The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 6 - Manuscripts & Videos

IN THE HEAT of this summer, I'm hard at work keeping my Sketchnote Handbook project moving. It's quite hard work, in fact, with so many moving parts. But, slowly, the manuscript is being written and the video seems to be accelerating even more quickly. Here's the latest update:

Manuscript

The biggest challenge of any book is the manuscript. In my case, finishing the manuscript is only halfway to completion, but it is critical because it directs what I will illustrate and drives the video I'm creating at the same time.

I feel good about where I am on the manuscript. My goal is to write all the way through the entire book, in first draft form, by Monday the 9th and I'm on track to achieve it. However, even feeling good about this momentum is balanced by the nagging feeling that I'm always running behind.

Often I feel I should be farther along, or that the draft wasn't quite tight enough. Or worse yet, the feeling I'm forgetting some hugely important piece of wisdom in the text. While not pleasant, feeling behind is not such a bad motivator to keep on working hard at getting the words right.

Fortunately, I have a great editor, who sharpens my words while keeping them true to my voice. She challenges me on assumptions and catches me using cliches. Her hard work makes me look good.

Of course, it's not easy to open a revised Word document, filled with edits and comments. But, as I've had to defend my ideas and have seen how the prose always gets better, I've embraced this process. It's definitely making the work better and that's the key.

I've also shifted to writing all the way through my manuscript for the book — at least the first draft and there are a couple of reasons why:

1. The video we're shooting in the next few weeks depends on the most current writing I can offer to make it work. I have my friend Gabe scripting the video and he needs my latest input.

2. I've come to see that a unified, compelling and sensible set of illustrations for this book requires I have the manuscript created as a whole — even if it's not final. Initially, I thought a chapter at a time would work best, but now I see that having an entire manuscript, ready to illustrate or shoot is more valuable.

I have a bit of writing to do, but I'm excited to see the manuscript unfold.

The Video

The Sketchnote Handbook also features a video companion, which I'm responsible for writing, appearing in and helping to produce. This part of the overall project is on track for shooting next week.

Honestly, I'm a little freaked out producing a book and a video at the same time, but have chosen to keep on moving and am trying to not let it worry me too much. The reason I can consider doing this video are the people who are helping make the video happen.

On the video project, several good friends have come to my aid. I'm lucky to have Brian Artka, the one who shot my promo video, filming and editing the entire project. He's so experienced that I can lean on him knowing video will keep on track and look great.

A few weeks ago, I added Gabe Wollenburg to "Seal Team Sketchnote" as a script writer for the video. Because Gabe has known me for years, I can trust him to channel me into a video — something he's done quite a bit of for others in his career. Once again, I'm lucky to have a great friend on my team.

The timing of Gabe coming along couldn't have been better. I was stumped about writing a video script and just as I faced this, Gabe appeared. He loved the project and was available for me to hire as my script writer. He took my rough table of contents for the video, generated a wonderful outline and has crafted scripts which capture the concepts I want to share, perfectly.

On Monday, Brian and I will begin shooting the introductory videos for the project, and on Thursday we're setting up a live event at Translator in Milwaukee's Third Ward, where I'll be filmed speaking to viewers and sketchnoting my friend Jon Mueller as he presents to a local crowd.

On Tuesday morning, Brian and I shot tests in a new space in Brian's building. The space is open, airy and bright with natural light from a bank of north-facing windows. This is the perfect space for the desk and drawing table sets we have planned for the video. Here are a few stills:

I can't wait to see how this video turns out.

Featured Sketchnoters

I'm excited to announce that 15 amazing sketchnoters are partnering with me to be part of the Sketchnote Handbook, and instead of giving away the surprise, I'll keep it a secret — for now.

I will also feature their work where I deconstruct sketchnotes. This section of the book is designed to help readers see sketchnoting patterns they can use in their own work. I'm honored to have such a great cast of sketchnoters helping make this book and video project a community effort.

The Soundtrack

I'm also excited to have another long-time friend, Steve Mork, helping with the soundtrack of the video. He has years of experience creating electronic music with his Somegirl project. I can't wait to see what he creates for the video.

The Clock is Ticking…

2 months from deadline and I'm really feeling the stress, with so many elements of the book in process: manuscripts, research, videos, illustrations and page layouts all yet to come. having a full-time day job, a wife, family and a 3rd child coming in September makes balance it all… interesting, but I'm feeling good.

If you're a praying person, I'd love your prayers. Pray that I'll keep everything moving, that I'll create something useful & valuable and that I will stay healthy under the stress to complete this project.

Spending the time writing my thoughts down has been helpful and therapeutic. Hopefully these words from an author trying to keep it all going will give you insight into what writing a book is like. It's really, really hard work.

Thanks for sharing my journey.

P.S. You can now pre-order The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Handbook Video Edition on Amazon.com - how cool and freaky is that?

