Rohdesign

Uncomfortable Opportunities

Mike Rohde — Sat, 26 May 2012 18:41:21 +0000

I DON'T LIKE BEING UNCOMFORTABLE — who does? But, when I'm feeling uncomfortable, it's often a marker for new opportunities, if I'm open to them.

Here are four stories from my own life, were my being uncomfortable eventually led to great opportunities.

New City, New Life

When I was 15, our family moved from Chicago to Milwaukee. I left friends, my high school and a familiar neighborhood. In Milwaukee it was uncomfortable to start over again, in a new city, school, having to make new friends. But being uncomfortable in a new city provided opportunities to become outgoing and adaptable in new situations. Moving eventually led me to my beautiful wife, our children and relationships with many great friends and colleagues.

A Haircut Leads to Germany

One saturday morning, I walked into my local barbershop and found my barber speaking to a young man in German. I felt a bit uncomfortable, but stayed. I was curious about this guy, Matthias, which led to a great, long-term friendship. A haircut led me to visit Germany for pleasure and business, brought European friends to my life and formed me professionally as I worked 9+ years remotely for MakaluMedia, a web design & development firm in Germany.

From Printer to Designer

In college I was focused on printing, but my school, Milwaukee Area Technical College, required printing, design and photography students take classes in all three disciplines. It was uncomfortable being stretched in three directions, but through exposure to design I found a love for design as a career. I left the printing department for design, graduated and became a professional designer.

My Speaking Moment

Two years ago I was invited to speak on sketchnoting at Pecha Kucha Milwaukee. Back then I was uncomfortable speaking to crowds, but I accepted the challenge. At first, I was a bit freaked out, but worked hard to prepare. My talk was well-received, which gave me confidence. Now I love speaking to people and am excited for opportunities to share my passion with others.

When I remember these and other stories, I'm encouraged. Uncomfortable situations often turn into great, life-changing opportunities.

What uncomfortable situations am I in?

Is there opportunity under the surface?

The Sketchnote Handbook: Update 4: Digging In

Mike Rohde — Fri, 18 May 2012 18:36:19 +0000

THE SKETCHNOTE HANDBOOK project is now stretching out before me, with much left to do. I'm both excited and a little freaked out by this, with excitement winning at the end of the day. I've known this would be a tough, exciting project. I remind myself of this when I worry about what's to be done.

The Process, Chapter 1 Text & Sketches

Never having written a book, I've been adapting the process I use for my other design and illustration projects to the Sketchnote Handbook process — thinking, writing out ideas, pencil sketches and final art — all approached with an iterative mindset. This approach is working well because it's familiar to me.

For chapter 1, I've started with a table of contents (TOC in the biz), worked through with Nikki at Peachpit. From the TOC I have written chapter 1 in three drafts. Using the first chapter text, I sat down over the course of three evenings sketch out a rough map of the entire chapter's page structure in pencil.

Here is a sample rough sketch from the first spread of the chapter:

Sketching out ideas is helpful in my design process — in this book writing and illustrating project it has proven true again. The experience of turning words into drawings, type treatments and layouts has been helpful.

Having a sketch of the chapter to compliment my writing has been perfect in figuring out what works, what doesn't, where to expand and where stick with ideas. These rough sketches have also been ideal for sharing direction with the Peachpit team and my book advisory team.

Cover Designs

Something I'm learning as I experience a book writing process — many things are moving at the same time. I suppose in this case, with a book and video there are more threads than usual. One of the important threads to take care of very shortly are the cover designs for the book and DVD.

I have several ideas in my head for covers, which all feature hand-drawn sketchnote-style typography and images. I want the covers to be simple and memorable, and apparently they need to work at full size and as a thumbnail (for selling on websites). Nice challenge, eh?

Next Steps

The next step is a revised pencil sketch of chapter 1, to fix things, refine ideas and get the layout and imagery pretty well set for the inking stage to follow.

My goal is to completely finish chapter 1 all the way to final production with InDesign files and high resolution scans. Once we have the process settled, I believe it will help streamline the production of the 5 remaining chapters.

I'll be starting the video production with Brian Artka soon. Brian is working hard on the video test we did a month ago, which I'll post here when ready. In the mean time, you can check out the out-take video he's already created.

