I’ve pre-ordered Mike Rohde’s upcoming The Sketchnote Handbook, because I’m intrigued by this new form of communication””which I’ve been doing for years without having a name for it. But Rohde and others have made a business practice out of, essentially, doodling along to condense the ideas of a talk. I love it!
Could I add this to the things I do professionally? Would I want to? I don’t know, but I would like to cultivate the ability.
I’ve been making lots of notes on paper lately, and I want to collect these in one place””partly because it’s good to look back over these flashes of insight, and partly, I admit, because they look kind of pretty and I always wince a little when I crumple up one of these pages and throw it in the recycling.
So between last night and this morning I made myself a sketchbook:
I gave it ‘deckle’ edges, but I cheated and used a vintage photo trimmer that gives the paper a ragged look, yet is a lot quicker and a lot less effort than tearing each page. I guess I wanted it to look a bit rough, because a book that looks perfect is intimidating, and intimidating books stay on the shelf, unused.
I think I’m finally getting the spacing right between the book-block and the covers, so the resulting hinge works and doesn’t pull the insides away from the spine. (Sorry for the book-nerdiness there, but I’ve been struggling for a while to get this right.)
Testing the book out this morning, I discovered that the paper’s a bit bleedy for my fine markers. That’s sort of a shame, but then, it’s also an invitation to freely use up the pages and surrender that notion of having to produce “art”.
So I got started right away, thinking aloud on paper:
This is one of the best things about using shorthand: I can write any crazy stuff I like without an inkling of self-consciousness, ’cause only a handful of people in the world could read it””not that anyone would be bothered. (Though I do carry around a cheat-sheet of the principles in my back pocket.)
Some of the squares on my time-management boardgame pose a question or ask me to reflect in certain ways, so these pages were me getting around to answering those questions.
Gosh, it’s a good idea to talk to oneself! It’s amazing how much barely conscious material floats around in my noggin””which I can actually work with once I look directly at it.
Now it’s time to write an article, and this afternoon’s challenge is to work on an info-graphic for my client’s blog. This is something new! I’m fine with the ghostwriting being anonymous””that’s how that works””but I think I should push for credit for the graphics, if they work out.