Obsidian, Apple Vision Pro, & Layered Sketchnoting

Issue #7 of Simply Sketched

Hello! Doug Neill from Verbal to Visual here. For many of you this will be the first issue of Simply Sketched that makes it to your inbox. This newsletter has the same focus as always (to support you in the development of your visual thinking skills), but it’s got a new name, look, and feel! Hope you enjoy it.

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I started using the note-taking and knowledge management system Obsidian this week after hearing Tara McMullin talk about how she enjoys it as a research and connection-making tool. It’s the connection bit that makes Obsidian unique — you can link notes to each other that can then be displayed in a graph view, which creates a new way to explore the network of ideas that you’re building.

I’d like to use Obsidian as a place to store my sketchnotes, to capture and connect the big ideas in the books that I read, to develop future resources for Verbal to Visual, and to draft the essays that I write for this publication.

I’m still in the experimentation phase with this tool, and not yet sure whether I’ll commit to it (and switch over from Notion, which has been my go-to for the last few years). But so far I like what it has to offer.

I found this tutorial video from Vicky Zhao (who has also made videos about the Zettelkasten note-taking system) to be helpful in getting up and running.

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It looks like we’re getting closer to the immersive spatial and physical computing experience that we saw in the movie Minority Report. As Marques Brownlee shares in his first impressions of the Apple Vision Pro headset, an impressive AR experience with hand gestures is coming our way next year (at a hefty price).

What excites me about that experience is the potential for more physical navigation when working on a computer, the benefits of which Annie Murphy Paul describes in her book The Extended Mind:

“The improvements generated by the use of the super-sized display are striking. [Robert] Ball and his collaborators have reported that large high-resolution displays increase by more than tenfold the average speed at which basic visualization tasks are completed…When using a large display, they engaged in higher-order thinking, arrived at a greater number of discoveries and achieved broader, more integrative insights…a small screen requires us to engage in virtual navigation through information — scrolling, zooming, clicking — rather than the more intuitive physical navigation our bodies carry out so effortlessly.” - Annie Murphy Paul, The Extended Mind

In those examples Paul is referencing the use of large screens and/or multiple monitors, but I think the benefits extend to use of a headset like Apple Vision Pro, where you can make use of multiple virtual screens oriented around you. Personally I’m most interested in the AR approach that maintains your view of the physical space around you, with the addition of virtual screens that allow you to get more of your body involved in whatever creative work you’re doing.

We of course get the same benefits of physical navigation when working large scale with analog materials too, like I share in this video: Got a big project? Give it a wall.

Perhaps an infinite number of virtual walls will soon be within our grasp.

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While the use of AR or VR goggles for sketchnoting work is still a ways off in the future, the tool combination of a tablet and stylus provides plenty of opportunities right now! In next week’s workshop inside of Verbal to Visual we’ll be discussing how you might make use of layers within your sketchnoting process, in connection with our course Digital Sketchnoting.

For example, I appreciate how the app Concepts has an automatic layering feature that lets me assign each pen or brush that I use to a specific layer, as I show in this video from a few weeks back:

If you’d like to participate in next week’s workshop about the use of layers, come join us inside of Verbal to Visual!

There you’ll also be able to tap into our full course library and learn from other visual thinkers from around the globe.

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It’s not all digital these days, though. I just received my Visual Frameworks poster in the mail, and I think it makes a nice addition to my office wall:

I’m also excited about the upcoming Kickstarter for a physical card deck version of the frameworks. Keep your eye out for that!

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Finally, I’d like to say a special thank you to those of you who’ve chosen to support this publication by becoming a paid subscriber, which grants you access to original essays that I’m writing like this one about digital minimalism and another about my new active retrieval practice during long runs. I’m excited to continue writing and sketching new essays, as well as making new videos for the Verbal to Visual and Doug Draws YouTube channels, so know I appreciate the support.

I wish you luck with whatever visual thinking work is front and center in your life right now!

Cheers,

-Doug