scribing

We facilitate many sessions all around the world from President Obama’s Commencement speech in Kalamazoo, Michigan to events in Brussels and Asia. Most of these sessions last one to three days, but you never know when or where the scribing done during the event will end up. Some organizations display it in their offices, some use it to continue to communicate ideas, and some use it to announce the launching of a new product.

Inspiration comes in many forms.

Sometimes you get in a rut. You feel uninspired or stuck or like maybe you’ve “lost it.” Maybe you’re a little rusty and don’t trust your skills anymore.

I doodle. A lot.

In fact, I actually get paid to doodle. Creating fresh graphic representations of information is a huge part of my work life, and doodling is part of my early design process.

Doodling is one of the ways I brainstorm. I use it to communicate concepts and draft thinking to colleagues and clients. In fact, doodling has become my preferred form of expression, communication, and note taking.  It’s an integral part of my design process both at work and at home. These days, I think in pictures.

I love scribing. That’s another term for graphic facilitation. Other terms include “graphic recorder” and “whiteboard artist”, but whatever you call it, it’s essentially the same thing.

October seems to be the month of meetings in the Boston design scene. I managed to attend two of them last week, and while they were very different in nature they did share some common themes about design and design thinking: it is a discipline, a process, a field of study, a term going mainstream, and above all a business imperative.

On October 5th AIGA Boston hosted an evening discussion titled Design 2014: Harnessing the Power of Design Thinking Now.

Periodically we share our hand-drawn icons that emerge from our scribing work with our clients, not just because we think they're cool but so they may be re-used in some way in another form.