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Reviews
The Sketchnote Handbook Video Edition: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking by Mike Rohde
trogob's review against another edition
4.0
This review was originally posted on my blog at MatthewBogart.net
I don't like to write. I'm a terrible speller, and I have terrible sentence structure, I use punctuation haphazardly because I don't truly understand it. I usually embarrass myself when something I've written gets published. (Like, perhaps, right now?) When people say, "I don't know how to draw, I'm not an artist." I understand. I don't know how to write, I'm not a writer. With all that being said, writing is simply too useful for me to not do it at all. Text messages, journal entries, scripts for comics, bizarre observations, I might not consider myself a writer but I write all over the place!
I wonder about the reverse. Do the people who have no interest in being a capital "A" Artist feel fine busting out sketches and doodles? I don't think most people do, and, until I read "The Sketchnote Handbook" by my friend Mike Rohde, it never occurred how much people who write off drawing are missing out.
Often people look at drawing and sketching as a superfluous trait akin to being a really good whistler. Good for you if you take it seriously, but it's hardly in the same league as having an understanding of language, reading, or writing. I think "The Sketchnote Handbook" gives us a sense that drawing is a great deal more useful to everybody. That's an important lesson to pass on.
Mike maintains that "sketch notes", which are a combination of words, symbols, and pictures, can be vastly more effective at getting to and retaining the core of an idea than traditional, text only notes. The book bills itself as a toolbox for helping people incorporate sketching into their note taking, specifically in the context of seminars, meetings, classes, and the like. With a lot of fun mixed in, he makes his point convincingly. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue with him.
Yet, while the idea that words, symbols and pictures add up to more than the sum of their parts seems like it would be right up the alley of a cartoonist, "words, pictures, and symbols" being just about our entire arsenal, there's another important aspect to the book that I think most cartoonists could learn from. Mike points out what little drawing skill you really need in order to kick an idea's ass. You don't have to draw like Chris Ware in order to convey gorgeous, inspiring, useful ideas in crude, crazy, stick figures.
Mike illustrates wonderfully, through tons of simple, beautifully drawn pages, that sketching is no more complex than writing. Once you've learned the alphabet, it doesn't matter if your penmanship rivals the great calligraphers of the last hundred years. All that matters is that your writing is legible. After that, what you're writing is usually all that matters.
A page of "The Sketchnote Handbook"
There's a free sample chapter if you'd like to take a look.
I'd love to hear what you think. Even better, I'd love to see something you've drawn. Anything. I swear. ANYTHING! You might not think I'd be interested in that thing you've drawn but you're wrong. Post a link in the comments or send me a message with it.
You can see the original post with images here:
http://matthewbogart.net/blog/the-sketchnote-handbook
I don't like to write. I'm a terrible speller, and I have terrible sentence structure, I use punctuation haphazardly because I don't truly understand it. I usually embarrass myself when something I've written gets published. (Like, perhaps, right now?) When people say, "I don't know how to draw, I'm not an artist." I understand. I don't know how to write, I'm not a writer. With all that being said, writing is simply too useful for me to not do it at all. Text messages, journal entries, scripts for comics, bizarre observations, I might not consider myself a writer but I write all over the place!
I wonder about the reverse. Do the people who have no interest in being a capital "A" Artist feel fine busting out sketches and doodles? I don't think most people do, and, until I read "The Sketchnote Handbook" by my friend Mike Rohde, it never occurred how much people who write off drawing are missing out.
Often people look at drawing and sketching as a superfluous trait akin to being a really good whistler. Good for you if you take it seriously, but it's hardly in the same league as having an understanding of language, reading, or writing. I think "The Sketchnote Handbook" gives us a sense that drawing is a great deal more useful to everybody. That's an important lesson to pass on.
Mike maintains that "sketch notes", which are a combination of words, symbols, and pictures, can be vastly more effective at getting to and retaining the core of an idea than traditional, text only notes. The book bills itself as a toolbox for helping people incorporate sketching into their note taking, specifically in the context of seminars, meetings, classes, and the like. With a lot of fun mixed in, he makes his point convincingly. I think you'd be hard pressed to argue with him.
