What is graphic recording?

Graphic Recording, or scribing, is the live drawing of a meeting or event by a Scribe… in other words, me. As people discuss and explain their ideas I capture them on a large piece of paper, synthesising the essential elements of the event into a combination of words and images. As you can imagine, in a world where Powerpoint still dominates, it’s a powerful technique. Better still, the resulting drawings can be re-worked as Rich Pictures, pulling out the most important points and distilling key messages into their most potent form.

Graphic recording works beautifully for everyone. Businesses and organisations expend a lot of effort running meetings and creating events. Graphic Recording delivers an extra, essential visual element with the benefits of bringing workshops, meetings and events to life, and creating a visual record. I have drawn for organisations large and small, everything from big software companies and the NHS to tiny student-run events.

I use large sheets of paper to record a speaker using an entertaining mix of cartoons, diagrams and text. In a workshop, a more intimate affair, my work forms a cornerstone of facilitation. At key moments throughout an event there will be times when live illustration has a particularly powerful effect.

Also it can be done in the summer at festivals.

I work in boardrooms, workshops, offices, hotels, on stage, off stage, in hotels in foreign countries, on exhibition stands… anywhere I can put up a sheet of paper. Even if there’s no space for a big sheet of paper, it’s still entirely possible to visualise an event. Using a large drawing board provides plenty of space to capture ideas, big enough for participants to see. So far there hasn’t been a technology invented that can beat a massive bit of paper and a pen.

Because people think visually, audiences and participants respond really well to visualisations of the event they’re involved in. This unusually high level of engagement is invaluable to an event organiser who has worked hard to bring so many people together in the same place. I am often asked if my work can distract an audience. If it does, then good. It’s better for people to lose themselves in a wholly relevant business-focused drawing than spend their time gazing out of the window!

A Scribe or a team of Scribes listens carefully, watching the event unfold, processing the information and capturing it in a combination of words and images. Traditionally it’s done with a pen and a big bit of paper. Tablets and Wacom tablets connected to big screens can work too. But there’s something special about a large, empty sheet or screen being filled up live, as an event progresses. The audience gets a big kick out of it, too.

The Global pandemic had the effect of shutting down the meeting industry world wide. Yet event planners, business people and anyone who needed to talk to someone else quickly innovated. As video calls became the norm so did virtual events. We found a way to connect right into Zoom calls and spent the two years of COVID frantically drawing online. Using tools like Mural and Miro the Graphic Facilitation continued.

Here is an example of a drawn template used to help facilitate an ideas session – in this case a little too successfully!

Graphic Facilitation is whereby one uses large paper templates and posters to engage people in workshops. Pulling the information from them. Graphic recoding is in actual fact a subset of Graphic Facilitation. Graphic Facilitators often like to have a Graphic Recording Artist (or scribe) with them to help with the event. The two practices are closely related and share many skills and concepts.

As technology marches on the mighty pen and paper is sometimes replaced with a complex AV system and an iPad (or other computerised drawing device). While the traditional approach of a drawing board has an impact in an intimate space, a huge projector and a conference with hundreds of people can be event more impressive. Yet while the tech changes the fusion of listening, processing and drawing continues.