TEDMED Pioneer Notebook Illustrations

In mid-September, I received an inquiry from Tribal DDB Worldwide to create a series of sketchnote illustrations for a custom notebook for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Pioneer program attending TEDMED 2010.

The agency was creating a notebook to encourage Pioneers at TEDMED to think and take notes differently during the event, and really felt my sketchnote style of illustrations would fit well with the message of the notebook.

A Tag-Team of Illustrators

I was very interested in the illustration project, though at the time I was insanely busy with many other projects. Rather than take the full project on myself or turn it down, I contacted my good friend Austin Kleon to share the book illustrations equally.

Even though timing was tight and Austin had a vacation planned in the middle of the project, we were both able to knock out the work and have a great time in the process.

Project Goals

Our challenge was to create encouraging illustrations that would help TEDMED attendees to think broader about solving big healthcare related issues presented at the event.

Initially we both created several sketchnote how-to illustrations. As the project progressed, a simpler style of sketchnote illustrations were needed, based on various words, statements and ideas provided to us to work from.

We also created some generic elements - thought and speech bubbles, pencils and other items - so these could be used in a variety of ways. A pencil I created was vectorized with Vector Magic, so it could be uses at larger sizes.

Once our illustrations were done and delivered, Tribal DDB blended our illustrations into the notebook's various pages. The final notebook was printed, bound and given to Pioneer attendees at TEDMED 2010. We hear it was well received.

Illustration Samples

Here's a selection of photos of our book illustrations:

 
 
 
 
 

Check out the full Flickr set to see more photos.

Many thanks to Dee Dee, Ray and Troy at Tribal DDB for choosing us to help make this notebook happen!

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Sketchnote Coffee Prints

FROM THE SECRET CAVES under Rohdesign Studios HQ in conjunction with Shawn Kelley at Wallblank in Rockford, Illinois, I'm pleased to announce a set of 3 Sketchnote Coffee Prints now available for purchase!

Coffee Print Details

This series of prints features 3 pieces, focusing on a different coffee drink (Latte, Cappuccino and Espresso) with notes about each drink surrounding the illustrations.

Illustrations were drawn in pen and ink in a pocket Moleskine notebook, then scanned high res and embellished in color using Photoshop.

Prints are available in two sizes: 12" x 16" and 6" x 8" to suit a variety of spaces in your home, office or local café.

Each print is carefully printed one at a time, using high quality archival inks on heavyweight archival paper. Each print has added margins making them suitable for framing.

Large and Small Options

Large: Sketchnote Coffee Prints are available as a set of three large 12" x 16" prints for $60 or individually as Latte, Cappuccino and Espresso for $25 each print.

Small: These prints are also available as a set of three smaller 6" x 8" prints for $25, or individually as Latte, Cappuccino and Espresso for $10 each print.

It's Wallblank's 2nd birthday so for a limited time, they're shipping for only $2 per order anywhere in the world — a great deal.

Buy your own set of Sketchnote Coffee prints today

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Meeting Steward Sketchnote Illustration

Today I received a nice surprise: a copy of Associations Now magazine in the mail with my latest sketchnote illustration appearing on page 57.

In September I was commissioned by the magazine to create an illustration to complement an article by Jeff Hurt on the basics and benefits of bringing a meeting steward for meeting planning.

In 2009 I was hired to illustrate a cover and feature story on Visual Thinking. The Associations Now staff and their readers loved the sketchnote style, so when I had a chance to create a follow-up piece, it made sense to follow a winning formula.

I was given the space of a single magazine page for my art — either the top of two pages for a horizontal piece or a single full page for a more vertical piece.

Concept Sketches

First I did some pencil sketching to figure out elements I wanted to use and to figure out the best format — either horizontal or vertical.

In the sketch below you'll see I began playing with elements from the article text in a horizontal format. I really liked the feel but was feeling that I would need too much space vertically, even in a horizontal format to make the flow work right.

Since I liked the detail of this sketch, I drew up another concept to work out how the same elements would look on a single page, in a vertical format:

This seemed to work better from a flow perspective as you can see on the right page as I mapped out how generally the eye should be drawn across the illustration.

Inking

Once I had the direction, I started by laying down light pencil shapes on paper at actual size and then inked in elements of the piece. After the ink dried, I erased the underlying pencil and scanned in the art to modify for production in Photoshop.

I wanted to add a little color to the piece, though I really liked the cream and black look I've developed for my sketchnote art. I decided to add warm red highlights specifically to the arrows, as a way to draw the reader's eyes through flow of the conference imagery.

