Visually recording a conversation

API Evangelist

What is it we do again?

I am a cobbler. I spend so much time with other people’s shoes that I completely neglect my own. Every once in a while, when there is a big enough lull in the pipeline of work, I experience some lost-ness which results in me second-guessing everything I do. This is the season I am currently in and although somewhat disconcerting, it does have its upside.

When I’m busy, I yearn for the mental space to be able to tumble some things around. Lost-ness has been crucial to me discovering new paths (the Remixer Machine being a good case in point) – to have the time for curiosity to nudge me through a different door.

I have a good look at the path beneath my feet and I wonder how it got there. Then I notice my shoes. Boy, do they really need some love…

I wonder how someone is supposed to understand the services provided by Visual Thinkery, if we don’t try to explain what they are and how they work. So I sit down to try to articulate what we actually do. I already share lots of examples of the creative output (recently updated!) on the website. But the Visual Thinkery process itself is where the gold lies – and our clients really only see why it works once they’ve been through that process.

After revisiting the projects completed in the last year, I attempt to group them into separate stories:

I then wonder if I could create a service map that might make sense to someone visiting the Visual Thinkery site for the first time.

Clear as mud? This is, as ever, a half-baked work-in-progress. In fact, this whole operation is a half-baked work-in-progress. But then again, I wouldn’t have it any other way…

GO-GN

Aesthetic, Conversations, Identity, Visual Language

UNEA4

API Evangelist

INC-4: Global Cartoons for a Global problem

Global Cartoons for a Global Problem

Goodness knows we need one: a global treaty on plastics. But Big Oil with its stranglehold on the stuff of life is lurking with unlimited lobbying resources. Their playbook is one learned from Big Tobacco and Big Sugar: delay, distract, derail…

Last week, I was covering the fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) for the BreakFreeFromPlastic community as they met in Ottawa, Canada, to develop a legally-binding global treaty on plastics. It’s always a bit weird covering a conference when you’re not physically present. The beginnings of my best cartoons (in my humble opinion at least…) often emerge from an insignificant bit of detail in a conversation. A throwaway comment. A metaphor leaned into. The beginning of a story. So instead I have to rely on having eyes and ears in the ground and a whatsapp group for creative members of the community to throw things into Bryan’s cartoon ideas melting pot. It would be impossible without my contact – she’s actually at the conference, able to corral the troops and filter out the noise, preventing ideas from getting over-thought and overcomplicated.

One of the initial moosy ideas for INC4...

I sketch up ideas in black & white – so as not to be distracted by colour. It means that I prioritise contrast over colour – which is important as there are some parts of the message that really need to pop.

When you’re creating a cartoon, you’re inside it. It becomes very hard to see it objectively as someone else would with fresh eyes. It’s similar with humour. Once you know the joke, it’s different second time around. So it’s easy to go from being initially tickled by an idea to binning it within the space of half an hour. So the process is this:

1. Catch the idea

2. Sketch it up

3. Move on (before you kill it…)

So much time was wasted revisiting the treaty scope. Kicking the process into the long grass is a tactic as old as time…

This cartoon was originally drawn 5 years ago, but it is still as appropriate today… 🙁 It was remixed and reused following “Plastic isn't the problem” comments from the Exxon CEO leading up the negotiations.

Was this idea too edgy? Possibly…

Have you ever thought about the presence of toxic additives in plastic products? No, me neither.

Bioplastic is the future! Oh now hang on a mo…

When it comes to Plastic Pollution, I’ve learned so much from the people I’ve had the privilege to work with. Not so long ago, I was completely oblivious to so much of the plastic world around me. My own ignorance, curiosity and learning form a key part of the cartoons I create.

There were several interventions to avoid the inclusion of Microplastics and Nanoplastics - and the metaphor of “shedding a little skin” is actually a direct quote from one of the delegates…

Ineos - a huge virgin plastic producer - were forced to shut down their local Styrene production plant near Ottawa due to having released high levels of benzene in the air, making some of the conference participants sick. I mean who writes this stuff?!

Making a cartoon work for a global audience is far from straightforward. However, you’ll know when an idea has resonated when the request comes to facilitate the translation of the cartoon into another language. This in itself can be problematic – and it comes with two main pitfalls.

Firstly, other languages can obviously use a different number of words to say a phrase. Especially if an idiom is used. For example – “You’re pulling my leg” in Finnish becomes “You’re pulling me by the nose”, in German “You are taking me unto your arm”, and in Russian “You’re hanging noodles from my ears”. In a cartoon the speech bubbles form an integral part of the artwork, and they evolve as the artwork evolves. Suddenly having to change their shape or size to accommodate a few extra words can cause a real design headache.

A visual idiom that probably won’t translate…

Secondly, writing is much slower and proofing is much more difficult. A missing accent or misspelt word is so easy to do, and might remain unspotted to the very last. This adds time to the to-ing and fro-ing of finalising the artwork. I’ve toyed with the idea of making remixable cartoons using the fabulous Remixer Machine. I’ve already created a few comic fonts of my own hand, so giving participants the ability to remix a cartoon with different words is very possible. Hopefully I can have a prototype of the remixable cartoon built for INC-5 – watch this space!

The final leg of the treaty process will take place in Busan, South Korea at the end of November.

You can read all about the INC4 conference progress (or lack of it) here: https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/2024/04/30/inc-4-negotiating-countries-fail-to-respond-to-the-magnitude-of-the-plastics-crisis/

GO-GN

Aesthetic, Conversations, Identity, Visual Language

UNEA4

API Evangelist

OER24

Phew! I’m just back from Cork City, Ireland, having spent a couple or three days at the OER conference. OER is my favourite conference. Not only is it a chance to catch up with a bunch of Visual Thinkery clients – who I usually only get to see online – but the people that attend this conference are people-people. They care about care. They talk about social justice in their work. They are educators, passionate about what they do. So it’s such a treat to have a few days to hang out and absorb their warmth.

