So you decided you want to work with a graphic recorder. Excellent! You want someone to create outstanding visuals to immortalise the key messages of an important event. To make sure that you get the most out of experience, here are 3 things for you to cover at your first briefing.

Question 1: What is your objective, what are the outcomes you want to achieve with the visuals?

Looking at your agenda and thinking about your event, it’s always good to think about the outcomes you want to achieve and how you want to use the visuals during AND after your event. Are you looking to:

• Use the live illustration as a reference point during the event that people can check from time to time to see how the day unfolds? - In this case, it might be a good idea to have large-scale analog graphic recording on a large piece of paper, so that the audience can follow along the creation and can see their accomplishment in one huge piece of drawing. If for some reason the analog version doesn’t work for the space, or due to other considerations, we can achieve a similar effect by having dedicated times when we show the digital illustration as it unfolds.

• Create an interactive visual where the primary goal is to collect the ideas of the audience, to turn it into a collective visualisation exercise? - Again, this type of outcome is very well served by having large-scale graphic recording. We can instruct the audience to put post-its on the live illustration, thus having their contributions visualised, which sends a strong message that their ideas matter. I recently participated at an event with such interactive graphic recording and the activity emphasised that they are all working for the same goal, which contributed to the cohesion of the group. 

• Use the graphic recording primarily as documentation both during and after the event for reporting and social media purposes? - If this is the outcome you are after, I would suggest primarily digital graphic recording. Each visual has a corresponding time-lapse video that works really well on social media, and the images can be cut into pieces to be used in your reporting, on your website, in presentations, etc.

• All of the above or something else? - There are endless ways to use graphic recording (insert blog about how to use it afterwards) and I’m happy to brainstorm what would work best for your purposes.

Question 2: What kind of illustration are you looking for (text vs visuals)?

When it comes to live illustration or graphic recording, you as the client can decide beforehand what kind of illustration you want, one that is heavier on text and is focused on representing as many ideas as possible while discovering connections, or one that is more focused on the visuals and wants to engage the audience without too much text? Graphic recording is always a mix of text and images and by thinking about how you want to use the visual, you can make sure to have the best possible outcome for your purposes.

Question 3: What are the necessary visual elements that need to be on the live illustration?

This could be things like your logo, the title of the event, speakers’ names/faces, or some key subjects that definitely need to be depicted. At this stage, we also discuss colours, if there are any specific colour schemes that I need to follow.

This was a quick rundown of the three main things to discuss at your first briefing with a graphic recorder. If you are interested in hiring me for your next project, feel free to reach out here.