[VIDEO] Drawn to Success with Tim Corey Pt. I

Before I dive into the actual conversation I share a bit of the backstory. When I initially decided to launch myself into the world of Graphic Recording (circa Nov/Dec 2012) I knew that eventually I'd need to have a blog (because that's what people in business do right). So on my calendar sometime off in the distant future (Spring/Summer of 2013, which by the way is NOW) I thought that I'd launch a monthly series of video interviews. Great!

I wasn't going to start a blog, and thus the video series until I was clear on the direction of my business and everything was in a neat little row. But then in Jan I attended the Right Brain Business Plan online course via Creative Live (which I blogged about here). When I saw Tim Corey doing Graphic Recording for the course I KNEW I had to interview him, though I was far from my Spring deadline, at that point I didn't even have a blog to speak of.

Tim graciously accepted my invitation to have a conversation, and what was scheduled for a half-hour or so turned into about an hour long talk (chalk full of good info). I'd been waiting to figure out my branding messages/color/strategy etc. just so I can make the perfect intro slides. But after a virtual kick in the pants from Lynne Cazaly I figured there is no time like the present. So here's Part I of the video interview minus my oh so critical fancy schmancy title slides.

I've named the series Drawn to Success because I'd like to create some hand drawn visuals to depict each conversation. In this instance I didn't graphically record the whole convo, I just picked one nugget to represent graphically. I'll probably do at least one more for this portion of the conversation and then a few more pics for subsequent portions.

A graphic snippet of our conversation

*Disclaimer: This is my first vlog conversation/interview and isn't nearly as polished as I'd like it to be (I cringe when I see some of my facial expressions), but nevertheless in the interest of "just shipping it" I'm finally putting it out there. The first portion anyway, you'll have to come back for more (I know how sneaky of me). So just to make sure you don't miss the rest of the interview you might as well subscribe :) just sayin' make your life easier right!

For a bit of context this photo which was sourced from CreativeLive's Pinterest should help. If you are unfamiliar with CL they usually have 6 people in studio taking the course, while their hosts field questions/comments from the global audience online. In our conversation I asked Tim about his experience graphically capturing both what was going on in the room, and with the online audience. As you can see from this picture he's drawn an area dedicated to comments that were coming from the online community. 

At about 17:46 he also references a question that I posed via email:

So many times people think of Graphic Recorders as silent and off to the side, I really appreciated how Jennifer included you in the process asking you to reflect back what you heard not only through the visuals but by having you speak. Does that happen much? How was that for you?

Source: creativelive.com via creativeLIVE on Pinterest

FYI: In the video I mention briefly that I took Christina Merkley's Fundamentals of Interactive Visuals course online last winter. She actually runs a face to face course each Summer in Victoria BC, and there are currently only a few spots left. The course runs from May 30th- June 1st you can find more info here.

Graphic Jam, I Have A Dream Edition

A while back, John Lesko led a graphic jam for D.C. area graphic recorders/facilitators/viz thinkers which he posted about on his blog here. From what I gather both from his post and from various social media posts of attendees the Jam went really well and it was fun to attend. I'd LOVE to go to an  informal graphic practice event like this, but thus far haven't found too many other people doing GR in the Philadephia Metro area (which can be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it).

The I Have A Dream speech has been on my list of things to practice with (more on that later) and I figured why not use a linky and invite others to get involved (sort of a virtual jam session). So for those who don't want to read the whole backstory here are the instructions:

1. Choose a few metaphors to visualize from this list written by Todd Cherches
2. Draw them out
3. Blog about it
4. Link your blog post here so that we can come and visit


Oftentimes, visual communication is thought of as using graphical elements to communicate and organize ideas. However, in his blog post Todd Cherches dubs Martin Luther King, "King of Visual Communication," because of his ability to evoke images through his speech. In order to illustrate his point, Cherches pulled a list of metaphors from the I Have A Dream Speech. Using this list makes it easy to choose just a few metaphors to depict without having to listen to or read the whole speech.

I didn't want to trivialize the speech by making it too cartoony, but I did find the exercise of trying to put the metaphors in graphic form valuable. Of course if one was to actually GR the whole speech trying to draw out each and every metaphor would likely be counterproductive. In fact, in The Graphic Facilitator's Guide Brandy Agerbeck warns newbies not to latch on to imagery too quickly.


I've chosen the following ones from the list and depicted them below:
1. A great beacon of light and hope
2. The whirlwinds of revolt
3. Let freedom ring
4. A bad check which has come back marked insufficient funds
5. The quicksands of racial injustice
6. Satisfy our thirst for freedom

I originally read Todd Cherches article on the Duarte blog. If you are interested in delving deeper into the presentation aspects of this speech Nancy Duarte has a great video on how King uses elements such as repetition, and cultural references, in addition to imagery to make an all around compelling speech.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with :)

Caught on the Web #2

In my first post in this series, Meet the Curator, I explained a bit about my social media philosophy, and basically how with all that goes on online it's so easy to miss good content. So from time to time I'll post a list of some things I found pretty cool.

First up is the sketchnotes challenge that Eva-Lotta Lamm is running over on her blog. She has gathered a panel of experts that will give challenge participants feedback on their submissions, imagine the guy who wrote the book on sketchnotes giving you his 2 cents, no really Mike Rhode DID write the book on sketchnotes and it is among the prizes that participants will be competing for. I've taken a peek at the other contestants and there are some really good entries (If you ask me I think the person who needs the MOST work should get Mike's book, at least then I'd be in the running.) Other prizes include Eva-Lotta's own books which are collections of sketchnotes from talks she's attended in a given year, and Brandy Agerbeck's The Graphic Facilitators Guide which I have and highly recommend.  I've posted a pic of my own submission below, make sure to trot on over to Eva-Lotta's blog for all the details the contest ends this Sunday, March 17th.

Next, in light of the really great discussion that has cropped up regarding my C.R.A.P. posts. I thought I'd share a slideshare about designing for presentation. This stood out because of the great use of storytelling which weaves through the whole piece and ties it together nicely. It is a good example of how stories can be used in concert with visuals to make presentations POP!

Design for Presentation: The great eye learns to see from Francis Glebas

Last on the list for this week is a playlist that I put together of videos from The Art of Hosting. As a Visual Thinking partner my aim is to work closely with facilitators to make the most out of group processess. To that end, I enjoy learning about various group facilitation techniques. The videos in the playlist each give a brief overview of various techniques and are helpful if you want to get the gist of a given practice.