In this hands-on course with Eva-Lotta Lamm, you will learn how to create and use simple visuals as a powerful language to think through problems and clearly communicate any kind of content.
You’ll build fundamental sketching skills by learning the core principles and a practical framework for drawing anything simply and clearly.
Through hands-on practice, you’ll develop the skills and confidence to start adding visuals to your own thinking, conversations with colleagues, client workshops, brainstorms and meetings.
What is Visual Thinking?
The world is a complex place full interesting problems waiting to be solved.
No matter if big or small, personal or business related, tactical or strategic, we often try to solve these problems with language – talking and writing about what we think and what we plan to do.
Language is a great tool, but it has its limitations: It’s linear, it can be quite abstract and it can hold a fair bit of ambiguity.
That’s where Visual Thinking comes in.
When we visualise our thoughts, we are forced to explore what the concepts we talk about actually mean and how the different pieces of information relate to each other. It becomes possible to literally see the bigger picture, identify patterns, spot gaps and make connections.
We can use visuals to bring clarity to a wide variety of content: We can think through and communicate systems, processes, experiences, user journeys, stories, strategy or company vision. And the simplest and most immediate way to visualise something is to simply sketch it – on a white-board, a post-it or the back of napkin.
Target audience
This workshop is for anyone who needs to digest and communicate complex information on a regular basis, alone or in teams, with colleagues or clients.
Eva-Lotta has taught a wide range of professions like designers, product managers, researchers, engineers, coaches, consultants, facilitators, teachers, speakers, marketers and strategists, who can all benefit from the skills presented and implement them into their own work in various ways.
This workshop is aimed both at absolute beginners (you don’t need any sketching skills) as well as people who had previous exposure to sketching and visual thinking and want to get more practice and learn a structured approach to sketching out complex problems.
Program
Day 1 will be mostly dedicated to learning and practicing the basics of sketching, providing you with the core principles and a practical framework for drawing anything simply, quickly (with some practice) and clearly.
Day 2 focuses on how we can apply these techniques to explore problems, structure content, tell stories and describe systems and processes.
You will leave the workshop with the necessary skills and tools to start applying Visual Thinking to your day-to-day work.
The 2-days will provide you with a solid foundation and the confidence to keep expanding your skills and further explore the world of Visual Thinking in the future.
Agenda
Day 1
Sketching basics
How to draw anything, simply and clearly
- Warm-up, developing motor skills and confident lines
- Sketching objects
- Sketching people, actions and emotions
- Perspective, depth, and shading
Building a visual vocabulary
How to develop your own set of icons for common terms in your day-to-day work.
Developing visual metaphors
How to find images for abstract concepts
- Visually exploring the meaning of abstract terms
- Strategies for finding images and metaphors
- Sharpening metaphors, conceptually and visually.
Day 2
Creating visual hierarchy
- How to visually structure content to make it
- easier to read
- quick to scan for certain information
- digestible in smaller chunks
- How to use visual hierarchy for note-taking in meetings, lectures, workshops and research sessions
Developing structure
- How to structure and visualise a system, problem or process
- Using different visual structures for visualising different types of content
Using visual frameworks
- What are visual frameworks and what can they be used for?
- Using visual frameworks for structuring thinking and group processes.
What will you learn in this course?
In this 2-day hands-on workshop with Eva-Lotta Lamm, you will learn how to visualise abstract concepts and complex problems through simple sketches.
You will learn how to use simple visuals as a powerful language to think through and clearly communicate any kind of content.
More specifically, you will learn:
- How to express ideas and concepts through simple sketching
- How to sketch objects, people, hands and facial expressions
- How to develop visual metaphors for abstract concepts
- How to build your own visual vocabulary
- How to create structure and establish a visual hierarchy
- How to reach clarity and new perspectives through mapping problems visually
- How to take visual notes for deeper understanding and better memory
- Ways to apply Visual Thinking to your day-to-day work.
