Austin Kleon

Or maybe we do, depending on how you define school...Some of you may remember a couple weeks back, where I showed my joy at learning how to draw cartoon people with actual personalities, which I learned from cartoonist, author, and visual notetaking guru Austin Kleon as part of VizThink U's webinar. I'm telling you, dekeTopians, this visual notetaking thing is something to pay attention to, especially for a visually wired set of folk like the denizens of dekeTopia. One of my favorite "Viznotes" from the seminar was Austin Kleon's recording of what graphic recorder/facilitator Sunni Brown was saying about listening. You gotta a) love meta commentary, and b) love any piece that graphically depicts "draw the meat" with a raw steak worthy of Alex the Lion from Madacascar:

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The aforementioned Sunni actually employs these skills on a very large scale in front of live audiences (no pressure, girl)...

For those of you inspired by Deke's recent revival of his classic Cereal comic strip, it's never too late for you to find your own inner cartoonist. I discovered this the other day during an excellent three-hour webinar on Visual Note-taking put on by the folks at VizThinkU. During the first segment of the seminar, Austin-based artist and author, Austin (from Austin) Kleon explained, "If you can write your own name, you can cartoon." OK, maybe not cartooning as well as Austin or Deke can, but certainly well enough for effective visual communication. Here's my favorite of Austin's exercises:

1) Start with nine boxes (you can draw a box can't you?) three rows of three boxes each. Add dots for eyes and half a triangle for noses.

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