Back-of-the-Envelope Video, reMarkable Update, and a Procreate Icon Library

Issue #10 of Simply Sketched

One of the things that I enjoy seeing most is when other visual thinkers try their hand at making sketched videos, which has come to be my favorite format for sharing ideas.

So I was excited to see Verbal to Visual community member Frank Mendoza share this back-of-the-envelope video about knowledge, creativity, and wisdom in the world of generative AI:

If you enjoy that one, check out the next one he made too.

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Two weeks ago I mentioned that I’d just picked up a reMarkable tablet, hoping that it would fill the spot of pre-production in my workflow, for all of the brainstorming and drafting that back in the day I’d use legal pads for.

I’m happy to report that I’m loving it for that purpose!

Here’s some brainstorming I did for an upcoming video about a few new styles of workshops that I’ll be hosting within Verbal to Visual later this year.

I’m keeping the setup real simple: I create a new notebook at the start of each day and add to it as needed as I think through and sketch out new video or project ideas. I use the reMarkable app on my laptop to download and store images if I need to reference them for the next stage of a project.

I also experimented with using it for some visual journaling, capturing a few scenes from a recent trip to Olympic National Park, which you can read more about in this post.

As I’d hoped, the experience of thinking and writing and drawing on the reMarkable feels much more comfortable and focused compared to working on the iPad. I still turn to apps like Concepts and Notability on the iPad when I’m ready for the next stage of work, but starting on the reMarkable feels really good, and I believe that it’s supporting better, more sustainable creative work.

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If you’d like to dive deeper into that topic of digital note-taking, be it with a stripped down tool like reMarkable or the more full-featured apps like Concepts and Notability on the iPad, then check out my course Digital Sketchnoting.

In the coming weeks we’re wrapping up a series of live events in conjunction with the release of new video lessons for that course:

If you’re curious about how I make sketched videos, then join us for the July 19th event!

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One of the regular participants in those live workshops, Maria Palmer, recently shared how she created an icon library within Procreate, a set of images that can be copied and pasted into new projects to speed up her workflow:

She learned that approach from this video in case you’d like to do something similar!

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As we get closer to wrapping up that run-through of Digital Sketchnoting and the release of new lessons, I look forward to getting back to the more regular creation of YouTube tutorials and visual summaries. So know that lots more of those are on the way!

Good luck as you continue building your visual thinking skills and applying those skills to work that you care about.

Cheers,

-Doug