What is a Visual Note Taking Handbook?
A handbook is a starting point for your own visual note taking journey.
There are many different reasons for taking this journey. For some it will be the enjoyment of drawing and creating. For others it will be the challenge of developing a new skill. And for many it will be a desire to learn and remember more (after all, that’s usually the reason we take notes).
Whatever your reason, the good news is that you can start today!
My Visual Note Taking Handbook is a collection of more that 50 visual notes that I have created over the last few years. They are not about showing you the right way to do visual note taking, but rather to help you with ideas to get you started. I’ve kept the book nice and compact so you can carry it with you for inspiration, while building your own techniques.
The beautiful thing about this process is that you will develop your own creative tricks and styles; the outcomes are as diverse and complex as our individual brains.
One important point to remember is that there is a difference between art and visual note taking.
Don’t become intimidated by note takers who are artists. The main thing is to develop a style that suits you; just engaging in the process of visual note taking will have amazing benefits for your creativity and your ability to learn the content, so relax and enjoy!
When starting out you can simply use the images, shapes, symb0ls and pictures that you are confortable with (for some people this is essentially letters, numbers, arrows, and shapes, with the occasional star or flower). But you can be guaranteed that this ‘toolkit’ will gradually grow as you develop your skills (most visual note takers practice drawing specific pictures as they discover gaps in their drawing ability).
There are four steps for you to follow (as eloquently sketched by Veronica Erb, in Mike Rohde’s The Sketchnote Handbook):
- Plan
- Capture
- Refine
- Repeat
I’ve done an interpretation of Veronica’s steps as follows:
My spin is slightly different to Veronica’s as this is what works for me. You will work out what works for you and create your own version.
So, welcome to the world of visual note taking.
I hope your journey is as enjoyable and educational as mine has been.
