Connecting the Dots

THIS WEEKEND, Steve Jobs and his Stanford Commencement Speech from 2005 reminded me how important it is to realize we often only connect the dots of our lives looking back. Like Steve, I can see now how the more difficult moments have shaped me and my future for the better.

Thanks Steve for your inspiring leadership and example for all of us.

Update on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 by Mike Rohde

Thanks Steve. Rest in peace.

Madison Ruby Logo & T-Shirt Designs

IT'S ALWAYS FUN to see a logo and t-shirt design in use. Last weekend I had the pleasure of paying a visit to Madison Ruby conference, where the logo I designed and t-shirt I illustrated were in heavy use.

Here are samples of the logo and shirt graphics:

I've created a Flickr set for Madison Ruby, with all of my sketches and in-progress vector art if you're curious how a logo is created from concept sketch to final art.

Thank You

Thank you Jim and Jen Remsik for the opportunity to help brand Madison Ruby. I had a great time working with you and heard great things about the event.

Well done!

Photo: Ashe Dryden

The Future of Water Illustration

WATER IS A RESOURCE we so often take for granted, yet is incredibly precious. I was fortunate to have an opportunity to illustrate various issues and solutions related to water for the Future of Water project. This is the story of my process.

Dow and GolinHarris saw some of my illustration work and contacted me about doing a sketchnote style illustration about water for the Future of Water project.

Concept Notes

After an initial phone discussion, I reviewed all 60 of the 1 minute videos on the Future of Water site, noting ideas I found interesting as I watched and listened.

Pencil Sketches

From my general notes, I created pencil sketches of the illustration, laying out the structure of the piece. I shared my pencil sketch with the client, providing them with a clear sense of where I was headed with the illustration.

Inking the Illustration

Next, I began inking the piece, creating the elements on tracing paper over the tight pencils I'd created, making adjustments as needed.

Once the inking was complete, I scanned in the artwork and began assembling the scanned pieces into a multiple-layered, unified Photoshop file. This approach lets me adjust images within the whole or make changes if need be.

Colorization

When the black and white art was approved, I moved on color — the most challenging part of the piece. It took a while to get the blue colors I had envisioned, but once they were established, I began working down the B&W art, colorizing the whole piece.

Here's the final illustration as it appears on the Future of Water website:

Thank You

Many thanks to Dow, GolinHarris and Len Kendall for working with me on this project. I had a great time and am pleased to bring to light the challenges and opportunities we have on the topic of water.

An Event Apart Minneapolis Sketchnotes

THE TWIN CITIES hosted An Event Apart last week, featuring leading speakers in web design, development, web typography and experience design. AEA inspired my design practice and provided opportunities to meet many new friends in the design community.

Milwaukee friends Kris Hunt and Paula Clemons attended AEA and invited me to ride along from Milwaukee to Minneapolis to test out their new Subaru (Road trip!). We ended the trip meeting Kevin Farner at Target Field at the Twins vs. Red Sox game.

Patrick Rhone and his wife Bethany invited me to stay with them in St. Paul while in town, and we had a great time together. I loved their 1885 victorian home, their cute daughter and got to experience a slice of life in the Twin Cities.

But best of all, I thoroughly enjoyed talking nerdy Mac, pen and book stuff with Patrick and meeting fellow nerd and St. Paul Pioneer Press tech writer Julio Oheda-Zapata during my down time.

Sketchnoting AEA

I was brought in to sketchnote the event by Jeffrey Zeldman and the AEA team, and it went well. With each sketchnoting assignment, the challenge is to find a balance between too little and too much information on the page. My approach is to capture ideas with type, images and text, finding a mix of those elements as I capture presentations in real time.

Download the AEA Sketchnotes PDF

You can download a 6.5 MB PDF version of these notes, convenient for printing or viewing on an iPad. Thanks to An Event Apart for hosting the download.

AEA Sketchnotes on Flickr

I've included the event's sketchnotes, separated by speaker with links to each section below (click the images to see the higher res versions on Flickr.)

Jeffrey Zeldman - Content First!

Jason Santa Maria - On Web Typography

Richard Rutter - Detail in Web Typography

Luke Wroblewski - Mobile Web Design Moves

Sarah Parmenter - Creating User Experiences

Ethan Marcotte - The Responsive Web Designer's Workflow

Eric Meyer - Using Flexible Boxes

Jeremy Keith - Design Principles

Nicole Sullivan - Our Best Practices Are Killing Us

Kristina Halvorson - A Content Strategy Roadmap

Andy Clarke - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

Jared Spool - The Secret Lives of Links

Enjoy & Share

I hope you enjoy my AEA Minneapolis Sketchnotes. Feel free to use the embedding features of Flickr to include favorite images in your own blog posts and feel free to share these on Twitter. Sketchnotes are made to be enjoyed!

Sketchnoting Photo by Kris Hunt

Sketchnoting An Event Apart Minneapolis

IN OCTOBER 2008 I attended and captured 82 pages of sketchnotes An Event Apart in Chicago - one of my early, formative sketchnote experiences.

I had a great time, and ever since, I've wanted to attend and sketchnote AEA again — but timing with my schedule just never worked out — until this year.

I'll be attending An Event Apart 2011 in Minneapolis next week (August 7-9), invited by the Godfather of Web Standards, Jeffrey Zeldman to capture sketchnotes.

I'm very curious to see how the messages of the speakers have changed since 2008.

If you're at AEA next week, come on over and say hello.