Visual Thinking with a purpose
When people ask me when and why and how I started my career as a visual communicator, it is very hard for me to give one answer.
Why do I do what I do?
When I was 12, after asking my mom, I painted pink the massive wardrobe in my bedroom, then wrote a song by the Velvet Underground all over it, in bright pink. I just LOVED to write.
Fast forward almost 20 years later, when I was already in my 30s and attending my Masters in Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability in Sweden, I finally connected all the dots and realized WHY I had been practicing drawing and writing so much all along: I was a silent-ish child (hard to believe now!), and I wanted to express how I felt, in some way. I was painting and writing quite a bit even back then.
In the middle of the Master, we had a teacher - Nanna Frank - coming from another school in Denmark (KaosPilot), and she came to teach us “Visual Thinking" which was a combination of words I had not heard before.
We were so many taking this visual thinking course, there was not enough wall space.
The reason why I really fell in love with visual thinking, may be different from what people thinks. Not because I like to draw. Not because I can express myself in a way different from speaking (although, also yes).
When in Sweden studying systems thinking and sustainability, I realized the immense potential of visual communication for sustainability.
First visual experiment: explain our Slow Fashion thesis process and results on a large poster. We had to come up with a template, and synthesize - immensely - the content of the research.
Visual thinking can help people understand the story, the facts, the connections, so that things make sense. There is a logic. People understand, pay attention, remember.
It is not about drawing for drawing. If it´s beautiful, but makes sense only to me, not useful. It´s not a work of art that I make for my own enjoyment. It´s a tool that must be useful to my client and my target audience.
That is why I spend quite a lot of time before the workshop or conference starts to understand from the client: what is that you really want to communicate, overall? What messages do we want to try to convey and stick?
What is my purpose these days?
If you know me personally, you probably know that my mission on the planet is making the world less shit (sorry, not feeling super positive these days). I am not always successful, but I try, daily.
With my job I attempt to do it by visualizing ideas, processes and stories of organizations that are making a difference in the world.
Made the day before a conference for WWF
Or setting up my own visual activism + sustainability workshops, volunteering at events that I want to promote and support,
Food revolution day, with Adriá Garcia i Mateu facilitating
or organizing and facilitating events in the middle of Barcelona to get to know my neighbours.
"The Happy Block" (in Spanish, la Manzana Feliz - that's what I wanted to make happen on my block with events similar to this one, when I moved in this specific neighborhood. That day was great!
Now, why all this talk about purpose?
I asked myself this question several times, when planning my to be Visual Thinking workshops in Barcelona - which is not out yet!
I want to help people to learn to communicate visually something important to them.
We will practice “beauty-making” using colours, curves, nice lettering (the best we can!). We will practice drawing, but without overly stressing about it. We will try to find our own style, and find trust in ourselves.
We will learn from one another.
Have you got a project in mind, even a personal project, that you want to visualize and spread in the world because it really matters to you?
Or, are you a facilitator and you want to make it easier for your clients to think, collaborate and harvest their collective wisdom? I can help you create your own hand-made templates.
And also, are you an illustrator with skills, but you are mildly panicking when you think of recording live during a conference or strategic conversation?
I am pretty sure my workshops will cover all these things, but do tell me: what do ya want?