Final art was sent to Associations Now and worked great for the article. As a side benefit, the art director was able to reuse arrow art for feature quotes on the following pages to carry the theme all the way through the article.

You can read the online version of the article at Associations Now magazine.

Eloqua RPM Sketchnotes for JESS3

I'm very excited to share a set of sketchnotes I captured for creative agency JESS3 back in June. The resulting video and microsite for Eloqua are now live, so I'm free to talk a bit about my sketchnote work for this project.

The Challenge

I was hired by Leslie Bradshaw, president and CEO of JESS3, to listen in on a presentation of Revenue Performance Management (RPM) with Eloqua Chief Marketing Officer Brian Kardon.

My goal was to convert the ideas, themes and concepts into sketchnotes.

Brian spoke about management concepts from the industrial revolution through the present and their context as a precursor to the next revolution in management, RPM. The end result was a concise overview of Brian's RPM presentation as a set of sketchnotes.

Here are six pages captured during Brian's talk:

I had connectivity issues with the online slide presentation, so I closed my eyes and listened. I found my focus sharper hearing only the audio over the phone. It's good to know I can produce great work even if technology doesn't cooperate. :-)

Video & Microsite

JESS3 and Leslie really loved my sketchnotes, which they used as a resource for their team toward creating a short, animated video about RPM, which you can see here:

Here's an overview of the project from the JESS3 case study:

Written and produced in collaboration with Eloqua, the Future of Revenue video identifies breakthrough ideas – scientific management, total quality management, supply chain management – and looks at the competitive advantage enjoyed by early adopters. The narrative culminates in the emergence of RPM, a systematic approach to analyzing and predicting the results of a business’ largest and least understood cost center: marketing and sales.

Be sure to check out the Eloqua Future of Revenue microsite to see the complete package.

I had a great time on the project working with Leslie, the team at JESS3 and with Brian at Eloqua. Thanks guys. I can't wait to do it again!

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Creating REWORK Slides on the Road

It was Friday, and I'd just arrived in Austin, Texas for SXSW 2010 Interactive festival.

I was enjoying the vibe, warm spring weather and seeing old friends, when I received an email from David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals.

David was preparing a deck of slides for his talk 'Why You're Not Done Yet' set for Sunday at 11am, when he realized he could really use several new pieces of art for the presentation.

He asked if I'd be willing to knock out 3 illustrations and I said yes. Of course, I'd decided to leave my Canon flatbed scanner at home.

How in the world would I get 3 new illustrations into the 37signals Photoshop slide document?

Solving the Drawings First

First things first. I had to solve the drawing challenge before I could focus any energy on making them into slides.

David provided good descriptions of what he needed for the slides, so I started there.

Here are the 3 slides I needed to create artwork for:

1. Giving up is good
2. Restate the problem
3. You can always do less

I grabbed my Moleskine and started thinking on paper. Here are my solutions:

1. Giving up is good

On this slide, my first thought was to use typography. While sketching out the type for GIVE UP! a white flag popped in my head as a perfect, universal metaphor for giving up on something. I added it above the words:

One down.

2. Restate the problem

For this one, I thought of simple ways to get this idea across. What about (A) the words RE-STATE and PROBLEM stacked with arrows pointing to each other?

Too complex. Then I flipped the word PROBLEM backward and stacked another PROBLEM word going the right direction below (B) — simple and effective:

Two down.

3. You can always do less

The last slide graphic took a little more pondering. After letting it brew a while, an idea came to me related to resizing objects in design software.

What about the word LESS in the lower left corner of a rectangle with an arrow pointing from the upper right corner back at LESS? Yep, perfect:

The third and final piece down and out.

I sent iPhone photos of the sketches to David and he loved all 3 ideas.

Solving the Scanner Problem

But how would I get these 3 ideas from my Moleskine onto my MacBook and into the master Photoshop slide document?

That's when I thought — why not use my iPhone's camera?

I found good natural lighting and shot photos of the 3 sketches as close-up and straight-on as possible. Photos were synced to my MacBook and into iPhoto.

The iPhone's camera quality was just fine.

In Photoshop, I played with levels, contrast, brightness and sharpening to get the art to the same quality as the rest of David's presentation images, to match the scanned REWORK illustrations he was already using.

Slides Done. Ready to Rock

When the slides were done, I sent David a set of PNGs for his presentation:

David was pleased with the new art and the Saturday afternoon delivery.

Mission Accomplished

On stage Sunday morning, David's slides looked great. I loved solving the challenge creatively and technically with the limited tools I had on the road.

Next time you find yourself faced with a challenge and what seem like limited tools, revise your assumptions. Think creatively about how you can embrace limitations and use what you have to solve the problem.

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