From .net magazine, my article “Why the Doodle Matters.”

You can read it on the .net website or download a PDF version of the article.

Editor’s note: Editor’s note: Sunni Brown owns an information design firm and is a speaker and co-author of “GameStorming: A Playbook for Rule-breakers, Innovators and Changemakers.” She was recently named on Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business List and on the 10 Most Creative People on Twitter list. She spoke at the TED 2011 conference in Long Beach, California.

(CNN) – Humans have been doodling in snow, in sand and on cave walls for more than 30,000 years.

George Washington, Thomas Edison, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and Vladimir Nabokov were doodlers. Bill Gates and Frank Gehry are among today’s active doodlers.

Yet most of us haven’t reflected on why we feel compelled to draw.

In fact, many parts of our society — including businesses, schools and colleges — frown on doodling and consider it a waste of time. While we can’t overcome cultural biases overnight, we can certainly ask a relevant question: Why is doodling so universal? What is doodling doing for us?

Virginia Scofield, an immunologist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, knows from personal and professional experience what doodling does. After struggling with organic chemistry in college, she decided to try doodling the complexities of the subject rather than memorizing them from the textbook. Scofield happened upon what native doodlers have known for a long time: Doodling can improve cognitive performance. Because of her success in transforming her own learning process, Scofield incorporated doodling and visual note-taking into her university classroom for more than two decades, and she told me it notably improved the success rate of her students.

Scofield is not the only one who’s learned to be impressed by the Doodle. Jackie Andrade, a professor at the University of Plymouth,published a study finding a 29 percent increase in information retention gained by doodlers. She noted that, contrary to popular belief, doodling seems to prevent people from losing focus on boring or complex subject matter. It gives learners who may otherwise mentally check out an opportunity to check back in.

Other researchers exploring the impact of doodling and drawing have come to equally significant conclusions about this deceptively simple act. A recent article in Science argued that drawing in science education caters to individual learning preferences and motivates students to engage and explore content in a more meaningful way. And classroom research shows that not only do learners better understand concepts through simple drawing, but it sets the stage for innovative and divergent ways of thinking. For a nation with an ego wounded by our decreased scores on the Torrance Creativity Test, this unfettered access to creative thinking shouldn’t be underestimated.

Just ask Google, the only company on record with an official Chief Doodler on the payroll. Google’s culture is well known for its 80/20 “innovation time off” rule. And for many employees, that time is spent using simple visual language to doodle, sketch and prototype new business opportunities. Indeed, many companies seeking an edge are looking to applications of hand-drawn visual language as a prospective lifeboat. In a hyper-competitive marketplace, thinkers need all the mojo they can muster.

To the throngs of doodlers around the world, this evidence is likely just the beginning of our gentle “I told you so” moments. Learning that accommodates more than text-based or verbal information amplifies the effects of cognition and creativity. And when the Science article suggested that drawing should be recognized along with reading, writing and speaking as a key element in education, it was a hallelujah moment for doodlers around the world.

I’m one of them. I use doodling for a variety of reasons: I use it to get clarity around a concept, I use it to relax, I use it to communicate ideas with others and get their refinement of them, I use it to map complex systems for companies, I use it to run innovation games for business, I use it to get insight on something puzzling me.

See some examples of how doodles are used

So how do you get better at doodling? It’s a delightfully easy task. Learners can start with the Visual Alphabet, a series of six flows—the point, line, arc, angle, spiral and loop, and the six forms—the oval, eye, triangle, rectangle, house and cloud. With these 12 “letters,” prospective doodlers can articulate any visual representation of any concept they can imagine. All it takes is a commitment to learning this language, native to our brain’s visual cortex, and applying it to challenges either at work or at school. Rather than talking in circles about a complex subject, try doodling it using words and pictures. Show your teachers and colleagues another way to see information. The insights and aha moments will arrive naturally in the process.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Sunni Brown.

When Fast Company put me one their 100 Most Creative People in Business 2011 list, they asked that I draw an image of my creative process so they could use it to promote the event. They also asked me to send a self-portrait. So, since neither my creative process nor my self-portrait is sacred, I thought I’d have a little fun with the assignment. Above is a sketchy display (made under heinous deadline pressure) that describes the high-level flow of creation as it occurs in my life and work. And below is the person my mother most often compares me with in order to bolster my self-esteem. Never in my days did I expect to be labeled a “creative” (or an “artist” for that matter), and I continue to find those occasional categorizations flattering but confusing. For now, I’m happy to have been recognized, since I know damn well there are thousands of creatives out there who also deserve the attention.

