For a while I have shied away from large scale visual harvesting, but last year I had some opportunities to get back to it and it turned out that I really love it! I think that at a live event, it’s a much better and more immersive experience to the audience, and even if as an artist, hiding behind my iPad is a safer and more comfortable arrangement, nothing beats the creation of live art that happens in front of an audience.

But before we get into it,

what exactly is visual harvesting?

Visual harvesting (also known as graphic recording, live scribing or live illustration) is the process of listening to a conference session (keynote, panel discussion, workshop, etc), identifying the key messages and drawing them on a large piece of paper (or digitally on an iPad). Such conference visuals help the audience retain more information, create engagement and more focus among participants and offer readily available visual content during and after the event.

Now that we are on the same page about what visual harvesting actually is, let’s take a look at how I personally do it, with a focus on involving both the client and the audience as much as possible.

1. Brief with the client

At the client brief, we are discussing the main characteristics of the event and the expectations the client has from the visual harvesting. There are a lot of different options, so we need to get into the desired outcomes.

• Are we aiming for great visuals after the event used for reporting and social media?

• Do we want to activate the people in the room and involve them in some form of co-creation?

• Do we want to create inspiring visuals that will then be put up as wall art to showcase strategy and vision, there really are a lot of possibilities…

Many times when clients come to me, they already have a very specific idea of what they want, and recently most of their ideas involve some kind of audience activation. It seems to me that conference organisers want to involve the participants more and more in some kind of activity related to the content. Instead of letting participants sit quietly, the goal is to get them to interact with the visual to have a deeper connection to the both to what they heard and other people at the event.

2. Preparation

In order to prepare for the visual harvesting, especially if it I’m at a live event, I’ll be reading the pre-conference material, familiarise myself with the agenda and draw some theme-specific sketches. I’ll also select the colours I will use, consider some layout options and draw the title of the event.

3. Visual harvesting in action

On the day of the event, I will arrive early to have enough time to set up and once the event starts I’ll do 3 things simultaneously. I will LISTEN to the key points and main messages of the speakers, I will SYNTHESISE the information and come up with visuals that help viewers understand and make meaning and I will DRAW and write while also continuing to do the listening and synthesising.

What’s interesting is that when it comes to live illustration, this is not multitasking, this is actually one task (with three equally important parts) that you have to be doing. Such work to me is the definition of a flow state, you really can’t do anything else when doing this.

4. After the event

Once the event is done, I take pictures of the final visual and after correcting any typos, I send it to the client as soon as possible. Clients then come back to me if I need to make some small changes, and I’ll also edit the timelapse video if it was requested. Once all the deliverables have been handed off, we are off to a new project! 

+1. Interaction and involvement

Whenever possible, I like to make the visual harvesting interactive, and I see that clients are more and more open to this idea and even seek this out. Examples to do this include drawing the audience’s reaction to a panel discussion with the help of post-its, drawing the commitments of the participants in relation to the conference theme or collective colouring of a large mural depicting the main conference message. Participants want to engage, they want to be together and share experiences, that’s why they go to in-person events in the first place. Give them things to do together and let them interact with your brand and each other in a playful, low-stakes manner, and you will delight them unlike any other event.

If you want to include live illustrations at your next event, feel free to email me.