1/ I guess I’m a purist when it comes to the “sketch” part of sketchnotes. As eluded to, I’m in the camp of “one-and-done” sketchnoters. I rarely do a second pass at them. Once I go back to back to them, I find myself spending too much time making them look “nice”...
Conversation
2/ ... and they start to lose something for me. The joy disappears and the anxiety of making something perfect takes over. As a graphic designer, I’m plaques with a self-inflicted perfectionism. #Sketchnotes alleviate that for me.
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3/ Also, the proliferation of “perfect #sketchnotes” cause some first-time sketchnoters to think their work is bad or that it will never live up to “so-and-do’s” work... and that makes me sad. Sketchnotes are personal to the person who did them....
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4/ ... so the purpose of #sketchnotes is loosely defined & then stretched to include informational illustration, or graphic recording, or graphic facilitation (each of those are structured & valid methods of communicating with visuals) and cause people to fight and disagree...
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5/ ... and then (as a result) #sketchnotes gets harped on and relegated to pauper status and unwanted in the visual community, when all it wants to be is fun, informational, personal, and focused. Or it’s transformed into something only certain people can do...
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6/ ... and well, anyways, I’ll end with this: At the #ISC18lx, I gave a talk called “Everything is Beautiful: The Search for the Ugly Sketchnote” were I posed the question of what a Sketchnote is supposed to be. Watch it if you’d like to. youtu.be/1JV0YZGBMnY #sketchnotes
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Refreshing to find others who have put a lot of thought and consideration into this question - thanks for explaining your POV. Will give the talk a watch!
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... by the way, I really love your style of drawing: the variable line weights are so nice and so interesting (as are the simple colors and shading). I’m a fan. 👍🏼
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I made last year a tentative serie on my discovery of interesting people around #sketchnote
That's one on Mauro, who spent some time exploring the process too, from ideas downto drawings
! I'm working on the site right now, display maybe affected :).
kneaver.com/blog/sketchnot
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1 / Finally found a bit of time to watch your talk & read your post . Thank you both for sharing those! Understand much more where you're coming from and context of the discussion
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2 / (also had no idea there was a whole sketchnoting camp!) I live in the bubble of programming + illustration, so am a foreigner to sketchnote-land and its major debates. Made me rethink how loosely I use the term 'sketchnotes' – always considered it a catchall for visual notes
3 / 'sketchnotes' has always worked as an easy touchpoint in conversation – a way to talk about the work that's moderately well-known. Mostly because we lack better words to differentiate between mediums and intentions...
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4 / I only came up with 'illustrated notes' as a good alternative a few months ago, but running full steam ahead with it from now on 😄 Feels right to distinguish between them as they have different intentions and goals.
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