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

Build Magazine: Sketchnote Illustrations

IN NOVEMBER 2011, I was hired by Build Network to create an illustration for their premier issue for an article on visual thinking for business called Want to Capture Ideas So They Stick? Draw Them. The article featured Dan Roam, Sunni Brown, Charlotte Hillenbrand, Jeannel King and myself sharing how visual thinking and doodling can help you think and solve problems better.

At the time I was completely focused on illustrating Chris Guillebeau's new book, The $100 Startup, so rather than decline the illustration, I brought the project through the company I work for — Gomoll Research & Design, so I could work on it during daylight hours.

Just a few weeks ago we received the printed issue of Build magazine and the final sketchnote style illustration turned out just great:

To read the article, check out a larger screenshot of the piece in my Build Magazine Illustrations Flickr set.

Thank you Ashely O'Broin for choosing me to help illustrate the premier issue!

SXSW Sketchnotes: 2012

I HAD ANOTHER great year at SXSW 2012 and captured a selection of sketchnotes from a variety of interesting panels to share.

I've noticed over the 4 years I've attended SXSW, I'm attending fewer panels and spending more time with friends and people I'd like to meet. Read my friend Brian's recap of SXSW 2012 — he captures my feelings exactly.

I can see this reflected in the limited collection of sketchnotes I've created this year, compared 68 pages of sketchnotes captured for SXSW 2009.

It was wonderful to see so many friends and those I admire, capturing sketchnotes at SXSW 2012. Check out the collection of sketchnotes on my post over at Sketchnote Army for more examples.

Writing a Book on Sketchnoting!

EXCITEMENT would be an understatement in describing how I feel about getting a deal to write a how-to book on sketchnoting for Peachpit Press.

Thanks to a recommendation from my friend Von Glitschka, I was introduced to Nikki McDonald at Peachpit Press. I pitched my idea to her about a book designed to show people — regular people — how to include sketchnotes in their regular note-taking process.

Nikki and Peachpit loved the idea and made an offer. On Saturday, I signed the contract to write, illustrate and design the book.

Book Details

Here are some details about my forthcoming book:

• Final Title: The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Notetaking
• I will write, illustrate and design the 240 page book, with lots of help from the team at Peachpit and a variety of friends.
• The book will be visual — crafted in my sketchnote style. Sketchnotes should be teaching sketchnoting, after all.
• To make it work as a sketchnote, I'm creating hand-drawn sketchnote fonts to achieve the look while maintaining complete control over the written text.
• A variety of top sketchnoters will be featured in the book. I'll share the principles of sketchnote technique using my work and theirs, along with our tips and tricks from years of live sketchnoting work.
• There will be a section dedicated to hearing, listening and capturing ideas, along with many practical tips and how-to techniques you can use right away.

I've already started writing, creating fonts and contacting sketchnoters for the book, so this is rolling down the tracks, full steam ahead!

Discovering and capturing what I and other sketchnoters do, in a process which can be shared and taught to others should be an interesting and challenging task. I'm both excited and a little scared — a good sign.

Keep tuned here as I work through the book. I'll try to share updates here and there as they make sense, though I know book-writing is a tough business. If I'm quiet on the blog for a while, now you'll know why.

Thanks!

I'd like to thank my friend Von Glitschka for the connection, my acquisitions editor Nikki McDonald for her guidance, my agent David Fugate for his wisdom and my lovely wife for her encouragement.

Sketchnote Guide to Speaking at SXSW

SXSW INTERACTIVE is one of my favorite events of the year, so when Shawn O'Keefe from the SXSW organizing team contacted me about creating a guide for speakers with sketchnote illustrations, I was all in.

Organizing the Details

Shawn provided a list of 9 messages he wanted speakers to remember as they prepared for their panels, which included:

• Be at Your Green Room an Hour Before Your Session
• Stay on Topic During Your Session
• Watch the Time During Your Session
• Show Your Passion for Your Topic - Have Fun!
• Get a Good Night's Sleep the Night Before Your Session
• Treat Fellow Speakers and Audience with Respect
• Speak into the Microphone and Look at the Audience When You Talk
• Remind Your Audience to Rate Your Panel or Presentation
• Start Thinking About SXSW PanelPicker 2013 (Entry Process Starts June 25)

I began mulling these ideas over in my head and then moved to sketching out the concepts that appeared, using pencil and paper.

Sketch Concepts

Each concept was sketched out for Shawn's review, with notes in the sketches and included in the Basecamp project we used to communicate. One of my favorite concepts was of an x-wing fighter from Star Wars (Death Star trench scene) related to the "Stay On Topic" recommendation.

All 9 concepts were sketched out, reviewed and approved by Shawn and the team, so I began inking up the ideas.

Inking and Final Design

As I started inking the images, I also began thinking of the best way I could organize the 9 elements into a cohesive, logical unit, easy for a SXSW speaker to scan and understand.

Each image was inked in my Moleskine sketchbook, scanned and edited in Photoshop. There, I remove dirt, fix contrast and generally optimize the images for their eventual vectorization.

Finalized images were processed with Vector Magic, so I can easily work with the final vector elements in Adobe Illustrator. This approach lets me easily size images up and down without quality loss and creates excellent art for print production.

Designing the Flow

I realized that re-ordering the images in a flow that would make more sense to a speaker was the right way to go — starting with a good night's sleep and ending with the Panel Picker to encourage speaking at next year's event.

I worked the separate illustrations by adjusting sizes and adding bits of typography, until a cohesive illustration emerged after a few iterations. Shawn and the team at SXSW loved the final piece:

After final updates, the art was sent off to the printer. Here's the final image, mocked up on Neenah Environment Desert Storm, the card stock it will print on:

The speaker card will be inserted into every speaker packet, with the goal of better preparing all SXSW speakers for their panels.

Thanks!

Thanks Shawn, Hugh, Caroline and the entire SXSW planning team for choosing me to communicate this message in a fun, unique way.