing and communications and trying to raise the profile of this small startup company.It's part of that getting involved, building up the Twitter following, and finding things that people would find interesting. I don't think I've actually mentioned, but basically, the target audience was teachers and educators. It was when I started going on basically education Twitter that I came across Sylvia Duckworth.MR: Oh, yeah.NT: Who's sketch notes I absolutely love. That was my first experience of sketch notes and I would just look at them and be like, "Wow, these are absolutely brilliant. And they're just conveying the message she wants to converse so well that I thought I'd absolutely love to give this a go." I did find it really, really hard to get to grips with how to actually start.At the time I would just share her sketch notes with our Twitter followers 'cause they would find them really interesting. Then as part of that role, there was also the Bett show in London. This is a very international education technology conference, and we would go along to that. We didn't have our own stand but would be on hardware stalls and demonstrate in how the hardware could be used with our software.MR: Got it.NT: Then there was just snippets of time I had to go and watch some of the keynote speakers so I remember trying to take in—Sylvia had put some advice out on how to do sketch notes, but I had at the time a little iPad mini and I didn't have a stylus. I remember just trying to do sketch notes just with my finger on the iPad Mini which was really hard.MR: Yeah. Frustrating.NT: Yes.MR: I've tried that. I can relate.NT: I bet you, yeah. It's so tricky. Sylvia shared guidance on tools and things. I clicked on the links and it was this stylus that wasn't available in the UK and I just couldn't find an alternative so I tried doing them with my finger. Then I think I just become a little bit disillusioned with it 'cause I just thought mine are never gonna be anything that I could present to anyone or that people would find interesting.As time went on, I just practiced in my own time. Then I went to Japan on holiday, and they're obviously known for stationery and technology so I got a stylist there. I just played around with it on the flight home on Procreate. I'm still, to this day, not sure why I didn't ever think of trying analog and just getting paper and pens. I think maybe I did try, but just with felt tips and biros, and then I just was a bit like, "Oh, these aren't very visually appealing."MR: Just didn't fit, right?NT: Yeah, exactly. Gradually, I just built up and just practiced. With this stylus, I did start doing some—It would take me hours 'cause I would do a lot of tweaks afterwards and start tweaking around. I suggested to my manager, but again, 'cause we were such a small business, I had to have a lot of different hats on, so I couldn't just explore sketch noting, but I said, you know, these are really kind of intriguing teachers. So, occasionally I would start one and then do a lot of it in my own time, but I started doing almost as a marketing technique.Essentially, what the software was, was like card sorting activities. You might have one on a particular moment in history and then students would have to work with them and match them up and group them together. It was all about how it demonstrated their thinking and how they'd come to a conclusion. I would just do things like 17 reasons to create your own card sort or you know, the top 10 things about collaborative learning.I'd develop the confidence to write using the stylus and it looked quite nice, but still the drawing was just not something that I was very competent in. I would sometimes get free icon libraries and just put them in instead of actually drawing them myself.They were really successful actually at getting the message across as to what the software was, and Sylvia's work in sketch note and hers was still something I aspired towards, but I became more confident to share them on our channels.MR: It's interesting that you had, I guess an inspiration, Sylvia, right? Doing this work, so you knew, it's nice when you see that. Even if you feel like I can't quite achieve it, I have a focusing point and I'm gonna go for that. You're trying all these techniques, you're buying an iPad, you're trying to use your finger, you're trying analog and it doesn't fit, and then you find a stylus in Japan. You keep on moving.There was something about you that's pretty dedicated. You were gonna get there somehow. You didn't know how you're gonna get there and you kept on fighting through it even though a lot of people might have given up and it seems like you didn't. Why do you think that was that you didn't give up? That's really fascinating to me.NT: When you've said it like that, I suppose I was quite determined. The main reason is that I just enjoyed it so much. Like I said, I couldn't dedicate much time in the professional day to it, even though there were marketing tools, but I might do the baseline in maybe an hour, and then that weekend