The 5 Kits: Tools for Visual Thinking

In order to engage in the work of visual thinking – of making marks to make meaning – all you really need are two things: something to write and draw with and something to write and draw on.

You can use whatever you have on hand, but I have found that different tool combinations have different benefits, and that’s what I’d like to share here by identifying some visual thinking materials that you might use that run across the spectrum from small scale to large scale and from analog to digital.

I’ll share five specific tool combos (five kits, if you will) for you to consider using in your visual thinking work.

Small Scale Analog: Sticky Notes & Index Cards

Let’s start with some analog tools at the small scale. Two resources that you’ll benefit from having on hand are sticky notes and index cards.

In both of these cases, you have small pieces of paper with the helpful constraint of being able to contain just one or a couple of ideas, maybe a small sketch or two. That gives you the constraint of the size, but also allows for the flexibility of being modular. You can move them around, either up on the wall or down on the desk, as you’re trying to figure out how all of these individual ideas work together (stage three of the Sketch It Out framework).

Medium Scale Analog: Notebook or Sketchbook

As we bump up in scale slightly for the second kit, we come to the simple notebook or sketchbook. The key characteristic of this kit is that it can fit in your backpack. It’s large enough for you to brainstorm a whole set of ideas (maybe what would take half a dozen index cards or sticky notes), but not so large that it becomes cumbersome to use. You can lay it all out on one page and flip to the next when you need to.

Since a notebook is bound, it’s easier to keep a collection of ideas together. With index cards or sticky notes, as the number of these individual pieces grows it gets a little bit harder to manage. So the notebook is a nice middle ground where you have a decent amount of page space to work with, with a tool that can fit in your backpack, and that can contain a collection of related ideas.

You could have one notebook for all that you do, or you could have a few different notebooks, each dedicated to a specific project. At the end of this post I’ll list out some specific suggestions, but first let’s round out the analog side of these kits.

Large Scale Analog: Poster Paper and Whiteboards

Looking large scale, two resources in particular have been really useful for me.

The poster paper that I use takes the form of large sticky notes that you can tear off one at a time and put on a section of your wall so that you can be standing up and moving around, using the physical space of a room. I also put whiteboards in this category as well.

With these large-scale resources you can walk around your ideas and see them from different perspectives, similar to what you can do with sticky notes and index cards, but getting more of your whole body involved since you’ve got a much larger space to work with.

If you find that you have trouble making clear marks with smaller tools, try going big so that you can take advantage of large scale movement. You might find that it’s easier to write and draw when you’ve got a large space to work with as opposed to a tiny one.

As we transition to digital kits, the idea here is not that you have to get all five of these kits before you can start doing visual thinking work. Instead, I encourage you to just pick one to get comfortable with at first. Only start exploring others when your work begins to feel stagnant (if you just get bored with one particular tool set) or if your current creative project doesn’t mesh well with your go-to kit. In those cases you might find it beneficial to switch up the scale, or swap between analog and digital.

Let’s round it out with two more kits.

Small Scale Digital: Page-by-Page Apps

As we think about scale in the digital realm, I’m not referring to the size of your tablet, but instead the dynamics of the particular app that you’re using.

I consider a small-scale app to be those that have a page-by-page approach to their design. You have a canvas that you’re working with that has some finite dimensions to it, often with a toolbar up top where you can change the color or pen style and get quick access to an eraser or a highlighter.

Whenever you fill the page, you swipe over (or scroll down) to get to another page. These apps (with Notability and Goodnotes as great options) mimic the experience of working with a notebook, where you have the constraint of a particular page size and a few different mark making tools, but not a ton of other fancy features to distract you from your core task of getting ideas down. It’s about keeping it simple.

Large Scale Digital: Infinite Canvas Apps

If instead you would like to lean into the complexity of the topics that you’re working with, then you might consider infinite canvas apps, the large-scale version of digital tools. Here you never run out of room because your canvas can expand to be as large as you need it to be.

For example, I use the tool Concepts when I know I want a very large space to brainstorm for a project or take notes on a long podcast interview that I’m listening to. Within that space you can create an ever-growing mind map that can expand to be as large as you need it to be.

What’s nice about Concepts (and many other apps that fit in this category) is that they’re vector based, so you can also do certain types of editing to the marks (scaling up and down, moving around, rotating, and exporting) without losing quality.

I think that sticky note / index cards, poster paper / whiteboard, and certain of these infinite canvas apps have the most collaborative potential, which is another thing to consider as you’re picking your tools for a particular project. Do you need to be able to collaborate with others? How easy is it for a group of people to reference and add to the board that you’re working on?

For collaboration in the digital realm, consider Miro and Mural.

Suggested Materials

Here’s a list of materials that I’ve used and can recommend. Some of these are affiliate links to Amazon, which means if you follow them and make a purchase I receive a small cut at not extra cost to you.

Analog – Small Scale:

Analog – Medium Scale:

Analog – Large Scale:

Digital – Small/Medium Scale:

Digital – Large Scale

When to Branch Out

I want to reiterate that you don’t need special tools to do this work. Cheap copy paper and whatever pen you have on hand will serve you just fine.

But do pay attention to getting bored or when a specific project lends itself to a specific type of tool.

Those are two good reasons to branch out, and these are the five different categories that I encourage you to branch out into, the five kits to consider.

For more on how to make use of any particular tool combination and to learn how to sketch out simple drawings and diagrams as a learning, problem-solving, or communication tool, check out our Sketch Instinct program, which includes a library of complete-at-your-own-pace online courses and regular live events with me that will teach you how to do this type of work for yourself and for others.

I wish you luck in finding a kit that works well for you.

Cheers,

-Doug