Thanks to a recent share within Verbal to Visual (shoutout to Lai Chee!), I watched this explainer video about generative AI:
In addition to enjoying the overview of that technology, I also had a blast viewing it from a visual thinking lens. I encourage you to watch the video and also explore the complete drawing.
Here’s what I think the creator, Henrik Kniberg, did really well:
Setting the context with a clear title and subtitle at the top of the page: “Generative AI in a nutshell - how to survive and thrive in the age of AI”
The sketch and video are broken up into well-defined chunks, each of which is styled consistently with orange headers.
There’s a great balance between sketches and text: the sketches are simple but clear, and there’s enough (but not too much) supportive text alongside them.
Throughout the video we zoom and pan around the canvas, but never too fast or too dramatically to lose sense of where we are on the page
We get to see Henrik’s face in the corner of the screen, which is a helpful human touch that reinforces a theme of the video: AI is not taking over (for now), but humans + AI can yield some powerful results.
He shares a thorough overview of a topic that gets a lot of media attention but is not well understood.
There are a lot of ways that you can create sketched videos that work. This is one example of a format that absolutely does.
My own format has moved in the analog direction lately, working with pen and paper up on a wall as I sketch and chat in real time.
That’s the beauty of the world of visual thinking - there’s plenty of space for you to lean into the materials and the style that you find enjoyable and useful.
So just keep sketching.
Cheers,
-Doug
P.S. Want to learn how to make and share your own sketched videos? Check out The Online Entrepreneur course bundle, or any of these others that catches your eye:
I've been following Doug for years, and although this video is by someone else, I see a lot of what Doug has taught in the style and format of this video. AI seems an easy concept to grasp, but it's not! I really like the video. I was taken aback at first by how the author drew on any available space on the canvas, and we're used to a top-down paper approach. Excellent overall, nicely done!