I would spend a few hours of my own time doing it purely because I just really enjoyed it.Sylvia's sketch notes, a lot of them were based towards educators, but a lot of them were quite general. Some of them she did were around mental health, which is something else that I'm really passionate about. That mental health sketch notes are probably one of the biggest things I do now since I'm not in that role anymore.The sketch notes that I do have completely changed. That's how I first started learning them. I think the reason why I stuck with it is because I saw how impactful Sylvia's were on me. I remember printing off a couple before and keeping them up. She did one on the iceberg effect, things that you see on the surface versus what's actually going on underneath, and I just found them really inspirational.MR: I'm sort of putting pieces together. On the one hand, you enjoyed it, so I there's one component. I find, like when you have multiple components that you're more likely to stay driven. You had the enjoyment part of it. You had enough success that you thought maybe I could do some portion of it. You talked about you like the writing, but then you would use icons so that is part of it too.But then on top of it, you could see the effectiveness of the sketch notes she did from a marketing perspective. You know what works in marketing, it's obviously impacting you. You're starting to see it probably in other places. Like this is an opportunity and I can see how it could work, but there was still a gap of getting to where you could do them to communicate and that just took time, right?NT: Exactly. Exactly.MR: That's interesting.NT: I think it must have been around two years ago that I came across your book, Sketching Army, and that completely revolutionized the whole thing again.MR: Oh, wow.NT: I just came across this whole community that I didn't know existed. I knew Sylvia had a sketch noting book, but it was specifically for educators. I'd been beavering a way of doing these things in my own time, but without much guidance or training. I think I did find Doug Neill's YouTube channel.MR: He's Great. Yeah, Doug is great.NT: Yeah, absolutely brilliant. I did a lot of his tools. I remember there was simple tips on how to practice so he had, I think I call it the dictionary game. Basically, you get a dictionary, open it to a random page and sketch note a word.MR: That's a good one.NT: Yeah. That really helped just gradually dipping my toes in. It's only been the last couple of years that I've actually shared them on my own channel and done them on things that I'm directly passionate about.MR: Cool. It's been a progression, right? You've been slowly building up your skills and now you're at the point where you are doing your own sketch notes and you're sharing them on your channel, and you've built those skills up through practice.That reminds me to say to people who are new to this, they'll come to me when I do little workshops and say, "How can I do this?" Like, "Well, it's not easy, but it's still fun. You can have success to a certain degree, but to get better at it, you're gonna have to practice. I don't know how to tell you that there's a substitute, there's no magic pill you can take. There's no, can't jump in a time machine. You just have to do it."What I'd identify in your story is this idea of overlapping. I keep coming across this when I can do one thing that overlaps with something else that I like that's more successful. If I can layer in a third thing, the success rate goes up, the more I can integrate several parts of my life or my interests.If you're a gardener, let's say, if you're passionate about gardening, well, planning your garden like as a sketch note might be really fun on multiple levels so you're more likely to do it and really get into it and maybe build a technique that you could then maybe you could actually teach other people how you approach that, right?NT: Yeah.MR: That's pretty cool, and I see that in your story. That's really fun and it's really satisfying for me to hear someone who's dedicated and committed to following the passion and multiple passions to arrive where you are, which is really cool.NT: Thank you. I do absolutely love sketch noting. I think that's the main thing is that I just really enjoy it and I would see some sketch notes and think—when I discovered the community on Instagram and looked at your sketch notes and sketch notes in the book, it was a case of, "Wow, these are absolutely fantastic. I might not be there now, but I can keep practicing the exercises in your book and Doug's channel."I've got another book that's just purely doodling different objects. When I had to self- isolate with COVID over last new year, I think it was, I spent hours just doodling and practicing.MR: Well, that's good. You probably accelerated your skills there. Like taking a bad situation and making it into something worthwhile, right?NT: Yeah.MR: I got COVID, and all I got was better at drawing, or whatever.NT: Yeah. It's a nice positive spin on something