Last week’s graphic recording engagement in Vancouver is complete; the charts have been photographed, edited and sent to the client. I’m going to steal a few moments from my next project to reflect on my process.
The TrainerMarkers were very fun to use, especially the light grey. It’s fantastic for adding shading and dimension to things. The yellow and orange were also nice for highlighting word clusters. I found that it took a little extra concentration to make a good strong line with the full nib width: I’m going to need to do some more practice work in the studio to get the hang of these tools. The royal blue one is actually a little on the purple side for my tastes, but the other colours are pretty true.
Having the icon library on hand was great. Especially important was having “iconized” versions of my client organizations’ logos so I could reproduce them around the edges of the chart for the introductory session. I was missing one logo out of the four – must remember next time to have ALL logos on hand for titles, etc. I’m glad I didn’t have the Bikablo with me, as it would have been a distraction. Having put advance thought into various icon concepts meant that when I went to the wall, I had a good visual vocabulary to draw from even without my cheat-sheets.
During the session there were three discussion segments. For the first one, I knew that the facilitator wanted to draw a particular model. He had given me a text document describing the type of model in advance so I had a plan for how to lay out my page. For the second and third discussion segments I had less of an idea about what the questions and desired outcomes were, so I think the graphics were less effective as a tool to “draw things together” for the group. Next time I work with this facilitator, we’ll both know more about what to discuss ahead of time so that the graphics can be more supportive of his outcomes.
All in all, the session was very enjoyable and the participants were lovely people. It reminded me how much I love this work! Woohoo!
Tags: Graphic Recording, growth, reflections