Yet, while the idea that words, symbols and pictures add up to more than the sum of their parts seems like it would be right up the alley of a cartoonist, "words, pictures, and symbols" being just about our entire arsenal, there's another important aspect to the book that I think most cartoonists could learn from. Mike points out what little drawing skill you really need in order to kick an idea's ass. You don't have to draw like Chris Ware in order to convey gorgeous, inspiring, useful ideas in crude, crazy, stick figures.
Mike illustrates wonderfully, through tons of simple, beautifully drawn pages, that sketching is no more complex than writing. Once you've learned the alphabet, it doesn't matter if your penmanship rivals the great calligraphers of the last hundred years. All that matters is that your writing is legible. After that, what you're writing is usually all that matters.
A page of "The Sketchnote Handbook"
There's a free sample chapter if you'd like to take a look.
I'd love to hear what you think. Even better, I'd love to see something you've drawn. Anything. I swear. ANYTHING! You might not think I'd be interested in that thing you've drawn but you're wrong. Post a link in the comments or send me a message with it.
You can see the original post with images here:
http://matthewbogart.net/blog/the-sketchnote-handbook
choirqueer's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not a visual learner; my hope for this book was that it would help me access and improve my visual learning abilities. I probably should have skipped this book and gone straight for the workbook. The book makes the assumption that everyone is a visual learner, and presents information in a way that probably works really well for people who already have strong skills in that area...but for me, too much visual information is just confusing and chaotic. Much of the book is examples of other people's sketchnotes, which I imagine would be very useful for someone who learns well by that method, but I just don't have the kind of brain that could make sense of that information and translate it into a thing for me to do. I think this method has a lot of value, but it should be made clearer in the marketing that the handbook is really for people who are already visual learners, whereas perhaps the workbook would be better suited for someone who needs more practice in visual learning skills to be able to synthesize that kind of information effectively enough for sketchnoting to be a meaningful activity.
roklobster's review against another edition
3.0
While this goes over the fundamentals of sketchnoting, I'm pretty sure videos would be more useful. But I got some ideas and techniques to try, so who knows, could be totally useful later. We'll see.
bardicbear's review against another edition
5.0
I think the idea behind Sketchnotes is great. Basically doodling while you take notes helps to activate the visual areas of your brain so that you can better remember things. It also encourages more active listening because you have to focus on big ideas in order to have time to translate them into drawings. Right now I don't really have a lot of use for note taking. I do sometimes take notes on things I read but it's not the same as notes at a lecture. It makes me wish that I had heard of this back when I was still in school I think that it could have been really helpful for me. The book uses sketchnote style to explain how to make sketchnotes as well as showing examples of notes by a variety of artists. It also stresses that even if you aren't artistic you can still make sketchnotes using simple shapes to create basic objects.
jnnrss's review
2.0
While this book was a helpful guide in the process of sketchnoting and provided many ideas for how to get started, I found the author wrote in a "Do it how you like, but my method is the best method and the only method you should follow" way. This was somewhat frustrating because the methods taught had a certain bias to them, and in general I wasn't fond of the author's sketchnoting method.
I have ideas now, but I don't think I needed this book.
I have ideas now, but I don't think I needed this book.
michielstock's review against another edition
5.0
The what, why and how of sketchnotes : summarizing meetings and presentations using an entertaining combination of text and hand drawn images. Looking forward to my next conference!
meee398's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
accusatori's review against another edition
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
Pretty good! Reviewing my notes, though, it feels a bit light on specific, practical ways to use sketch notes. I would’ve liked more pages that discussed how to use sketch notes in different settings (like taking notes from a book, listening to a podcast, or for idea generator rather than recording). The further the book went on, there was a strange feeling that these sketch notes were not for “taking notes” at all, but for creating things to show others. I’m all for sharing them, but I was hoping for a little more referenc-y or analysis-y material. There’s a second book, so maybe some of that is included there (or available online; there certainly seems to be a big sketchnote community, so I’m sure someone’s blogged about this before).