Austin Kleon

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NOTES ON THE VIZTHINK VISUAL-NOTETAKING 101 WEBINAR

Over 100 people signed up for Tuesday’s Vizthink “Visual Note-taking 101” webinar put on by me, Sunni Brown, Mike Rohde, and moderated by Dave Gray (with great support from Ryan Coleman and Chris Pascucci…thanks, guys!)

It was a rad way to spend 3 hours: I taught the first section called “But I Can’t Draw!” that tried to get people thinking about drawing as building or collage using a simple alphabet (line, point, circle, square, triangle). We learned to draw stick figures and faces…oh, it was good fun. AND I found out that I really, really love teaching: what could be better than sharing your passion with eager students?

Here are a couple of screengrabs from my session:

how to draw a stick figure

how to draw faces

UPDATE: Here’s a short version of my “How To Draw Faces” activity:

I drew live in Sketchbook Pro during Mike and Sunni’s presentation, and here are the results:

Mike Rohde’s Sketchnoting presentation
Sketchnotes of Mike Rohde's Sketchnoting presentation
(see it bigger)

Map of Sunni Brown’s, “The Art of Listening” presentation
Sketchnotes of Mike Rohde's Sketchnoting presentation
see it bigger

Here are two thrilling shots of me in action:

webinar

And here’s my webinar setup:

Sketchnotes of Mike Rohde's Sketchnoting presentation

Mike has a good recap that pretty much covers everything that went down, including notes from my section and notes from the awesome participants, and Sunni has posted her tips on listening for graphic recording and visual note-taking.

I also highly recommend checking out the notes tagged viznotes on Flickr and all the great Twitter chatter about the event.

(And for fun, go see Rob Court‘s cartoon of my dog Milo, who started whimpering about 2/3 of the way through.)

You can see two little slideshow excerpts from my presentation: “The Battle Between Pictures and Words” and “Anatomy of a Mind Map”

And be sure to check out VizThink!

THE BATTLE BETWEEN PICTURES AND WORDS

Here’s a little sneak-preview of the slideshow introduction I’m working on for my portion our Visual Note-Taking 101 webinar that’s a week from today! (Register here.)

The Battle Between Pictures and Words

View more presentations from Austin Kleon.

I got the idea from some sumi-e doodles and quotes I collected a couple years ago, thinking about my formal (and informal) education:

the battle between pictures and words

…lately I find myself frequently torn between whether I’m really an artist or a writer. I was trained and educated as the former, encouraged into the world of paint-stained pants and a white-walled studio where wild, messy experiments precipitate the incubation of other visual ideas— though I’m just as happy to sit at a desk in clean trousers with a sharp pencil and work on a single story for four or five days in a quiet and deliberate manner. In short, I’m coming to believe that a cartoonist, unlike the general cliché, is almost—bear with me now—a sort of new species of creator, one who can lean just as easily toward a poetic, painterly, or writerly inclination, but one who thinks and expresses him- or herself primarily in pictures.—Chris Ware, Introduction to The Best American Comics 2007

all manuscripts will be in 12 point times new roman font
does anybody even read short stories anymore draw this junk

“When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw it seems a shame to choose one. I think it’s better to do both.”
—Marjane Satrapi

together pictures and words can work miracles

A comics-art curriculum is interdisciplinary. As comics-art students learn to become literate and visually literate, they need to develop a vast array of skills. They need classes in drawing, writing, computer art, literature, storyboard, and character design. They need research skills, so they can make their stories convincing and make their characters behave and look real enough to come alive on the page or screen.—James Sturm, “Comics In The Classroom”

crayons and butcher paper of my youth

Speaking

Creativity is not magic. Creativity is for everyone.

That’s the message I’ve delivered with hand-drawn slides and a sense of humor to folks all over the world, from keynote speeches in front of thousands to fireside chats with a few members of a Fortune 500 company.

To inquire about my rates and availability for an in-person or virtual speaking engagement, drop me a line.

Virtual: All the inspiration of a keynote with the intimacy of a studio visit.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, my clients and I experimented with a new kind of live (or pre-recorded) presentation that leverages digital tools for desktop demonstrations and deeper conversations. The result is a more interactive, comfortable, and meaningful experience for everyone involved.

Talks, workshops, Q&A, and more…

Whether our event is in-person or virtual, I offer three different formats, which can be combined or mixed together: talks, workshops, and moderated Q&A sessions.

Talks

Below are two examples of talks I give, both based on material from my bestselling books. They can be customized, or we can start from scratch.

“Creative is Not a Noun!”

10 principles to help anyone — regardless of their job title — do more creative work in the digital world. A few of the things we’ll learn:

  • to think of new ideas as mashups or remixes of previous ideas
  • how sharing process builds a more innovative work culture
  • the value of using analog tools for better ideas

This is a great talk for a broad audience of people with different skill sets and abilities, and it’s especially good for people who don’t consider themselves creative.

“How To Keep Going”

10 ways to stay focused, resilient, and creative in good times and bad. A few of the things we’ll learn:

  • the value of repeatable daily habits for long-term success
  • how to disconnect from the world so we can connect with ourselves
  • simple tips to recharge and recapture our attention

This is a great talk for teams going through a rough patch and audiences in need of a creative booster shot.

Workshops

My workshops are designed with fun, easy, hands-on activites to put participants back in touch with the creative energy we once experienced as children at play.

A few options:

Moderated Q&A Sessions

I love talking one-on-one about the creative life and big ideas. In this format, a moderator interviews me about my work and then opens up to questions from the audience. (This works especially well online.)

 

Praise

“Kleon isn’t a prototypical business guru — he’s an artist who has some fantastic insights about creativity.”
—Business Insider

“[He’s] figured out the secret to making his talks and writings on fostering creativity both supremely useful and mercifully devoid of arty huckster ham-handedness…. Kleon is a new kind of creative mentor for the digital age.”
—San Antonio Current

“Positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet.”
—The Atlantic

 

Let’s work together!

To inquire about my rates and availability, drop me a line.

MY LIFE IN TUMBLR TAGS

I’m good at keeping my posts on the tumblelog tagged, and the other day I was clicking around and thought, “Hey, you could make a pretty decent bio out of those tags…”

My name is Austin Kleon and I am a writer and a cartoonist and a web designer. I make these things called newspaper blackout poems, which some call poetry.

I grew up in a small town in southern Ohio, and still have family there. I think you are where you were, and so place, worldbuilding and maps are obsessions of mine.

Writing, storytelling, songwriting, cartooning, and drawing are all ways that I play so I can feel alive and happy.

I’m fascinated by how we see and process the world around us, which involves vision, memory, and neuroscience.

I believe that visual thinking is one of the best tools we humans have to solve problems and that we should, like the cavemen, practice drawing on the walls. Sometimes a picture is better than words, and so we have Isotype and wordless stories. Most of the time a picture is better with words, and so we have comics, information design and infographics.

I love pure black and white, but I’m trying to learn color.

For artists, I think that sometimes you don’t have to go to college, you should keep your day job, and write the book you want to read. I also wonder, what if we give it away?

Like most people, I like music and movies. Sometimes I talk politics and religion.

These are just a few of the folks who blow my mind: Lynda Barry, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Schulz, Edward Tufte, Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga, Tom Gauld, Saul Steinberg, Otto Soglow, Bill Callahan, and Joann Sfar.

I believe life is a story and often that story is just a collage or remix of who/what came before us.

I’m married to a wonderful woman and I live in Austin, Texas.

Forgive me if this is really f***ing cheesy.

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