The Center for Teaching Qualityis a repeat client of ours and our admiration is mutual. This small but dynamite organization works to redefine what it means to be a teacher in the 21st Century – legislatively, politically and in the virtual/classroom. Teachers are no longer just teachers in the new education landscape – they are officially “teacherpreneurs!” We’ve partnered with CTQ to gamestorm their Annual Retreats, to design visual book summaries, to produce explanatory videos for outreach, and the hits just keep on comin’.

This particular project involved designing a graphic for a forthcoming website CTQ is helping to develop. The website will serve as a virtual home the new Teacher Leader Model Standards, developed by Teacher Leadership Exploratory Consortia. Each of these images represents one of the seven domains. It was a creative balancing act of visual storytelling, info design and a bit of user experience. So, without further ado, I give you a slice of our latest mojo pie.

Own Products was founded by the  (now former) CEO of Method Products, which many of us know and love from the People Against Dirty campaign. Alastair Dorward took Method from a great but small company to one of the market titans in non-toxic cleaning products. And he’s about to do the same with Own. Tom Fishburne introduced me to Alastair so we could decide how to approach the illustrations of their brand story. The brand is smart but not pedantic, environmentally conscious but not condescending, and scientifically valid but simple. So we opted for clean, black-and-white, occasionally sassy, hand-drawn illustrations specific to each product line: suncare, anti-aging, and acne and to the brand itself. I worked with Gershoni, a kickass husband-and-wife branding agency in San Francisco, to really nail the concept and aesthetic of these images that would be part of the visual storytelling on their landing page. So what you see above are some of the compositions I drew to represent the message and the brand. Which, by the way, I am very proud to support. Own Products have zero poisonous chemicals and are incredibly effective based on the worldwide clinical trials they’ve conducted. The people behind this brand are GOOD people, so you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be sporting their products. And lucky for me, they’ll be sporting my work. Oh, and they’re also sporting my big face in the product explanation videos on their site – it turned out that I was a good fit for the illustrations and also as the spokesperson. What?! They were happy with the output but I try to avoid seeing the videos. I let my mom appreciate that kind of thing.

]]> http://sunnibrown.com/2010/09/29/own-products-branding-images-and-visual-storytelling/feed/ 0 http://sunnibrown.com/2010/05/11/the-war-of-art-visual-book-summary/ http://sunnibrown.com/2010/05/11/the-war-of-art-visual-book-summary/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 21:33:18 +0000 Sunni http://sunnibrown.com/?p=1332

Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art left an indelible impression on me (and many others I’m sure), so I decided to memorialize some of the lessons in a visual format. Both visuals were done by hand in one sitting, with calligraphy pens, no white-out and no first-try pencil marks. On occasion I would forget to breathe because I was trying to be so still. The first graphic visualizes principles from the first section of Pressfield’s book about what Resistance is and what forms it can take. The second graphic references how we, as aspiring artists or anything else, can defeat Resistance – by going Pro. I absolutely cherished the process of creating these because the principles are universal and timeless and because we all need a swift kick in the pants from time to time. This is the first of many visual book summaries I plan to do – all of them on books that have meaning and practical application in my life. Enjoy.

The first bits of coolness around SXSW Interactive 2010: a baby graphic giving some insight into the contents of our Visual Notetaking Panel. The panel, Visual Notetaking 101, is on Monday, March 15 at 3:30 pm, so join us for a conversation on how to stop taking notes that look like punishment. I’m joined on the panel by my co-author Dave Gray, and by sketchnote masters Mike Rohde and Austin Kleon. Visual thinkers, come out of the closet. And be rewarded with excellent content when you do.

As I mentioned to my client Todd Zaki Warfel of Messagefirst, I am exceptionally proud of this NYU Study Abroad infographic. It took a sizable amount of production time and brain power, and were it not for the acumen of my stellar design team (and the teamwork and cooperation of Messagefirst), this poster-sized piece would have never seen the light of day. So, a colossal thank you to Cameron Ewing, a stupendous illustrator and designer, and Chet Hornung, an uncannily savvy data geek. Together we were the Holy Grail of information design and data management. And thank you, Jamie Thompson and Todd, for your faith in BrightSpot i.d. and for a project that shifted our boundaries of what’s possible.

As many of you know, Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) is preoccupied with the pursuit of a little thing called happiness. He studies it, he gives presentations about it, and he successfully incorporates it into Zappos’ best practices for corporate culture. Since I met Tony, Alfred Lin and Brian Kalma at SXSW 2009, I’ve had the privilege of working with Zappos on various visual-thinking-related projects. The latest, what you see above, was a design project to create images for Tony’s forthcoming book, ‘Delivering Happiness.’ The specific graphics above won’t appear in the book – the project had to be handed to another illustrator because I was on my own sadistic book deadline – but they were used as a creative catalyst for the images that will be published. I’ve processed the emotional letdown by shaking my fist at God. I think I’ll be fine – especially after I read a good book on happiness.