Graphic goodies

I just received my first shipment from Neuland North America – I must be a “real” graphic facilitator now, because I’ve got Neuland products! These are my business’ Christmas present to itself. Here’s what Santa got Directis:

BIKABLO!

Bikablo is a pocket-sized coil-bound book containing hundreds of icons for use on flip charts / murals, depicting soft concepts like “global connections” as well as symbolic icons like a turtle, horse, sheep, buildings etc. The purpose of the book is to give you ideas about ways to depict concepts and objects with quickly-drawn illustrations. There are three to five icons in each page with a variety of words that could be associated with the icons. There’s also an index in which you can look up concepts and find icons in the book. The trick is to study the book and then practice drawing the icons with your own hand, using their shading suggestions.

TrainerMarkers (basic and colourful sets)

These are monster-big refillable water-based markers for large titles or shading. I splurged and got myself 12 – the four basic colours for titles and outlines, as well as the assorted colours set because I just can’t be restrained to red, black, blue and green. These things are BIG! The nib is 12mm wide and 6mm thick so you can do a variety of thicknesses of lines. The barrel of the marker itself is also big and thick so they’re not good for small writing, but excellent for broad brush strokes.

I have a graphic recording engagement next week in Vancouver and I am SO looking forward to whipping out the BIG pens. *glee!*

Prepping for an Engagement

Right now, I have a long list of words that I’m preparing ideas for, based on the project. Here are some of the concepts I’m brainstorming: planning, mobilize, community, assessment, evaluate, gaps, model, barriers, relationships, collaboration, innovation, respect, capacity-building, access for all, strength-building, representation, impact, social network, sustainability, joy, funds, mentors, conversations, meetings, stewardship, inventory, goals, action plan, partners, implementing, needs, consensus, demographics.

I’ve taken a few pieces of letter-sized paper and folded it so there are 8 sections on each page. Right now I’m using pencil to put a different icon into each section. I’m not really labelling the sections, just collecting the icons. Then when I’m at the engagement I’ll have these pages tucked into my kit and if I hit a wall (recorder’s block?) I can whip out the pages and peruse for an image I like. The reason I’ve created my own pages is because I know that I can draw each one of these icons quickly. If I simply took my Bikablo or computerized graphics with me, I would be stalled while my brain communicated with my hand on how to reproduce the image.

When I’m done with these pages, I’ll scan and upload them in case you want to borrow!

Quick addition: One of the things I do when I’m trying to find an icon for something specific is I google the word, then go to “Google Images” and choose Clip Art only from the search options. This gives me a bunch of thumbnails of online images relating to the word. I find one or two simple ideas and then draw them out freehand in pencil a few times to get the “flow” of the lines. This is a great way to generate your own icons because you’re not actually copying anything, just re-interpreting!

Tags: preparation, resources, tools