not good.MR: Yeah, exactly. You make the best out of what you've got.NT: Yeah.MR: This is really fascinating. I love hearing the origin story, my favorite part of the podcast because I think it's interesting for me to hear it, but I can imagine there's people listening, I don't even know who they are, who feel like, "Oh, you know, I'm a marketing manager, I can't sketch note, but Natalie's a marketing manager and she's sketch notes and that's her story. She really had to work at it, and it took a long time. Well, I could do that."You can relate to people because there's such a variety. We try to find such a variety of people that hopefully it inspires anybody who listens that they can do it. It takes work like anything worthwhile, it's gonna take work. You said you're a writer, like the only way you get better at writing, is to write. There's no substitute, and reading, of course. Reading to get inspired by like, "Wow, look how they turned that phrase or the way they structured that thing. I wanna copy that."NT: Exactly.MR: It's definitely a form of—imitation is really important. Imitating, what other people doing, but then—I think that Natalie or Austin Kleon often talks about this idea that copying is helpful because as much as you try to copy that other person, you're not gonna get an exact copy. Eventually, your personality's gonna come through on it and you're gonna add your own little tweaks and twists and it becomes your own without you really realizing it. There is definitely a benefit to copying people to get better and figure out where you're going. That's very helpful.NT: Yeah. Definitely.MR: For you, Sylvia Duckworth, I guess is probably one of those key figures that you were trying not so much to copy, but to emulate and to follow and produce something on the level of Sylvia that would communicate the way you saw it impacted you, which is really, really fun to hear.NT: Yeah, exactly. I really love her work.MR: I'm really curious about what is some exciting sketchnoting-related project that you're working on. You mentioned mental health sketch notes, is where you're at. Is there one that you're doing now or a series or something maybe that's coming up that you're excited about that you could share with us?NT: Yes. In general, I love doing sketch notes on mental health. I think that came about with if I was having a particular struggle, I would just Google that struggle. It might be overthinking, for example, which is one of my more popular sketch notes, and I'd just put into Google ways to stop overthinking.Rather than just read that article and come away with maybe a point that I was gonna try that week and then forget about, I would start sketch noting that and sketch note podcast and books to actually learn from that. Then the bonus is that then helping other people. I've got a project coming up with a lead in mental health psychology publication that I'm gonna do a collaborative post with, and that's gonna be on four ways on how to be kind to yourself.MR: Oh, wow.NT: It's in the similar realm to the overthinking one that I've done. What's interesting is sometimes, I've noticed my friends who are very supportive and family, they'll come up with ideas and say, "Have you thought about doing this?" One thing that I'm doing at the moment is baby sketch notes.I've got quite a few friends who are having babies at the moment. One of my friends said, "Have you thought about doing a baby sketch note about the day they were born?" I took that idea and thought of different ways to make it a bit more interesting. It's like what song is number one at the time, the horoscope, the Chinese zodiac, and actually, getting those printed and framed for friends and people who'd like them.That's a very recent thing that I've started to do. I've recently done some work with an ADHD podcast who they thought it would be really interesting to sketch note one of their podcast episodes. That's been fascinating as well because I did the sketch note and my style, it is a little bit more wordy than some people's and there can be a lot going on.When she shared it on her channel, there was a lot of really positive feedback of those people saying—I remember one comment that said something like, "I'd absolutely love a whole book like illustrated in this way on ADHD because it's exactly how my brain works."But then there was a few comments that said the complete opposite in that it's just too overwhelming and there's too much to take in, so it's interesting how it works in that way. For some people it resonates and some people it just doesn't work for them in completely opposite extremes.MR: Right. I've got kids that have ADHD, and the two boys that have it, the way they react to it is quite different. They have different experiences. I think within ADHD, you could have someone with ADHD who thinks, "This is amazing, this is the way I think." Then somebody else who's got a slight variation of it would be overwhelming to them. Just people, in general, that can't maybe get into it. I think that's the nature of just humans.NT: Yeah, exactly.MR: If I go to my Amazon page and look at the reviews, there's quite a few good reviews, but there's some bad ones too. I'm a fan of Seth Godin, and he says, "Once you release your book into the world, you just stop looking at the reviews because the book now belongs to the public and you can't really do anything. It belongs to them. Looking at reviews doesn't do you any good." So, I don't.NT: That's really good. Well done on the self-discipline there. 'Cause yeah, I can imagine it's tempted to rake through them and then you've got to try and train your brain to focus on the positive ones, I guess.MR: It was probably harder at the beginning when there was very few 'cause I felt like we had a technical issue with the Kindle version that a lot of people complained about. If you look way back in the—all the one-star reviews are Kindle failures which we had no control over. It just must have been so a technical accident. We eventually sorted it out and got it solved, but in the meantime, there's all these one-star reviews, which you can't really remove.That feeling like you have to answer like what happened over and over again, and there's nothing you can do, but at some point, you just kinda let it go. The book's been around for 10 years, so that's more important than if there's enough good reviews on the book. In some ways, maybe that's the same thing when you do a sketch note, there's just gonna be people that don't relate to it and it doesn't work for them and that's okay.NT: Yeah. That's very true.MR: It's better to focus on the ones who it does resonate with because they will appreciate it and then you can make them the audience that you are thinking about as you're doing your work. Those people will really like it, and if someone else doesn't, there's plenty more on social media to look at. You don't have to look at my thing.NT: Exactly. They're also different on them with sketch noting styles. I find it fascinating and I don't think you necessarily—I mean, I didn't kind of set out with a style in. Especially, probably the last year, I think a particular style, but when I look back at the ones when I started sketch note and maybe seven, eight years ago on my little iPad they're just completely different.I use all wild colors and whereas now they're quite toned back and I'll just use one color, but that's kind of learning as you go. The podcast has been absolutely amazing, hearing about different techniques and tools and tips. That's really, really helped.MR: I just happened to pop up Instagram here and head it up so I could be aware of your stuff. I happen to look at six reasons to visit Maple and Doe, which I assume is a little shop that you like. It's just really straightforward and simple and fun. There's six really simple.I think the thing too that sketchnoting does, just by the nature of how it works, is you typically have everything on one page. You don't have to look through multiple pages. You can just get everything on a page and look through it. I can definitely see, if I scan back through your stuff, as you keep on improving, you keep on trying new things and that's really good to see.It does make sense now that you tell me that your background is in writing and that's a real strong thing for you. Me too, for my book, I wrote the whole manuscript before I drew a single thing. I think in words too. Sometimes I have to remind myself, "Okay, you can draw something, Mike." I can do like lettering and text and still have fun with the layouts and stuff and just little images sprinkled in and that's okay.It's nice that there's that variation. You could be really visual and do lots of drawings and very little text on one side and then on the other side you could be very textual with just drawings as little sprinkles, and anywhere in between there, which it's great that the sketch note community is so varied that everybody can come at it and express it in their way, which is great to see.NT: Exactly. That's really interesting that you said that you've have tended to think more in text form as well, and visuals and illustrations are brilliant. I would never have thought that it come from the other way around, if that makes sense.MR: It surprises people. A lot of times for me to solve a problem, I might write out the problem first. Then it enters into my verbal side, to quote Doug Niell. Then once I understand it verbally, because that's how I was trained as a kid, then I can engage the visual side of me, which I probably did more drawing before I knew how to write and read. Those then kick in and layer on top of it. It's pretty fun.Well, that sounds like a really fun project. I can't wait to see when it comes out. As later on in the show we'll send you to Natalie's social media connection so you can go follow her work and see when those pop up. Let's shift into tools. Now that I see some of your work, I would love to hear, what are your favorite pens? Do you have favorite notebooks? Then, of course, second would be your digital tools, how you use digital