A SPECULATIVE SCHOOL
This is poem 24 out of 30 for International Newspaper Blackout Poetry Month. (Six more poems left…good lord, is this month not over yet?)
SHOUT-OUT! goes to Liu Jia Yi Rebecca said, “if I had a Sharpie, I would.” No excuses! Use anything!
DRAWING ON SHEETS (INSTEAD OF SKETCHBOOKS)
Edward Tufte care package
I’ve thought recently about abandoning sketchbooks in favor of single sheets of paper, index cards, legal pads, and binders: sketchbooks are convenient for carrying around, but they’re really hard to scan, and they don’t afford remixing or reshuffling pages. I want to make little books that are more like collages, without destroying the pages by using adhesive on them. I just need a little portfolio with plastic pages…something like what Lynda Barry has in this picture. Or like this. I could also just do the three-ring binder with page protectors. Any suggestions?
I’m thinking about this because Michelle Malott wrote in and asked me what kind of paper I used for my mind maps. My usual reply would be, “Whatever’s around,” but recently I’ve been a big fan of Edward Tufte’s graph paper he sells on his website. It’s acid-free, really nice and smooth, and has a “ghost” grid on it, which makes it easy to lay things out. I’ve been using the regular 8 1/2 x 11 sheets, saving up the 11 x 17 sheets for something really awesome.
You can see the results from my last two maps:
Tufte sent me a big batch of the paper after seeing my Beautiful Evidence and Envisioning Information maps. Tufte’s a “hero thinker” of mine, so it was a thrill to get mail from him. Come to think of it, I’ve had good luck getting mail from my heroes. Love how classy this little card is:
If you don’t know his work, you should.
PIGGY-BACK
This is poem 23 out of 30 for International Newspaper Blackout Poetry Month.
SHOUT-OUT! goes to Kelly Anne for her love(x3)!
VISUAL NOTE-TAKING 101 : UPCOMING VIZTHINK WEBINAR
On May 12th, I’ll be doing a Vizthink webinar with my friends Sunni Brown, Mike Rohde, and Dave Gray (as moderator) on visual note-taking. Price is $99, but you get access to the live session AND the recording AND it all goes to the good cause of keeping the Vizthink staff and community afloat financially.
Visual note-taking 101: Techniques for making your notes more visual and memorable
with Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin KleonTuesday, May 12, 2009 | 11:00am EDT (15:00 GMT) | 3 Hours
Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin Kleon. In this three-hour course you will learn how to use visual note-taking to improve your listening skills and take better, more memorable notes. The focus of this class will be on how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them. Many of the techniques you will learn will also help to improve your skills in drawing your ideas at the flip chart or whiteboard.
Get more information and register here. (Also: dig the new VizthinkU portion of the Vizthink website!)
Sunni does graphic facilitation for a living, so she’s used to talking about her and her work, but this will be the first time that Mike or I have dug in and tried to explain what it is that we do.
The seminar will be in three parts. Sunni will talk about the art of listening and Mike will talk about being an editor vs. a stenographer. My part is called, “But I can’t draw!” I’ll be addressing folks’ fears of the pen, and talking about how there’s a a drawing alphabet just as there is a writing alphabet, and if you just learn the alphabet, you can draw anything. I’ll be using some cartoon theory, Lynda Barry’s “Two Questions”, Ed Emberley’s “Make A World”, and ripping off Dave Gray’s stuff on how to draw.
(TIP: I’ll be collecting a lot of my materials for the talk under the tumblr tag “But I Can’t Draw!” if you want a sneak-preview.)
This should be a lot of fun. I’m thrilled to be associated with these folks, and a little overwhelmed at the prospect of teaching with them: after all, it’s been only three years since I learned that this stuff even had a name…
Please let me know in the comments if you have any specific questions you’d like to have answered or topics you’d like addressed!
UPDATE: Here’s a sneak-preview of the introduction/bio slideshow I’m making for my portion:
View more presentations from Austin Kleon.
UPDATE: A recap of the event.
- ← Newer posts
- 1
- …
- 446
- 447
- 448
- 449
- 450
- …
- 618
- Older posts→