I first heard the term “sketch-notes” at a nature journal club meeting where John Muir Laws was describing this type of visual-note taking and it’s power as a learning tool.
Sketch-noting is a synthesis of sketching and note-taking where each form of communication is used for what it is best at. Sometimes an image can be worth a thousand words and other times 10 words are worth a thousand pictures.
As it turns out, there are some people doing some quite amazing work in the field of sketch-noting and there are also books out about the subject.
http://rohdesign.com/sketchnotes/
The work of another great sketch-noter and graphic facilitator, whose work I sampled at the top of this page, can be seen here: http://sketchit.co/
This is one of those meta-topic skills that can be applied to virtually all forms of learning. It is a high-return on investment. I see it as a form of journaling which I have described as the “most powerful learning tool” in an earlier post. It is another way of externalizing your thinking. The techniques have been very refined with sketch-noting to improve the communication of ideas. I plan on studying and gleaning as many useful tips as I can and applying them to my own work. I recommend you do the same! It is fun!
Here is a short video about sketch-noting
