Sketchnoting 101 - Think, learn, and remember through visual notes

Slides

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Intro to Sketchnotes Cheatsheet

Chris Spalton has produced a cheatsheet for sketchnoting.

Intro to sketchnotes cheatseet by Chris Spalton

I always have a copy of this stuck into my sketchnote book so I can refer to it while sketching. You can grab a copy of it here.

Pens

Any pens will do, both for the main text/images and for the colours. However, buying slightly more expensive and specific pen types really does make the sketchnotes look better.

Pigment markers are a very good pen to do the writing and drawing with. There are many brands, but the ones I use are:

For adding colour, alcohol-based markers are my go-to. Again there are many brands, but the ones I use are:

Paper

I tend to use plain paper Moleskin notebooks, as they are hard-back and contain lots of pages. They can be quite pricey though. A cheaper alternative I’ve also used is an A5 notebook from Flying Tiger, which is surprisingly good for its price.

Digital

An iPad is the obvious choice for this, coupled with a sketching app. ProCreate is probably the best drawing app, and well worth the small cost. There are many others, some of which are free.

I’m very tempted to try a colour reMarkable Paper Pro, as I’ve tried the cheaper black and white version and it is very nice to write on.

People

There are many people who do sketchnoting or similar. Here are some of the people that I’ve had interaction with, whether that be owning their book, doing a workshop, or simply admiring from afar.

Videos

The Royal Society of the Arts has a series called RSA Animate that produces some really great videos wrapped around books. One of my favourites is about the book Drive by Dan Pink.

There are several places that produce “animated sketchnotes”. Another good one is about the book Turn the Ship Around by L. David Marquet.

Books

The books mentioned in the talk are:

Research

A 2015 paper entitled “The drawing effect: Evidence for reliable and robust memory benefits in free recall” by Jeffrey D. Wammes, Melissa E. Meade, and Myra A. Fernandes looks into the link between drawing and memory performance.