Thank you to all of the new subscribers to my newsletter! If you're a reader of the blog and want to be notified when I post here, go sign up.

Summit Series Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet

Mike Rohde — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:30:00 +0000

IN JANUARY, the Summit Series team commissioned me to attend and capture sketchnotes at Basecamp, a meeting of 650 invite-only guests in Lake Tahoe's Squaw Valley. I had a great time, met a variety of interesting people and enjoyed live-capturing my experience in sketchnotes during Basecamp weekend.

Typically, I post sketchnotes online, or create a PDF of the sketchnotes for attendees of events. I this case I felt strongly that a booklet, created from the sketchnotes would make a great after the fact artifact of the event for the all of the Summiters at the event in Squaw Valley. Audrey and the Summit Series team loved the idea so we began the process of designing a booklet from my sketchnotes.

Designing The Booklet

Using the multiple pages of sketchnotes I'd scanned, Audrey and I made typo fixes, adjustments and additions to the content, preparing it for printing. Laura, Lindsay and the Pinball Publishing team were my first choice, as they printed the popular Scout Book for our Visual Thinking 101 panel at SXSW 2010.

Here's a sketch of the booklet concept, where you can see me thinking through the booklet's cover design and interior structure:

When our direction was set, I combined sketchnote scans with newly created elements and laid out an InDesign document for Pinball's new Mega Booklet, a 5x7 Scout Book with more space than the popular 3x5 version:

Once the final art was approved, my production files went to Pinball Press for printing. Here are images of the booklet on press:

A Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet plate on press at Pinball Publishing.

Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet signature sheet, fresh off the press.

Cover and back cover signature press sheet.

Welcome Note and Packaging

Audrey also provided a welcome note for the final packet, which I hand-write and scanned for print production. The note was printed on a single sheet of duplex card stock (light stock glued to kraft stock for the back), which was then placed into a kraft envelope for shipping to each Summit attendee.

Here are a selection of the final Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet photos, taken by the Pinball staff after printing, cutting and binding:

View: Virtual Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet (flash required).
View: Summit Basecamp Sketchnote Booklet Photos (Flickr)

Final Impressions

The entire booklet turned out great! I'm excited to see how Summit Basecamp attendees like the final booklet — since our aim in capturing sketchnotes and producing a booklet from them is to remind them of their own great weekend experience in the mountains.

If you're a Summiter who has received one of these booklets. please leave a comment with your thoughts. I and the Summit Series team would love to hear your feedback on this fun way of making an artifact from sketchnotes.

Thank you Team Summit Series and Pinball Publishing for making it happen!

Photos: Pinball Publishing

The $100 Startup Illustrations

Mike Rohde — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:43:40 +0000

A BOOK ILLUSTRATION opportunity came along last September I could not pass up. Chris Guillebeau reached out to me after seeing and hearing about my REWORK illustrations for 37signals and Crown.

Chris was seeking my help in conveying the ideas in his second book, The $100 Startup, which just released this Tuesday. I accepted the project and had a great time working with Chris, bringing his writing to life with illustrations.

In celebration of the launch, I'm sharing a selection of illustrations from the book here. To see the entire set of illustration photos, visit The $100 Startup Flickr Set.

The best option? Buy your own copy of The $100 Startup — it's great book.

Thanks Chris!

Build Magazine: Sketchnote Illustrations

Mike Rohde — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:28:07 +0000

IN NOVEMBER 2011, I was hired by Build Network to create an illustration for their premier issue for an article on visual thinking for business called Want to Capture Ideas So They Stick? Draw Them. The article featured Dan Roam, Sunni Brown, Charlotte Hillenbrand, Jeannel King and myself sharing how visual thinking and doodling can help you think and solve problems better.

At the time I was completely focused on illustrating Chris Guillebeau's new book, The $100 Startup, so rather than decline the illustration, I brought the project through the company I work for — Gomoll Research & Design, so I could work on it during daylight hours.

Just a few weeks ago we received the printed issue of Build magazine and the final sketchnote style illustration turned out just great:

To read the article, check out a larger screenshot of the piece in my Build Magazine Illustrations Flickr set.

Thank you Ashely O'Broin for choosing me to help illustrate the premier issue!