tools.NT: I mentioned earlier, I got into sketch noting via the digital side. It was only through the podcast and when I ordered your book that I realized a lot of people start off on analog. I was still doing them digitally even though I knew that, 'cause I couldn't get my head around how—'cause I'd started digitally, I couldn't get my head around how you would know how everything would fit onto one page.I'd start off and then I'd make it a lot smaller and push it to one corner. I was like, "I can't do that on a piece of paper." It was on a whim that I was out trying to find some trainers, I couldn't find any. I went into this shop called The Works that we have in the UK. I think they have it in the U.S., but it's not as much of a big thing in the U.S. I don't think. It's books, stationary. It tends to have things really good discount. I got this little—I know you won't be able to see it if you're just listening, but just like a really small one. Small little sketchbook.MR: That's a square sketchbook with a hard cover and spiral binding, I guess, is the word.NT: Yeah, exactly. It's got slightly thicker than printer paper. I thought I could just start doing some little mini-ones. At the same time, I picked up some brush pens, and I started writing with the brush pens and they were absolutely brilliant. I thought actually I could start doing that.I don't think the sketchbooks got a particular name. The brush pens that I first started using are called Crawford & Black really cheap in The Works here in the UK. Then as I progressed with the paper side, I found this old sketchbook that I'd had—like I said, I've not called myself an artist. I wouldn't sit and drawing a sketchbook, but I kept holding onto this book. I think I was thinking I might use it as a scrapbook. I'd had it for years.That's very similar to the one I've just mentioned, but it's much bigger and it's also square, so it lends itself really well to Instagram post. For the actual pens, just a few months ago, Sharpie gel pens, their 0.7. Yeah. I found they're really good for doing a lot of the actual words on the sketch notes. Then Staedtler, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing that right.Staedtler brush pens. I got them in lots of different colors. I use the thick side of that to do titles. Then I'll use the Sharpie gel pen to do the actual text and little drawings. I've got a bigger pencil case, but then I've got like a tiny really thin one that keeps maybe three or four pens. I'll try and keep that tiny one and then my little sketchbook in my bag wherever I go. I've got it in my bags.MR: Rough and ready in your go-bag, which is cool.NT: Yeah.MR: That sketchbook is the one you have with you, right?NT: Exactly.MR: That's good. You mentioned the Sharpie gel pens. I've been really impressed with those as well. We have them in the States and tried them in the past and really like the ink that they've manufactured is really smooth and dark. Seems to dry pretty quickly. I've been really impressed with the, I think it's labeled the S-gel here. I don't know if that's the same there, but it's Sharpie gel.NT: Yeah, it is.MR: If you're listening and you haven't tried the Sharpie gel pens, give it a try. They of course make alcohol-based permanent markers of all kinds that you can pick up, but they will bleed through most paper unless it's thick. They do have a alcohol scent to them. That's something you consider. The gel would be scentless. I think if I'm right, the gel pens are also water resistant at least or maybe waterproof, I'm not sure.I think once it goes on the page, if it gets wet, it's not gonna wash away like say a regular felt tip marker that's not permanent. I think both those are permanent markers. That's interesting you mentioned the Staedtler brush pens. It's the two-sided, right? So, there's two ends, right?NT: Exactly. Yeah. I forgot to say that.MR: Those are nice pens. I've seen those around. I've not tried them much. I need to go to the Office supply store and load up on some new things.NT: Yeah. That's the thing with this podcast, you're just like, "Oh, I wanna try that and I wanna try that."MR: Spending your money. Spending your money.NT: Exactly.MR: Talk a little bit about your digital. You said you started with digital. You hinted at Procreate. Is that the tool that you still use? Have you found any other tools and then tell us about this Japanese stylus or have you upgraded to an Apple pencil, or what's your digital status?NT: With digital, I don't think I mentioned earlier, but a huge part of the sketch note journey for me and starting to share sketch notes was getting an iPad Pro 'cause I did find it very difficult with this stylus I had, it was a stylus that has a little plastic circle on the end.MR: Oh, I know. I had this one, yeah. I know which one you're talking about.NT: It wasn't very precise. I found it quite difficult. It was the second main COVID lockdown and had a lot of time on my hands. I was sketch noting more, but they just took quite a while and the surface was quite small in