graphic recorders

Graphic Recording

Imagine having someone visualise your conversation as it happens. The group’s energy rises, new connections are formed, new ideas emerge, and at the end a colourful, engaging graphic summarises all of the key points.

This is the power of graphic recording.

Graphic Recorders: Your words, visualised in real-time.

Sketchnoting, scribing, live drawing, graphic recorders… no matter what you call it, the end result is the same: an illustrator listens, synthesises, and visualises your presentation, webinar, or group discussion in real-time.

It almost seems like magic.

How does it work?

Our graphic recorders aren’t just lightning-fast illustrators, they’re exceptional listeners, and well-rounded thinkers. They’ve spent years training themselves to find connections in what they hear, so they can make sense of it for themselves. What ends up on the page is a visual interpretation of your presentation or group conversation.

Yes, it’s amazing—it also just happens to be very useful!

Learn more about different types of graphic recording

In-person, Virtual, or Hybrid

If you’re organising an event, you know only too well that the goalposts for what is possible are constantly changing. Density limits, indoor/outdoor restrictions, technology firewalls, audio issues… Luckily, your graphic recording team can provide at least some sense of certainty. We’re flexible, and have years of experience working in different conditions, including:

  • covering a custom-built whiteboard in the foyer of Melbourne’s Convention Centre with large, colourful visual summaries of engineering presentations
  • capturing multiple breakout rooms on a Zoom call for the Department of Justice, and combining them onto a virtual collaboration tool for everyone to admire
  • remotely projecting our iPad screen to a room of Aboriginal elders gathered in rural South Australia

What does a graphic recorder do?

Graphic recorders are more than just illustrators. What makes it onto the page might be the hero of the day, but what happens before a graphic recorder puts pen to the page is just as important. While your conversation is taking place, the graphic recorder is:

  • listening
  • synthesising, and
  • capturing

… all at the same time. We’re often paid for our ability to listen, identify the signal from the noise, and then find a visual way to represent that back to the group.

Regardless of whether your event is in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, or on the other side of the world, we work with you to figure out the best way for you to make the most of your graphic recorder, so that your attendees get the most out of our presence at your event.

As a head start, we’ve created the following flowchart to help you determine which option is best for your event.

Events that our clients use us to capture

  • Conference presentations
  • Executive and board meetings
  • Community or customer engagement sessions
  • Panel discussions
  • Internal presentations to staff
  • On-demand illustration at innovation workshops

Running a webinar?

Don’t subject your team to another snoozefest—online events where participants sit and passively listen are a thing of the past. Getting your whole team collaborating online is a surefire way to drive engagement and team morale. 

When combined with graphic recording, it really is possible to make your next online meeting one that excites and energises participants.

Virtual Event Support

  • Setup, support, and training for virtual collaboration tools like Miro and MURAL

  • Virtual meeting support: managing breakout rooms, welcoming participants, or recording sessions

  • Virtual facilitation: planning your workshop, organising ice breaker and brainstorming activities, and leading group conversations

  • Experienced team: We’ve planned, facilitated, and graphically recorded all manner of events large and small.

Deb Remote Scribing Orig.jpeg

Why partner with Sketch Group?

  • Experienced illustrators: Our team have worked with Australia’s biggest brands, with years of experience capturing events, both on paper and digitally
  • Australia’s largest team: We are the only organisation in Australia with a large team of experienced graphic recorders, so we have the capacity to ensure your event succeeds (even if someone calls in sick).
  • Technology is on our side: We’re experts in virtual collaboration tools like Miro and MURAL, and can help you bring a whole new level of interactivity to your online meeting workshop.
  • Flexible and easy to work with:We consistently hear feedback from our clients that they love working with us!

Testimonials

Our clients love partnering with us. Here are a few examples.

  • Marcail Arbuthnot Strategic Designer

    Very effectively surfaced the key themes, was able to quickly identify the important messages and present them in a visually impactful style.

  • Woody Boyce Researcher

    Having Matt illustrating at the workshops brought a really engaging and interactive tool that really made the workshop attendees feel heard, understood, and special.

    I think that the participants really enjoyed watching their words ‘come to life’ in front of them.

    At times some of the group members (who were teenagers) would get bored with what I was talking about, and at those times they would often watch Matt while he was drawing, which really helped me a lot!

    Having the illustrations on the wall also really helped the group remember things they had previously said and topics that they had previously talked about, which was very helpful for me as I could use the illustrations to prompt further conversation.

  • Melissa Knight Facilitator

    People could see that the discussion was being captured warts and all. It also in some way provided a small distraction to what was a heavy discussion. I have continued to refer back to the image to reflect on the content of the day and will continue to do so—so much easier and accessible than returning to a word based document.

Ready to get started? Let’s chat.