10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Graphic Recorder/Visual Note-Taker
October 1, 2026If you’re bringing live visual note-taking to your next conference, offsite, or board meeting, the artist you book is the difference between “wow, everyone’s talking about this” and a rushed sketch nobody remembers by Monday. Before you sign anything, ask these ten questions. Questions About the Artist’s Experience & Approach 1. How long have they …
How to Get Free Visual Notes at Your Event
November 26, 2025NIC, or rather, the The National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care, is a nonprofit who hosts huge bi-annual NIC conferences across the country. The NIC conference schedules are jam-packed with keynotes, panel discussions, hackathons, and more, and Ink Factory captures it all. Even better? They don’t pay for a cent of it. Sponsoring …
Chicago Planner Conference
January 27, 2025As Chicago Planner Conference (CPC) attendees packed their pens and planners, we packed our markers and tools and set off to join the group to capture visual notes and teach a workshop on visual note-taking.
What started in 2018 as a small and cozy get-together has exploded into a sold-out conference extravaganza with 600 attendees, bringing together any and everyone from lawyers, doctors, teachers, and stay-at-home parents who all share a love for organization, planning, and stationery.
Skillshare Note Taking Classes We Love
January 26, 2023While we were creating our first-ever Skillshare course, we found so many incredible Skillshare Note-Taking classes for deepening visual communication skills. There are so many classes on Skillshare that are excellent supplements to your visual note-taking learning. Here are the courses that we took and absolutely loved!
The Ultimate Guide Part III: Sketchnoting Supplies, Sketchbooks & More
April 4, 2022New to sketchnoting? In part one of this guide, we reviewed the top black markers for small format visual note-taking, the foundation of any sketchnoting journey. In part 2, we discussed the best color markers for sketchnoting. And now, we’re covering everything else you need to know to create your perfect sketchnoting toolkit!
The Ultimate Guide Part 2: Color Markers for Sketchnoting
July 21, 2021Color is a hugely important part of visual note-taking, and not something we’re willing to skimp on when it comes to a smaller format! Luckily, there are a lot more options available for water-based color markers, since we don’t need them to be water-resistant like their black ink counterparts.
The Ultimate Guide to Sketchnotes: Part 1 – Black Markers
June 10, 2021Our team members love to take personal notes in their sketchbooks–what people often call sketchnotes! As a personal tool, sketchnotes are an incredible way to keep you engaged with in-the-moment content like a classroom lecture, a team meeting, or even just listening to your favorite podcast. Plus, you’ll end up with a drawing you can refer back to again and again, so you don’t forget what you learned.
Hand Lettering Tips for Visual Notes
October 12, 2020It doesn’t take a professional eye to notice that creative hand-lettering makes a big impact while taking visual notes! At Ink Factory, our artists block off 5-20 minutes before our live drawing events in order to draw an eye-catching title. Having a couple of hand lettering tips up your sleeve is helpful for drawing titles and illustrating points throughout your notes. Today we’ll show you some easy hand-lettering tricks to up your visual notes game.
How to Use Visual Brainstorming Techniques to Develop Organized Ideas
September 2, 2020At Ink Factory, we love using visual brainstorming techniques to help us creatively solve problems in our work and innovate on our services. Visual brainstorming simply means putting ideas and thoughts on display (rather than the actual act of drawing visuals). You can be at any experience level and still be an effective visual brainstormer. …
What is Visual Note-Taking?
October 1, 2019Curious event attendees approach our artists all the time while visual note-taking. “So, what is this CALLED?” they ask, while gesturing to our boards. What we call visual note-taking is varies throughout our industry. Visual notes are also called graphic recording, sketch noting, or scribing. Defining graphic recording can be a little confusing when you have all these terms thrown into the mix!