In the words of Montell Jordan - This is how we do it.

An ipad, a laptop, a friendly AV team and a massive projector.

There are a few things that, over the years, we have observed as critical to the success of any event. Immutable laws that must not be broken if you wish to avoid disaster. Be it a small workshop through to a giant conference. Even the most professional organisers can over look these, so whatever your level this is important.

Lack of self awareness can be useful, as well as an enhanced sense of confidence before eventually becoming competent. The Dunning-Kruger curve is a graph I think about a lot. It’s kind of a funny one.

The problem with clichés is they work. We’ve all been round the houses trying to think of a quick and easy way to sum something up. And landed on the most obvious phrase we always use.

People often ask me what my top ten tools for a professional scribe are… actually they don’t at all. But here is a listicle that it would have been really helpful for me to read about 10years ago.

Today I have taken a moment to Skethnote one of Ben Ansell’s fascinating BBC Reith Lectures. There is a huge catalogue of lectures on the BBC website and they are the perfect thing to practice your skills with. And with elections in over 50 countries 2024 is going to be a big year for democracy one way or another, it’s time to brush up!

Read number 49 in Chat GPT’s blog post suggestions fleshed out.. a bit.

We plug into sophisticated AV systems providing a constant feed of our drawing. Video techs can mix our drawings in and out of the camera feeds and display our work for Q&A’s.

People often ask me ‘is this actually your job?’ to which I reply ‘believe it or not yes it is’. Then they ask ‘how long have you been doing this?’ and it would appear… more than ten years!

When we make an animation we rigorously stick to a system. Script first, then voice over, then story board and then.. the animation.

Many businesses and organisations have contacted us for Rich Pictures over the years. These range from government departments and infrastructure companies, to tech and pharma. And each one of them has had a slightly different need.

We love going to events and capturing the insights from speakers and panels. But what about the audience?

Business books are not all books you buy in the airport in the hope that you will read them on a flight and have a revolutionary idea by the time you land. But then spend the whole thing watching a film on a tiny screen

Perhaps you are thinking about having a conference illustrator attend your event. Perhaps you have an idea that a scribe might attend your workshop. Or that someone might come and draw your meeting. So what on earth is Graphic Recording?

Using an iPad to visualise an in person conference works really well - the impact of the drawing projected on screens is profound.

Live Illustration visually recorded many of the meetings throughout the pandemic. All of our scribes agreed it was a relief to get a global, science based and realistic view on the pandemic as it happened. We have a huge catalogue of images tracking the pandemic, from before we had vaccines, to discussions about ‘long covid’ and through to the global rollout. And a few are shown with this post.

When Live Illustration first started off we used to show up at TEDx events and illustrate all sorts of different talks. In fact, illustrating a TED talk has become a great standby to hone one's skills.

We created a series of illustrations for UNICEF as they published information on how policy makers can combat childhood obesity worldwide.