WORKSHOPS
At VizConf this year you have your choice of five pre/post-conference workshops. The workshops will take place on October 12 , 13 and 15. Covering the basics to the advanced, we look forward to getting creative with you! With more to be announced!
Workshop 1
SKETCHNOTING 101
When: Thursday October 13 2023, 9am - 4.30pm
Where: Sketch Group HQ, 239a Murray Road, Preston
Host: Matt Magain
Level: Beginner
Note: This workshop is a useful prelude to Graphic Recording 101, which is held on the following day.
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Sketchnoting is the art of taking visual notes - for yourself, or to share the experience you’re capturing with others. In this workshop, you’ll learn the basics of sketchnoting: why it’s such a valuable skill to develop, and how to go from stick figures that you’re embarrassed about sharing to fun, sophisticated visual notes that bring content to life, spark further conversations, and people love looking at.
In this workshop you’ll get the opportunity to:
Learn about sketchnoting: what it is and why it matters
Understand the anatomy of a sketchnote, and where your own strengths and weaknesses lie
Get expert, personalised guidance on how to improve your visual note-taking skills, even if your starting point is “I can’t even draw a stick figure!”
Learn and apply visual metaphor to your sketchnotes
Practice a range of techniques in a live sketching sessiontext goes here
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Here’s a selection of some of the practical topics that we’ll cover:
Tools of the trade
Basic visual design principles
Layout and hierarchy
Lettering: headings, basic text, and decorative text
Connectors and containers
Faces, figures, and expressions
Depth, texture, and shading
Conventions borrowed from the world of comics
Tips and tricks for working fast
Note: This workshop is a useful prelude to Graphic Recording 101, which is held on the following day
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Matthew Magain is the founder and CEO of Sketch Group, a collective of creative souls who use sketching to solve problems, tell stories, explain ideas, and capture conversations. Over the years, he has created a whiteboard animation about the federal budget, graphically recorded a presentation for Malcolm Gladwell, graphically facilitated a board meeting at the ABC, and visualised a journey map of the foster carer system. He believes sketching can be transformational.
Matthew’s work has been featured in several books about sketchnoting, and he is a regular guest on podcasts about visual thinking. He lives in Melbourne and spends his spare time buying LEGO® online and pretending it’s for his daughters.
Workshop 2
GRAPHIC RECORDING 101
When: Friday October 13 2023, 9am - 4.30pm
Where: Sketch Group HQ, 239a Murray Road, Preston
Host: Matt Magain
Level: Beginner
Note: This course is a natural extension to the Sketchnoting 101 workshop, held on the day before. If you're attending that workshop as well, this will be an opportunity to take what you've learned and apply it to a much larger canvas.
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Across the globe, people are discovering that having a live illustrator present in the room fundamentally changes the dynamic of a conference, workshop, sales pitch, or board meeting.This live illustration is known as graphic recording, a subset of the field of visual facilitation. You also may hear it referred to as scribing, graphic facilitation, or live sketching. Put simply, it is the ability to listen, synthesise, and capture a conversation in words and pictures, in real-time, on a large, visible canvas. Graphic recording is fast becoming an in-demand skill, and this is your opportunity to learn how to do it.
This full-day workshop is for anyone who is interested in learning more about graphic recording. You don't need to be an accomplished illustrator—more important is your ability to be a good listener, to have an open mind, and be full of enthusiasm for learning a new skill!
This course is not designed to turn everyone who attends this workshop into an accomplished graphic recorder in one day—there are practitioners who have dedicated their life to honing their craft. But this will be an intense, hands-on session that will allow you to grasp the basics, and give you the opportunity to try your hand at listening, synthesising, and capturing on a large scale.
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We'll cover everything from:
Tools and materials
Working with a facilitator
Sketching objects and people
Typography
Visual metaphor
Layout
Types of engagements
... and whatever else we can manage to squeeze in!
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Matthew Magain is the founder and CEO of Sketch Group, a collective of creative souls who use sketching to solve problems, tell stories, explain ideas, and capture conversations. Over the years, he has created a whiteboard animation about the federal budget, graphically recorded a presentation for Malcolm Gladwell, graphically facilitated a board meeting at the ABC, and visualised a journey map of the foster carer system. He believes sketching can be transformational.
Matthew’s work has been featured in several books about sketchnoting, and he is a regular guest on podcasts about visual thinking. He lives in Melbourne and spends his spare time buying LEGO® online and pretending it’s for his daughters.
Workshop 3
PRO-PROCREATE
When: Sunday October 15 2023, 10 - 4.30pm
Where: Kathleen Syme building, Carlton
Host: Kate Baxter
Level: Intermediate to Advanced
Note: For this workshop, you’ll need to bring along your own iPad and Apple Pencil
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Level up your graphic recordings and digital illustration work. Let’s go beyond the basics and explore some of the more advanced aspects of Procreate.
With time to get creative and use the new skills you’re learning, we’ll start with how to set your canvas up for success, creating new bushes, upping your hand lettering skills with grids and details that make a difference, and then dive into the potential of gifs, animations and 3D modelling.
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Together we will:
Setting yourself up for success - the nitty gritty of canvas settings and colour profiles
Explore creating and setting up your own brushes
Leveraging tools to increase your lettering skills
Advanced digital illustration skills - light and texture
Beyond the timelapse - using Procreate to create gifs and animations
Introduction to 3D modelling
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Kate is a recognised expert within the global community of visual practitioners, with a specialism and passion for digital mediums of capture. With 20 years experience in the commercial arts, and 10 globally as a graphic facilitator, scribing sessions across Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong, New York, Houston, Delhi, Barcelona and London.
Using her illustration and design capability to build rich pictures which communicate highly complex concepts on a single page, Kate also has skills in video editing and animation, building large scale murals and project space environments, and also immersive art installations to bring ideas to life and amplify important messages to wider audiences.