The ability to connect and keep your online audience engaged is a new trick that demands new (and ancient!) tools to help learners of all types.
By seeing the translation of discussion topics into sketched drawings, viewers are visually engaged more than they could ever be with speaker video and slide decks.
The build up of graphics into a single visual over the course of a session or event provide a holistic view of the discussion and make the event AND the content memorable and shareable.
Big Paper Strategy offers live drawing services for virtual conferences, webinars, individual learning sessions, and online meetings of all kinds.
We can stream our crisp and clear screen full of sketches as either a screen share or webcam feed. This view can be with or without the tools we use to draw on the screen.
Sketchnote Video Example
This video stream is from a Shared Hope International Webinar. Scrub past the intros and see the image build over time.
FAQ on the illustrations in this video:
- Panelist questions received beforehand.
- Some elements are drawn beforehand for quick use.
- This webinar utilized the GoToWebinar platform.
- Screen streamed as a webcam feed as to not overwhelm speakers views.
What makes Big Paper Strategy Virtual Sketchnoting Service the best?
- Experience in live listening and graphic recording on site at events. We certainly miss days of gathering together, but we're doing our best to provide a NEW connection point.
- Prework and Research - Expect Big Paper Strategy to read your agenda, absorb your slide decks, and to create preliminary sketches and graphics that can be used in your live sketchnotes.
- A Vast Library of place-able content hand-drawn by Big Paper Strategy. Developed through live drawing experiences.
- Sketches of Speakers from provided photographs. You do want your SPEAKERS to share the created graphics, yes?
- Drawings 100% in your color theme. All colors of all pre-created images are automatically translated into your event's specific color scheme- leaving behind clashing colors!
- Crisp and legible text is predominantly typed (in hand drawn fonts). We don't mind writing our words manually- but sometimes, typing is a bit faster- we strive to capture YOUR ENTIRE event- not just snippets!
- High-powered PC-based broadcast over a 400Mbps fiber internet connection, rock solid Adobe Creative Cloud Suite. Screen/Webcam Splitting technology to eliminate technical snafus.
- Images are cleaned post-event and provided in vector/clear png/pdf format for printing and sharing at ANY size, and/or combined infographic style within hours of completion.
- We capture in Hyperbole, and Humor - Where possible, we listen for opportunities to accentuate our graphics with running and inside jokes, exaggeration and accentuation of positive elements. This is done with tact and is dependent on the subject matter.
- Optional Side Deck Editing Service- CONTENT is king for webinars and virtual conferences- if you need the slide deck of a particularly verbose speaker slimmed down- ask about our PowerPoint service.
Webcam or Screen Share of Graphic Note Taking?
Big Paper Strategy has streamed live note-taking illustrations on a number of different platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToWebinar, Intrado, RingCentral, Google Meeting and others. While each platform offers it's unique abilities, they often offer two opportunities for streaming graphics- the screen share and the webcam.
While the screen share method is the most straightforward, some platforms relegate screen shares to 'take over' the system and push out other speakers, other screen shares, and possibly slide share/powerpoint decks. We've developed a tool chain that allows our virtual note taking screen to be streamed AS a webcam stream- allowing us to be seen as a 'speaking' participant, and not as the leading screen. (Golly, it helps that Matt Orley your Big Paper Strategy lead, is a geek at heart!)
Our experience in Drawing for Virtual Events and Meetings
2020 has brought new challenge and opportunities for us all. Finding a new niche in offering a powerful virtual sketchnoting service has been a blessing. This medium fits our skill set in incredible ways.
Our first online screen share webinars were done using a drawing tablet and Photoshop. While this experience was successful, it helped us identify needs and allowed us to understand the medium.
What were those needs and lessons?
- High Contrast color schemes. Because of how online video services utilize image compression, it is important to present online viewers with high contrast colors so that colors are not grouped together in an image stream- and rendered invisible/illegible.
- Movable Elements- While Photoshop Layers provide a range of opportunity to split graphics, it pales in comparison to the individually select-able components of vector-based tools, like Adobe Illustrator. This is crucial for the ebb and flow of conversations, and for post-event editing.
- Preparedness - 2020 had Matt recreating his go-to library of icons and imagery components into ready to use, vector elements. With a plethora of concepts at our fingertips, graphic recordings are more fun and come alive quickly. As with our live graphic recording work, Matt studies, researches and has go to sketches (and now components) ready before any event.
- Follow and Zoom - Allowing Viewers to follow along with a zoomed-in view of a working graphic is a wonderful way to bring detailed work to the event attendee.
