Visual note-taking
My first steps at sketchnoting
I’ve always doodled, but I never thought that I could transform my silly drawings into something useful. Before starting sketchnoting, I took a look at The Sketchnote Handbook to read about the basics and the results I could expect after practising, which seemed a bit daunting at the time. Then, I gathered all the materials that I would need and… I was ready to start sketchnoting!!
To be honest, my first contact with the technique felt like a total failure: the speaker talked so fast (or so I thought) that I wasn’t able to write down everything that I wanted in a sketchy way; it was either writing the info that I wanted or sketching beautifully the few phrases and words I was able to get.
So after the first attempt I was a bit discouraged, but I gave myself a day (or two) and I made a second attempt with a significant difference: my objective this time was to see the video as many times as necessary to capture the info I needed in a more graphical way. I reckon I saw the video 3 times in a row, but I must admit that it helped a lot; I was able to dedicate some time to do a bit of lettering and to include little doodles and icons. I also realized that while I was finishing the letters of the phrases and words I was writing, I was able to focus on what the speaker was saying and to keep extracting info from the talk, therefore sketching actually helps to engage, but you have to get comfortable with the technique first. The second attempt resulted in something more similar to the examples in the book although the distribution of the info in the page was a bit messy, but it made me want to try a third time. On the third attempt I paused the video a few times whenever there was too much info together that I wanted to jot down. That, I thought, would give me the time I needed to do a bit of lettering without having to watch the video a second time. And I was totally right: the third attempt was my best to date. I was totally engaged with the talk (despite the pausing) and I was able to capture all the info I deemed important and to distribute it in a more logical and neater way.
Nevertheless, I didn’t want to stop once I got the result I wanted, so I kept trying a bit more. I did another few attempts, watching the video once or twice depending on the occasion. With every attempt the layout became clearer and I was able to introduce a bit more of doodling (it may have helped the fact that I almost knew the talk by heart by then), which proofs that practice leads to perfection. However, the best layout is still the third, the one where I paused the video. I reckon that the fact of actually pausing the video gave me some time to think and helped me catch my breath to keep taking notes, and that lead to a better distribution of the information and a more “artistic” outcome.
I am very happy with the result I have obtained because you can see little improvements on each try. And although the one I consider the best still differs from the examples in the book, it finally can be considered as sketchnoting and in order to match the examples, there’s nothing a little practice can’t do!