the iPad mini.My manager in my previous role nominated our team for this special award thing. We won that so we each got a 300-pound voucher to use on a variety of—you could just spend it on clothes, holidays, et cetera. I thought, "Oh, this might be my excuse to get an iPad Pro because I'd wanted one for so long.MR: Covered a good part of it, right?NT: Exactly. It was COVID and I wasn't going on holiday, I'd managed to save a little bit of money because obviously, we weren't going anywhere. That was a big part of it, but when I chatted with friends and family about, "Oh, shall I get this iPad Pro?" I made a pact with myself. If I was going to do that, then I would have to share some of the sketch notes. I made a little pack with myself to do that.It was when I started sharing the sketch notes that I think I must've started using #sketchnote and I'd click on that, and I think that's when I came across your work, Sketch Army. Obviously, I came across things like the Visual Jam, Sketch Effect, Sketch Academy, all of these things, and I was like, wow.Yeah, it's called still Procreate. Again, I thought if I'm getting the iPad Pro, I'm gonna get the proper pencil. One thing that I do use, because I don't use an Apple phone, I don't have an iPhone, but I love my iPad. I wanted somewhere of things transferring across easy. I use a combination of Evernote and Noteshelf.You can get Noteshelf only of the iPad, I think, but then Evernote you can sync it so that anything you do on Noteshelf syncs. Ofter, 'cause I use sketch notes and I don't necessarily share, but in kind of planning and productivity and so, I'll sometimes plan my day out in sketch note form. I have done that on my iPad. I want it on my phone so I've got it when I'm going around and I can't really drag the iPad around.MR: Then that syncs over. Now it's on your phone wherever you are or on your desktop I suppose, if you've got Evernote there.NT: Yeah, exactly.MR: That's a smart idea. I think there's lots of these integrations that often to get overlooked that could make the connection between, like, I like this tool but I wanna use it this way. There's likely some kind of connection or there's a way to do it, I suppose. That's pretty cool.NT: Yeah, definitely.MR: It'd be interesting to see, and I haven't explored Evernote for a long time, if Evernote's in improved their drawing tools in that you could technically draw on Evernote on the iPad. I suspect there must be an iPad app of Evernote, but I don't know what kind of drawing capabilities it has. Maybe it doesn't have very good ones and it would be more frustrating. Helpful, right?NT: I can't remember why I didn't just use Evernote as the actual tool 'cause I use Noteshelf and it syncs to Evernote. I think it's 'cause NoteShelf was like a one-off fee of maybe 10 pounds and maybe—MR: Yeah, it has a subscription.NT: Whereas Evernote has a subscription, but you can use the free version to sync.MR: Got it.NT: It does have some nice tools. I'm not sure why I haven't really used it more.MR: I know Noteshelf's really powerful. It's a tool. I think that's what I use to present from when I editing presentations.NT: Oh really?MR: Because I can move the pages around, I can present, and then the way I teach sketch noting, is I like to draw right on the presentation. The cool thing is when I'm done then I can just export that to a PDF and send it to the students and it's all bundled up. It's the thing they saw, it matches the recording if they see the recording, and it's a really convenient tool. I find Noteshelf really great.NT: That's brilliant. Yeah, it's really good.MR: I did not know that it synced with Evernote. I'm not an Evernote user, but that's really good information to know in case I run into it Evernote user, and tools are pretty helpful. I think all those note-taking tools, their tools have gotten a lot better. That's really great.NT: Definitely. When I listen to the podcast and people recommend new tools and Concepts as the sponsor, I always wanna try these things, which sometimes I just don't get the time to sit and explore. I think especially 'cause doing it analog is quite new for me. That's an avenue I'm exploring.I think one of the other reasons I started to explore analog is because Procreate had an update and the pens just became too complicated and it just wasn't working. Now I've found the right brush again on Procreate, so I'm doing a mixture. There's a nice feature where you can favorite the brush thickness, which is really, really useful.MR: I've used that too. Very useful. Now we're getting nerdy, but on the Procreate size control, if you press and hold in a certain location, you can lock it and a little mark will appear there and then you can jump from mark to mark.NT: When I come across that, I thought, this is amazing 'cause I'll have one for the headers and one for the sub-headers or even just the little doodles. It's so much easy 'cause before, I think that's why I was making some things massive, something small and I just lost track of what was meant to be what.MR: Then you're using the same brush and you're just changing the size of it. You just touch the size you want and away you go, which is nice.NT: Exactly.MR: Cool. Well, now we're at the point where we talk about tips. The way I frame it is someone's listening, they're a visual thinker of some level, whatever that might mean to them, and they're excited, they like the community, they like doing sketchnoting, but they feel maybe they're stagnating or they're in a plateau or just need a little inspiration. It's wintertime here in the north so maybe they just need a little inspiration like spring is coming, whatever, but what would be three things you would tell that person to encourage them?NT: I'm not sure if I've got four or not.MR: Or you can do more than three if you wish. That's fine.NT: I certainly thought of lots of tips. The first thing I would say in line with, I'm not saying everyone needs an iPad Pro but just investing in what you love. If you love sketch noting and it is investing and that might be in time or courses. That's really helped me is just dedicating a bit of time and sometimes money to get a really good course and it can really elevate your sketch notes to the next level.It'll just get you back into it again. Often the course is a collaborative so you meet different people as well, which is helpful and learn from others. That's one thing I would say. But then equally, as much as it's invest and improve, I wanted to say recognize what your strengths are.For some people, they might be held back because there's the comparison thing, like what we were discussing earlier and you see some sketch notes that are very visual and these amazing illustrations that I love looking at. I've had to reframe that 'cause I've had sometimes, moments of lack of confidence thinking, "Oh, mine are quite wordy. I'm never gonna be a natural illustrator."I've had to think, "Well, my strength might be more in the sense of listening to a podcast and picking out the key points. That's something that I do in my professional role as a market manager is I might have to take it an academic paper and try and present it in a nice way.That's something that I've had to think is, what are my strengths are. I would say to people focus on your strengths as well as try and improve your weaknesses 'cause everyone's sketch notes are different.MR: That's a great tip. I love that one.NT: Thank you. Another tip is to share your work. I know it's not for everyone, but if you are sometimes stuck in a rut, it can help to share your work and break that barrier. 'Cause I kept my sketch note secret for years, the ones that I did on mental health and things. Some of them that I've shared I did maybe four years ago and just didn't post, but that can really help get you work out there and get feedback. Also, if you're sharing them on social media, it helps to connect you with people.MR: I suppose you could even frame that as maybe sharing, doesn't have to be with the world, but maybe it's a small group. If there's some chat or something where you can share that work. That's considered sharing. If it's two tens of your best friends, you're still announcing to your friends and they can give you feedback.NT: Exactly, and that's actually what I did first. I just started sending them—During COVID, I'd send them in WhatsApp group chats and people are like, "Oh wow. How have you not shared these before?" It's kind of like deeping your toes in it first.MR: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You go to the friendly audience first because social media cannot always be friendly, right?NT: No, exactly. That's very true.MR: Interesting.NT: Another one is just to write down your ideas. Sometimes I find if you're out and about and you're out in nature or you're away for the weekend, I think you sometimes get inspiration for sketch notes, but if you don't write them down and I'll keep them in—I've got Google Keeps, I'll just keep a little ideas list and just throw them in there. It means that when I am sat at home with my sketchbook or some time and my iPad Pro, I can actually bring that idea to life rather than thinking, "What was that again?" That's been really helpful.MR: Some kind of reference. Some kind of a spark. That's Good.NT: Exactly. I dunno whether I'm onto fifth tip now, I'm not sure.MR: I only count them later.NT: One is just get involved with the community as well. That's a tip that I would recommend. There's been a few that I've been involved with lately, monthly hangouts and your layouts workshop. I think that's just really helpful, and again, it's learning from people. You might get tips that you've not thought of that might take 10 minutes. I think one of your previous guests, I think it was Reverend Geek, said he had a 30-day challenge where he would just sketch out a word for 30 days, but sometimes he'd get those ideas from other people and communities that you're part of.MR: We have that. If you want an easy one, Sketchnote Army has a Slack channel you can join.NT: Oh, really?MR: Yep. Every day