5 New and Challenging Ways of Using Visuals Beyond Sketchnotes

Published in

Sketchy Ideas

2 min readMay 24, 2022

I’ve been sketchnoting for 8 years.

But recently I’ve been captivated by visual thinking beyond sketchnotes.

Here are 5 ways my use of visuals is evolving.

Atomic visuals ⚛️

Instead of creating a summary of multiple points, an atomic visual has only one point.

This means a sketchnote might be broken into multiple visuals, or you can focus on one part of a larger whole.

Here’s an example

2 years ago I discovered PKM.

Smart notes use similar principles to sketchnote and these link based tools are great for organizing visuals.

Check out my chat with @rohdesign on the @sketchnotearmy podcast.

Procreate lets you export your images as an animation.

This means you can do something between an atomic visual, sketchnote and whiteboard explainer video.

I’m investigating what content works best in this format.

Sketchnoting is about capturing information.

But visual facilitation includes more.

It’s about helping teams and individuals break past barriers using visuals.

I have seen this at work a few times and I wonder how I can enhance my skills here.

I guess this isn’t really anything new for me but it’s an area I’m interesting in at the moment.

How can I refine my drawing (even if it’s simple) so my images are clearer and more engaging.

It’s why I’m sharing more video tutorials in my newsletter.

If you’re interested in using visuals for learning and sharing information, you might like my weekly sketchnote roundup.

Each week I share 2 sketchnotes and a tutorial:

Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog