As visual thinkers, our job is to make marks that make meaning.
One of the things that I appreciate about this work is the different form that those marks can take. Sometimes they’re words, sometimes recognizable objects, sometimes simply sketched people or faces, and sometimes they are abstract shapes, like what you see me sketching out in the video above.
Even when they are shapes that don’t necessarily represent a specific object in the physical world, there’s still meaning that we assign to those types of marks.
So my question for you, as you look at those shapes: which one resonates with you right now? Which one connects to something going on in your personal or professional life and why?
For me, it’s the collection of dots. I’m in a period where I am making videos more regularly, short videos roughly once a day, as first creative act when I enter my office. They are equal parts stand-alone creative acts that can exist on their own as well as the building blocks of a coherent body of work.
There are connections between the individual videos that I make here, rough constellations that are forming. You might even start to see something recognizable in those constellations, or maybe not.
Maybe something in your world is spiraling inward or outward at the moment. Maybe there’s some stacking going on in your life. Maybe there’s a rippling inward or outward. Or some careening downhill or working uphill. Or perhaps some structural integrity being built. Or maybe a bit of a balancing act. Or maybe you feel like an amorphous blob that’s exploring the world, moving In different directions.
This activity of drawing abstract shapes and then assigning them meaning is not a bad warmup, one that might precede a session spent thinking through a complex topic, working to solve a challenging problem, or making sense of something going on in your life.
If any of these shapes resonate with you right now, begin there. Sketch it out, and then add to it. Give it a little more meaning. Turn it into a model that helps you make sense of your world.
If you’d like to get some more practice making marks of different kinds, then check out The Verbal to Visual Notebook. There you’ll find loads of prompts to help you become more comfortable making marks, from words to shapes to objects to people. Some of the activities are a bit more playful, others a bit more purposeful, but all of them will help you become a better visual thinker.
Cheers,
-Doug