A Live Illustration service to delight and surprise your guests and attendees!
Graphic recording is the act of live illustration of a spoken discussion, conversation, or speech for gatherings large and small. The purpose of the visuals is to connect ideas, issues, and comments. Graphic recording helps event attendees solve problems and visualize the entirety of a conversation in a single image or multiple images.
Recording happens on-location while a speaker is speaking or a discussion is taking place. But yes, we support virtual or hybrid events with live-streamed digital sketchnotes!
We use big paper or foam core boards, thick markers, and exceptional listening skills to create these visual records. Consider these large sketchnotes or mindmaps of your meeting, conference, roundtable, community discussion, or strategy meeting.
Graphic Recording can occur in the back of the room or front and center in tandem with a speaker. Location is a client choice and often depends on speaker expectations and ease of moving completed work into shared spaces.
Reinforce verbal statements
Add clarity to audience members
Delight and Surprise your Event Attendees
70+% of us are visual learners. That means that visual reinforcement of ideas and concepts is essential to convey messages, solidify meaning, and improve retention of information. Visual Engagement through graphic recording verifies an event attendee's thoughts, experience, and memory of a discussion or session.
Graphic Recording need not be for prescribed conversations but conversations of new concepts and new ideas. The ability to see ideas take shape on a board and understand the breadth of a discussion at large is hugely beneficial for brainstorming, strategy sessions, and other open-ended conversations.
I had no idea what the heck you guys were talking about until he drew it for me.
Increase Meeting Energy, Improve the Messaging, and Add a Little Color!
Graphic Recording for Conferences and Seminars
When a Conference Speaker has access to and utilizes graphic recording - everyone benefits. Speakers themselves find an audience that is more in tune with the messaging, the audience message retention improves exponentially, and the conference itself benefits in three ways:
- A visual target for social media sharing of the live event
- Exceptional imagery to be used for future conference promotion
- Sponsor worthy (exhibitor prospectus description ideas)
- A memorable point of differentiation among other conferences
Graphic Recording for Company Meetings
Corporate Events succeed when live illustration is involved. Not only do graphics stop circular conversations, but they serve as a record of an event that will be reviewed well after the meeting notes are filed away. Read more about corporate events here.
Companies use the Big Paper Strategy for
- Meeting Recording
- Strategic Vision Casting
- Strategic Planning
- Customer Journeys and Flow Maps
- Sales Whiteboard Design
- Brainstorming
Big Paper Strategy's Matt Orley has experience in engineering, manufacturing, nonprofit, web marketing, and interior mural printing. He might not be an expert in your specific industry, but his broad background makes him flexible.
Matt's favorite compliment ever:
Do you have a background in Tribal Law?
Benefits of Utilizing Graphic Recording at your Event
Event Attendee Engagement
Visual Learning aside, graphic recording encourages and honors those who contribute to an event's content (a single keynote speaker or a public discussion participant).
Because of increased participation, actions, decision-making, and content comprehension are developed and clear. Graphic recording honors people's contributions - in a permanent marker kind of way!
Creativity
Hiring a Graphic Recorder shows a commitment to creativity, playful attitudes, and a willingness to explore ideas and thoughts in new ways.
Entertainment and a Fuller Experience
While we capture content, Big Paper Strategy is on location to perform. It is powerful to see someone capture ideas as they are occurring in real-time. People enjoy watching an individual live illustrating- they make meetings or conferences more fun. Enriching and deepening the group experience by going beyond business-as-usual and thinking outside the box, graphic recording provokes more participation and a more profound thought process.
Big Picture
Graphic recording distills ideas to their essence and increases clarity. It organizes ideas by drawing connections and relationships, enabling participants to see links between ideas and understand the bigger picture. All content is visible and can be referred to simultaneously, while slides and talks are fleeting and quickly.
Sharing
Illustrations created live give a fast overview of the event's content for those that could not attend. - it gives them an insightful overview of what was said. Illustrations act as the basis for further conversations around topics, enabling a cascade of information and knowledge both during and after the recording.
Ask a question!
Frequently Asked Questions
A phone/ zoom conversation or two will help tailor a program to your needs, identify any preliminary project work, and work out logistics. Preliminary work includes conceptualizing and mapping out drawing components prior to the meeting, research, and reviewing presentations and speech notes as available or pertinent.
You will receive a proposal via email to review. A 50% deposit invoice will be available to secure your meeting date.
Upon your request, we will also send a standard Non-Disclosure Agreement, or, if your legal team prefers- we can review and sign your standard document.
Live Illustration is fun to watch; however, it need not be the center of attention. So the answer to 'where does a graphic recorder / live illustrator stand?' Matt has stood on the stage behind speakers, on the side of the room, or far in the back.
If graphic recordings boards are to be moved quickly from a ball/conference room to a common area- it is a good idea to find a location with a quick and easy path between both.
We draw on paper, whiteboards, and foam core material. We utilize easels and our own set of moveable wall panels. Preliminary conversations will define which material is best for your event and how we will get it on site.
Matt will load and bring all materials for most events within driving distance of the Big Paper Studio. When plane travel is required, we may work with your event team to secure a drawing surface. We utilize art supply stores as well as national supply distributors to secure materials.
Depending on the project and location, we may ask for the provision of easels - which are generally available at hotels, conference centers, and other typical meeting locations.
Lastly, a small table and low chair are requested to set materials on during a live illustration.
A vast majority of human beings are visual learners. While PowerPoint presentations are helpful, a unique and eclectic creative experience can engage meeting attendees in new ways.
Hiring a live illustrator or visual practitioner shows investment in your people. Being able to hear "Wow, I didn't think they thought we were worth this much" shows your employees that they are valued.
Having a live illustrator practically guarantees that meeting takeaways will not be forgotten. Attendees often snap photographs of Big Paper creations.
Bringing in an outsider brings a new perspective to any meeting. Not only do we help ask the stupid questions no one else is seeking, but our loyalty rests solely with the outcome, Asking tough questions and being a No-Person in a series of Yes-men is freeing to all people involved.
Bringing a mind with other-industry knowledge, a wide array of experiences, and both left and right brain thought helps head in new directions and inspire creativity.
Photographs of created images can be used for internal communications, slide share presentations, reports, sales tools for future event ticket sales, and even leveraged in print on coffee mugs, awards, and more.
Our work is often hung or placed in corporate offices, employee lounges and reflects past events and excitement. Some clients professionally mount graphic recordings in frames behind glass or clear plexiglass.
Images can be recreated digitally in high precision vector format- making them applicable for mural work and prominent signage. See examples of our virtual/ digital sketchnotes (popular during the pandemic) to get an idea of our vector art style.
Graphic recording is the act of creating illustrations that follow the verbal components of a meeting, talk, or conference through summaries in both written word and graphics. I use this phrase interchangeably with live illustration.
A graphic recorder will use large surfaces ( foam boards, paper, chalkboard, whiteboard), high-quality markers, and other marking tools. Drawings can be created before the group experiencing the discussion or revealed afterward and presented with other images in a collection.
Using concepts of visual storytelling, a graphic recorder will translate facts and figures into characters, emotions, metaphors, and dialogues. The resultant imagery creates stories with which viewers can involve themselves instead of forgettable bullet-point lists.
The three skills involved with graphic recording are listening, synthesizing, and drawing, most often in real-time. Leading businesses and event organizers continually seek deeper engagement for their visual learners - and live illustration is a delightful and surprising way to do so.
Photo Credits on this page:
- Every Angle, Cleveland
- Jennifer Cubas
- Ketara Gadahn / Studio Alani