The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 5 - Promo Video and Final Cover Design

IT STARTED as a video test. At Brian Artka'a 5th Ward Milwaukee office on a cold April Friday, we spent a day setting up and shooting video of me talking and sketchnoting. The goal was to test the lighting and the space we wanted to use for the Sketchnote Handbook video, for the Peachpit team.

When I saw the final edit from Brian yesterday, I realized he had created much more than a test video — he'd captured a glimpse into the passion I have for design and sketchnoting in an amazing short film:

Mike Rohde: The Sketchnoter from size43, LLC on Vimeo.

I got emotional watching the video for the first time. I'm amazed at how well Brian captures and tells stories with camera angles, focus, lighting, pacing and music. I'm honored to be one of his subjects and am excited to have him shooting the book video with me.

While this video is artistic and focused on me and sketchnoting in a broad sense, the video companion to The Sketchnote Handbook will be much more straightforward, as the goal of the video will be teaching the techniques of sketchnoting. I can't wait to see how the video segments turn out.

The Cover Design Process

Oddly enough, even though I'm still writing the book itself, Peachpit needed the cover to be designed and finalized earlier, so they can begin promoting the book and the video with booksellers.

Over the years, I've found designing anything for myself challenging — I'm often never satisfied with the work I do on my own projects. The cover design was no different and was a challenge to work through.

Sketching went well, helping narrow the choice down to a simple, bold cover design suggesting the cover of a notebook covered in stickers:

As I began creating mockups, the cover wasn't working and I couldn't put my finger on why. It felt stiff, and not my style — even though I'd made it.

Fortunately, I have created a loose book advisory board of friends who provide good, objective feedback as I'm journeying through this book project.

One advisor is Stefan Bucher, designer and creator of The Daily Monster and author of the book 344 Questions. Stefan, being wonderfully blunt, told me to amp it up! Go bold! Make the cover feel like strong sketchnotes I'm known for.

With 3 days left before final art was due, starting over wasn't appealing. But, what I had created clearly wasn't going to cut it. I'm glad I took Stefan's challenge to heart and began anew. Starting over forced me to simplify and clarify the design, resulting in a cover I really love:

Here's a color laser mockup, taped to a copy of Jeffrey Zeldman's Designing With Web Standards, so I could get a feel for how it might look:

I'm very pleased with the end result and now see how important starting over was in the overall process. I must remain flexible as I move forward and face challenges while writing this book.

Pen Addict Podcast: Sketchnoting

Last week I was honored to appear on The Pen Addict Podcast with Myke Hurley and Brad Dowdy of the 70Decibels Network.

I had a great time sharing how sketchnoting came to be, the REWORK, The $100 Startup and Little Book of Talent illustration work resulting from it, the creation of Sketchnote Army and The Sketchnote Handbook.

Go have a listen to the MP3 and if you're a pen addict like me, subscribe to the podcast.

Back to Writing

While it was fun to design my cover, see the Sketchnoter video go live and appear on The Pen Addict podcast, I'm constantly reminded of how much work has yet to be done on the book's writing and illustration.

Now it's time to dive in deep — finalize and ink chapter 1 and begin synthesizing research into a narrative for chapter 2: Why Sketchnote. There is much to do in planning the video: outlining, scripting and shooting video.

Tough work lies ahead, but I'm excited to get on with it.

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Uncomfortable Opportunities

I DON'T LIKE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE — who does? But, when I'm feeling uncomfortable, it's often a marker for new opportunities, if I'm open to them.

Here are four stories from my own life, were my being uncomfortable eventually led to great opportunities.

New City, New Life

When I was 15, our family moved from Chicago to Milwaukee. I left friends, my high school and a familiar neighborhood. In Milwaukee it was uncomfortable to start over again, in a new city, school, having to make new friends. But being uncomfortable in a new city provided opportunities to become outgoing and adaptable in new situations. Moving eventually led me to my beautiful wife, our children and relationships with many great friends and colleagues.

A Haircut Leads to Germany

One saturday morning, I walked into my local barbershop and found my barber speaking to a young man in German. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but stayed. I was curious about this guy, Matthias, which led to a great, long-term friendship. A haircut led me to visit Germany for pleasure and business, brought European friends to my life and formed me professionally as I worked 9+ years remotely for MakaluMedia, a web design & development firm in Germany.

From Printer to Designer

In college I was focused on printing, but my school, Milwaukee Area Technical College, required printing, design and photography students take classes in all three disciplines. It was uncomfortable being stretched in three directions, but through exposure to design I found a love for design as a career. I left the printing department for design, graduated and became a professional designer.

My Speaking Moment

Two years ago I was invited to speak on sketchnoting at Pecha Kucha Milwaukee. Back then I was uncomfortable speaking to crowds, but I accepted the challenge. At first, I was a bit freaked out, but worked hard to prepare. My talk was well-received, which gave me confidence. Now I love speaking to people and am excited for opportunities to share my passion with others.

