What Makes a Great Icon
Lesson 6 from: Visual Notetaking: A Beginner's Guide to SketchnotesGiselle Chow
What Makes a Great Icon
Lesson 6 from: Visual Notetaking: A Beginner's Guide to SketchnotesGiselle Chow
Lessons
Visual Notetaking Intro
04:50 2What is Visual Notetaking?
26:04 3Start with Lettering
16:26 4Choose a Color Palette
08:01 5Draw Icons from Basic Shapes
24:32 6What Makes a Great Icon
09:08 7What's In Your Toolkit?
07:31 8Getting Started: Logistical Planning
23:55Lesson Info
What Makes a Great Icon
So let us move on to this notion of the icon and what makes a great icon okay, so we talked a bit about this it contains really the least amount of relevant visual information all right so not all of it but what is it I used it in this laptop example okay, what is the least amount of visual information that I need to include to make people understand what this is okay also can be drawn quickly so you can replicate it easily right? So it won't be something so complicated it's actually difficult for you to do in the moment and then finally and I think this is really really important it's really worthy of a spot in your icon bank like think of your icon bank is something that you've served travel around and you have inside of you it's really fun kind of collection of all your favorite icons is this something that's going to give you a certain amount of joy when you draw it? Okay, so what we're going to dio given those are some of the cart ear for icons are easy to draw you could do quickl...
y least amount of visual information it's fun for you to do I am going to throw out several words okay? You'll be given some time about twenty seconds to develop and draw and accompany icon um one thing to think about when you do this a few things really if it helps closure eyes and visually associate so if I say something if I say a word you know if I say um you know uh, collaboration like do you have a certain thing that pops into your mind? What is that okay, so visually associate that could be helpful if not think about what that word or concept refers to so the other day someone said content right? So content what is content? Well, content is like the thing the things on my slide like the items on my side but it's also something that fits and something else right so could be any number of things that could be bucket with an arrow and things pouring in or it could be a suitcase is bulging right? Um what makes it visually distinct what makes it different than another item? Okay, so those are some tips for developing and practicing icons um I'll call out a word you have twenty seconds to develop and draw on a company icon after that will hold up and just show everyone and um we will see what we came up with. So for that reason, if you could do these in your sketchbooks and I would ask that you do them fairly large, you know, just so people around you can see them maybe you could do to a page all right and um I know that this is practice and just a way to get us thinking in this in this way um the first one is the twenty second family okay so hold him up let's see what you did let's hold them up high and show each other tool rotation yes and take a look at what other people did as well okay, very nice most people have like ah larger figure with some some smaller ones yep great perfect very nice kate let's do another one the next one is and for and then I would say also pretty large so do two per page so make them pretty big so we can see them the next one is global global so visually associate what does that make you think about to have an image in mind already these are great very nice. Okay, hold him up take a look very nice most of you have take a look most of you have a globe something round it's interesting that the arrow moving around moving around it indicating it rotates is also something people often due to indicate clothes. Great. Okay, try another one's uh see communication communication okay let's, hold him up. I know some of you weren't done that's okay it's also it's also part of charge all right, so I've got some speech bubbles people talking in hearing here let's see yep so you see you'll see that with dominique and with melissa's she's got you holed up the two of yours say how to both of you have done similar concepts so what that tells me is in this group and you'll notice this with your own workers other people will approach it in similar ways what that tells me is that if you were to use that in a group people would probably understand what that icon was referring to right screen okay let's try another one let's see uh risk do risk risk okay let's see what you have usc's pulled it up take a look around so dice a chasm right the cliffs that's kind of what I'm going for it see use of symbolism to yep so here's another just another idea you know you've got your shark circling right okay let's see let us try just a couple more oh here's one innovation innovation so when people talk about innovation what are they actually describing what are some other words you can relate to that idea okay hold him up let's see lots of lightbulbs right uh I like the way he combined his combined her she's making like a label headed percent rate yeah, very good also that thing about innovation is innovation all often um describes change so like moving from one thing to another so, um you know, even simply having an arrow that that moves to something else you know khun, show something innovation or change your cycles. Um, you know, I'm thinking about this is the life hold that we still, I think, a lot of us associate. But if you did that and you somehow figured out an elegant way to draw the curly one, what am I trying to call? What is this thing called? Yes, thankyou, valley delightful, right? So you're moving from one idea, like an older idea to something new, but you're still leveraging this idea of the idea, which is, I think, what a lot of us want to do, right? So just imbuing a little bit more. Okay, so let's do one more disruption. That's, our last one disruption. Lots of people want to be disruptive, this's of disruption. Okay, that one's a little harder. What do you have for that? Let's? Take a look. Hold them up? Yep. So something? Yeah, disruptions of something breaking apart, right? Some national. You know, some arrows using the word very good, excellent, great.
Class Materials
Bonus Video with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Sara
Wonderful overview of sketch noting with tons of opportunities to practice, learn, and refine skills! Appreciated the side benefits of recognizing sketchnoting involves active listening and the opportunity to practice that too. Thank you! 110% recommend this course.
Tran Phuong
Great fundamental skills for effective notetaking! I love Gisele and all her lessons! They are super easy to follow and understand. Would recommend it of course!
Lisa Houghton
I really enjoyed this class. I am a beginner sketchnoter and found it very helpful. Great pace and delivery by instructor. Every minute was worth it. Thank you!