there's someone in one of the channels who posts the prompt and you can be challenged to draw it in. They challenge you to draw it in 30 seconds or something, so it builds your thinking skills. We have that channel.Also, probably the other benefit of that channel is any kind of events that happen. Lai Chee Chui, who's one of the members, she's like a hawk. She finds every of cool event and she publishes it in the events announcements channel. You'll find out about workshops or the Visual Jam we'll post in there so you get a sense of like what's coming, which is great.NT: How brilliant. That sounds great. Yeah. I'd love to join that. Thank you.MR: If you go to sketchnotearmy.com/slack, should take you to the page and you can sign up for free. It's all free. We just—NT: Brilliant. I'm just writing that down.MR: We don't save any of the back channel 'cause we're just doing the free one, but it's more spur of the moment, the interaction between people in the community, which is pretty cool. Anybody that's listening, including Natalie are welcomed to sign up and hang out in there, there's a really cool bunch of people in there.Your public sharing could be in the Slack channel with friendly sketch noters who will give you encouragement, which we aim to have our community be an encouraging community. I think that's a good place to start if you wanted to follow that tip that Natalie just gave.NT: Brilliant.MR: I'll be sure to count up the tips and I'll give them numbers to them in the show notes. Of course, we'll have show notes for all the things we've talked about. We're near the end of the podcast. Can you believe it? Like, suddenly this time has just flown by.NT: It has.MR: I would love for you to share what's the best places to go. Are there certain social media where you hang out? Is there a website we can go to to find out all the work that you're up to?NT: The main place that I share my sketch notes is Instagram and that's @natalierobertat. I also use LinkedIn, but that's Natalie R. Taylor. I did set up an actual LinkedIn page, but I just tend to not post on that end. I don't actually post my schedule notes very much on LinkedIn, but I do use it. I set up a Twitter, but again, I've posted it a few times and not really used it a lot. So, I would say Instagram.MR: Okay. Got it. We'll make sure we put a link to that. I'm on your page now and it looks like you've got a campsite bio page with some specific things that you'd like people to check out first. That's nice that you got an extended list of things for people to dig into. That's really good and you can see her work there.Well, Natalie, this has been so much fun. Thank you for joining us on the show and sharing your experience and encouraging people. I think it's, again, another great episode that will encourage somebody out there who we can't even imagine right now who's listening to this episode and being inspired and trying something out, which is what this is all about. Thank you for making time to be here.NT: Thank you so much for having me. I've absolutely loved it and I love the idea that it could help someone, so thank you for saying that.MR: I think so. I think it definitely will help someone. I'm often surprised, I think I do these podcasts and often you don't really hear much back and that's okay, I don't do it for that reason. But occasionally I'll talk to someone and say, I've listened to every one of your episodes. It's happened like four or five times recently. All the effort that you put into it, you think like, "Is anybody listening to this?"I see people downloading it, but you don't hear anything, and then suddenly four or five people say, I listen to every episode. Like, wow, okay, well I guess we're gonna keep doing that. It's really encouraging and it's definitely gonna be encouraging to someone and many people potentially. That's really great to hear.NT: Thank you. I've absolutely loved listening to the podcast when I discovered it and it was lockdown as well, so I'll go for these long walks and I've listening to maybe two, three a day just thinking, I was like, "Wow, there's eight or nine series of this?"MR: You're like a super fan, Natalie.NT: Yeah, I am. They we're kinda packed into a certain time. I think I'm up to date now. There might be a few I've missed.MR: It's quite a back catalog. Well, thank you so much and I think for everyone who's listening, that's another episode of the "Sketch Note Army Podcast." Until the next episode, we'll see you soon.

Edmund Gröpl, a retired engineer, merges his passion for sketchnoting with the Zettelkasten method to transform self-organized learning. He reflects on rediscovering childhood creativity and the vital role of visuals in enhancing communication. Edmund shares insights on effective note management, emphasizing digital tools like Obsidian. He discusses the importance of community in overcoming creative blocks and highlights techniques for integrating visuals into notes, all while inspiring listeners to embrace curiosity and collaboration in their learning journeys.