When I remember these and other stories, I'm encouraged. Uncomfortable situations often turn into great, life-changing opportunities.

What uncomfortable situations am I in?

Is there opportunity under the surface?

Update June 2, 2012
Here's some very relevant discussion from Todd Henry: The Accidental Creative Podcast: Gaining Clarity Through Action. Don’t be paralyzed by fear of the unknown! Do what you’re qualified to do, and stop doing the things that only waste your focus, time and energy.

The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 4: Digging In

THE SKETCHNOTE HANDBOOK project is now stretching out before me, with much left to do. I'm both excited and a little freaked out by this, with excitement winning at the end of the day. I've known this would be a tough, exciting project. I remind myself of this when I worry about what's to be done.

The Process, Chapter 1 Text & Sketches

Never having written a book, I've been adapting the process I use for my other design and illustration projects to the Sketchnote Handbook process — thinking, writing out ideas, pencil sketches and final art — all approached with an iterative mindset. This approach is working well because it's familiar to me.

For chapter 1, I've started with a table of contents (TOC in the biz), worked through with Nikki at Peachpit. From the TOC I have written chapter 1 in three drafts. Using the first chapter text, I sat down over the course of three evenings sketch out a rough map of the entire chapter's page structure in pencil.

Here is a sample rough sketch from the first spread of the chapter:

Sketching out ideas is helpful in my design process — in this book writing and illustrating project it has proven true again. The experience of turning words into drawings, type treatments and layouts has been helpful.

Having a sketch of the chapter to compliment my writing has been perfect in figuring out what works, what doesn't, where to expand and where stick with ideas. These rough sketches have also been ideal for sharing direction with the Peachpit team and my book advisory team.

Cover Designs

Something I'm learning as I experience a book writing process — many things are moving at the same time. I suppose in this case, with a book and video there are more threads than usual. One of the important threads to take care of very shortly are the cover designs for the book and DVD.

I have several ideas in my head for covers, which all feature hand-drawn sketchnote-style typography and images. I want the covers to be simple and memorable, and apparently they need to work at full size and as a thumbnail (for selling on websites). Nice challenge, eh?

Next Steps

The next step is a revised pencil sketch of chapter 1, to fix things, refine ideas and get the layout and imagery pretty well set for the inking stage to follow.

My goal is to completely finish chapter 1 all the way to final production with InDesign files and high resolution scans. Once we have the process settled, I believe it will help streamline the production of the 5 remaining chapters.

I'll be starting the video production with Brian Artka soon. Brian is working hard on the video test we did a month ago, which I'll post here when ready. In the mean time, you can check out the out-take video he's already created.

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Summit Series Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet

IN JANUARY, the Summit Series team commissioned me to attend and capture sketchnotes at Basecamp, a meeting of 650 invite-only guests in Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley. I had a great time, met a variety of interesting people and enjoyed live-capturing my experience in sketchnotes during Basecamp weekend.

Typically, I post sketchnotes online, or create a PDF of the sketchnotes for attendees of events. I this case I felt strongly that a booklet, created from the sketchnotes would make a great after the fact artifact of the event for the all of the Summiters at the event in Squaw Valley. Audrey and the Summit Series team loved the idea so we began the process of designing a booklet from my sketchnotes.

Designing The Booklet

Using the multiple pages of sketchnotes I'd scanned, Audrey and I made typo fixes, adjustments and additions to the content, preparing it for printing. Laura, Lindsay and the Pinball Publishing team were my first choice, as they printed the popular Scout Book for our Visual Thinking 101 panel at SXSW 2010.

Here's a sketch of the booklet concept, where you can see me thinking through the booklet's cover design and interior structure:

When our direction was set, I combined sketchnote scans with newly created elements and laid out an InDesign document for Pinball's new Mega Booklet, a 5x7 Scout Book with more space than the popular 3x5 version:

Once the final art was approved, my production files went to Pinball Press for printing. Here are images of the booklet on press:

A Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet plate on press at Pinball Publishing.

Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet signature sheet, fresh off the press.

Cover and back cover signature press sheet.

Welcome Note and Packaging

Audrey also provided a welcome note for the final packet, which I hand-write and scanned for print production. The note was printed on a single sheet of duplex card stock (light stock glued to kraft stock for the back), which was then placed into a kraft envelope for shipping to each Summit attendee.

Here are a selection of the final Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet photos, taken by the Pinball staff after printing, cutting and binding:

View: Virtual Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet (flash required).
View: Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet Photos (Flickr)

Final Impressions

The entire booklet turned out great! I'm excited to see how Summit Basecamp attendees like the final booklet — since our aim in capturing sketchnotes and producing a booklet from them is to remind them of their own great weekend experience in the mountains.

If you're a Summiter who has received one of these booklets. please leave a comment with your thoughts. I and the Summit Series team would love to hear your feedback on this fun way of making an artifact from sketchnotes.

Thank you Team Summit Series and Pinball Publishing for making it happen!

Photos: Pinball Publishing