#sketchnoting

I thought I would take a moment to jot down my approach to sketchnoting/visual note-taking - there are many people who have thought/written a lot about this and I’ve certainly been inspired by some amazing note takers (ahem, Giulia Forsythe). I’ve been doing it for the past 3 years in an effort to get more out of webinars, conferences and reading that I was doing. I was feeling frustrated about jotting down notes in a notebook or Google Docs or Evernote and never returning to them.

I like to alternate between doing it digitally and old school with markers and paper.

Here are some of the tools that I love . . .

Digital

I’ve always used Paper by Fifty Three - I use this on my iPad with a mini Adonit. I export the photo files and share them on Twitter and on my blog. To be honest - it’s the only tool I’ve ever used and I’m so happy with it, I’ve never tried anything else.  

Lightning Talks at Digital Pedagogy Lab

Digital Sketchnote from #EBLIP9

Analog

Sometimes, I prefer just good old markers and a sketchpad. I use a larger sketchpad with a hardcover to make it easier when I don’t have a table. I use a variety of markers including: 

Sharpies

Tombow dual brush markers 

Paper Mate flair markers

Prismacolor markers. 

I usually either scan these or take a photo. I’m a big fan of the CamScanner app - I’m usually too lazy to go over to the proper scanner or I’m doing it on the fly at a conference. This allows me to quickly sharpen the image and increase the contrast. This makes for a more crisp and bold image. 

Affordable course content and open educational resources webinar

Analog Sketchnote from Personal Productivity Webinar

More Resources

I’m always looking for inspiration - so I’m always adding to my Sketchnotes Pinterest board to get ideas for layout, icons, and fonts. 

I also own Mike Rohde’s The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking. 

I also think that Kathy Schrock has collected some great resources.

You can find my sketchnotes on my blog: becomingblended.tumblr.com (here!). I use these for quick, personal reflection regularly and I can honestly say that this has changed how I process information at conferences, webinars and more. My visual notes are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

I believe that the ability to sketch is useful as the ability to write. Visual approach for note-taking help me to learn, remember and organise information. And also it is great skill to make your presentations more fun!

Now I am working on the online course where I will share my approach for note-taking and you will learn the basic principles of how to make your notes and slides more visual, fun and useful.

Want to know when the course is ready?

Sketchnotes of James Giangola’s talk on how to design voice interactions. This talk is full of great examples of how boring and inappropriote current voice assistants and the way he would re-design them.  

This year I was lucky to attend Google IO and sketched a lot during most of the sessions. I was focused on conversational interfaces, design for auto and virtual reality, accessibility issues and challenges of designing products for the new internet users.  

All presentations were recorded so you can watch them and use my sketches to better memorize information or quicker recollect everything later.

You can also download all sketches here.

Sketched sessions at Google IO 2017:

- Keynote

- Finding the Right Voice Interactions for your App

- In Conversation, There Are No Errors

- Defining Multimodal Interactions: One Size Does Not Fit All

- Assisting the Driver: From Android Phones to Android Cars 

- Creating UX that 'just feels right' with Progressive Web Apps

- What's New in Android Accessibility

- Daydream in the classroom: immersive learning

- Designing screen interfaces for VR

Hey! You must be already know that I love sketching and doodling ideas 🦄. I decided to combine this passion with another thing that I like a lot - User Experience and Product Design. 

The concept is simple . 

Every week I will create a sketch with one useful product design tip and send it to you. The letter will be very short and it will take not more than 1 min to read. As a result you will learn something new every week and maybe apply it in your work right away! 

You can subscribe here https://www.anatinge.com/design-tips