An Open History of the OER24 logo

I had run through the Visual Thinkery process with the conference organisers a bunch of weeks beforehand. From that emerged a freehand aesthetic for the conference including a bright and bold logo.

I’d leaned into a part of our creative conversation about Celtic Ireland being an ancient seat of learning – famous for its deliciously illustrated texts such as the Book of Kells.

At the conference, a few people told me how much they liked the logo. So I thought I’d create a quick stop motion video exported from Procreate (my iPad drawing software) illuminating part of the drawing process of its evolution:

A little humour goes a long way

When having creating conversations with clients, I’m always listening out for little golden nuggets of humour, as they often make great cartoons. A lot of AI-related chatter permeated the conference, and I found myself jotting down a few ideas for future AI related cartoons (if I ever get around to bringing them to life). The cartoon below came from the same creative process as mentioned above and is already a favourite of mine:

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Pesky Ethics - by Visual Thinkery CC-BY-ND

Keynote #1

I sat down to capture the first day’s opening keynote by the lovely Rajiv Jhangiani in a sketchnote form. Sketchnoting is extremely intensive as whilst drawing one thing, you need to listen out for the next thing to draw. On the other hand, the creative constraint of capturing meaning before it disappears means that there is no opportunity to overthink it. Did I mention I tend to overthink things?

Fairytales and Dystopian futures - Rajiv Jhangiani - oer24

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Fairy Tales and Dystopian Futures - by Visual Thinkery CC-BY-ND

Keynote #2

The second keynote was completely different. Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz were co-presenting. There were interactive elements which provided useful breathing space for me to catch up on the drawing.

Open Education at a crossroads - Catherine Cronin and Laura Czerniewicz - oer24

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Open Education at a Crossroads - by Visual Thinkery CC-BY-ND

Keep on running

I managed to get myself up for a 10k run on the morning of the second day (I’m running the London Marathon – eek! – you can sponsor me here) I ran along the banks of the river Lee on a cool sunny morning. All the way to Blackrock castle and back. It seems I have more exploring to do around that part of the world, and find out where it gets it’s rebellious reputation…

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OER24 Themes Postcard - by Visual Thinkery CC-BY-ND

And finally

I leave Cork with lots to think about and some new avenues to visually explore. A conversation over coffee with Maren Deepwell, Meredith Huffman and Alan Levine about conference formats sticks in my head. We hit upon the Upside Down Pear Cake conference format, where each session starts with the conclusions first, then gathering questions, spending the remaining time answering and explaining how they got there. Maybe a thought for next year’s OER25…

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OER24 Logo - by Visual Thinkery CC-BY-ND

GO-GN

Aesthetic, Conversations, Identity, Visual Language

UNEA4

API Evangelist

That would look great on a T-shirt

That would look great on a T-shirt

A long time ago, when all of this was still green fields, I shared a flat at university with a guy that made his own t-shirts. He got them printed at a wee print shop tucked away near Kelvingrove station in Glasgow’s west end. He was particularly taken with the design on the Tetra Pak milk cartons produced by Robert Wiseman dairies. Don’t ask me why. University affords us the opportunity to reinvent ourselves, and he went for milk cartons on t-shirts. On reflection, he was quite possibly ahead of his time.

When I sift back through a conversation I’ve recorded with a client, looking for visual ideas, I often find myself playing with a logo, or a hand-drawn unofficial logo, and wondering what it might look like on a T-shirt or as a sticker on a laptop.

There’s something pretty powerful about someone wanting to wear a t-shirt or to stick a sticker on their laptop. They’re saying I’m aligned to this – this is part of who I am.

Over the last year I’ve been working on a series of Zines – cartoons and stories about growing up in troubled Ulster. The third Zine in the series looks back to a disremembered time when Ulster Presbyterians cradled the fragile beginnings of Irish Republicanism back in the late 1790s. It started as a secretive group called the Muddlers Club. It evolved into the Society of the United Irishmen. It ended in a failed bloody uprising that would change Ulster forever.

But of course I never knew about any of it until recently, as to some it has proved an inconvenient history incompatible with the tribal polarisation that dominated Ulster in my youth.

It is new strung and shall be heard…

When I stumbled across the United Irishmen movement’s logo, I was immediately fascinated with it. It sparked a curious idea to create my own version of the Muddlers Club logo – which ended up becoming central to the Zine I was trying to write.

Drawing on an iPad with RGB colour allows you to put bright orange on top of a deep blue. Turn the zing up to 11 and make it pop! And it wasn’t too long before I returned to it and thought – I wonder what that would look like on a T-shirt?

I get most of my T-shirts and stickers printed by Sticker Mule these days. They run an offer every week that often catches my eye. It’s perfect for a small pilot run – to test out an idea – to turn digital into physical. The trouble is that most of my T-shirts are now self-designed experiments, and I can only wear one at once!

Bryan sporting a self-designed Penguin T-shirt designed for GO-GN

Stickers on the other hand are a whole different matter. I decided to get a run of stickers featuring the Muddlers Club logo for the special first few people who ordered the latest Zine.

Zines & Custom Stickers

If you’re interested in some Zines about Ulster you can check them out here.

AND if you’d like to get some custom stickers or T-shirts made by Sticker Mule and you want a discount you can get £8/$10 off and if you do, I’ll get the same off my next experiment…