- Dusty Folwarczny
- Updated: July 27, 2026
Looking to try your hand at visual note-taking? Starting your first “graphic recording,” as we sometimes call it, can be intimidating. But there are so many reasons to start taking notes visually. Whether you’re a student, a teacher, a c-suite executive, or a non-profit director, everyone can benefit from communicating and sharing ideas visually.
Beginners who want to learn visual notes can start with these basic steps. Plus, download our free beginner toolkit at the end of this article.
Why you should learn visual note-taking
Visual note-taking gets to the core of content
Think you can’t draw? That’s not what visual note-taking is about. Above anything else, visual note-taking is about listening to content and capturing key points. You don’t have to show off your notes to others just yet. Take the time to practice and your visuals will fall into place.
A study found that a group who doodled during a monitoring task recalled 29% more information than the non-doodlers.
Drawing while listening helps you to:
- Stay engaged with the content
- Remember more information
- Improves your listening skills
- Enhances your ability to organize and connect ideas
If you’ve seen Ink Factory take visual notes live, you might know that visual note-taking is the skill of organizing and capturing information through hand-drawn images and text in real-time. Drawing live means you can react to what’s actually being said in the moment, and it means you’ll be more engaged with the key messages behind the content.
Our visual note-taking process
Curious about how a professional visual note-taker works? Watch the following timelapse of a visual note being created.
Visual note-taking exercise for beginners
In this exercise for beginners, we’ll walk you through creating your very first visual notes using the Ink Factory approach.
Step one: Prepare Your Materials
Estimated time: 5 minutes
At Ink Factory, we draw on a large scale so we can capture many layers of content. If you feel comfortable drawing large scale– and your office has flip chart paper or a dry erase board–we highly encourage it! However, it’s perfectly ok to use a standard 8.5×11” piece of paper for this exercise.
Here are the tools we recommend for a beginner visual note-taker:
- #2 pencils
- Polymer eraser
- 8.5×11″ sketchbook
- A set of water-based color markers
- A variety of smudge-resistant black markers
- White out tape
- A watch, clock, or your phone for keeping time
- A pouch to keep all your supplies in
Next, gather your markers, a pencil, and an eraser. The size of your marker should match the size of your paper. If you’re drawing large scale, use a super-sized marker. If you’re drawing on regular paper, use a standard sharpie, or even Ink Factory’s favorite Flair pen.
If you’re comfortable drawing on an iPad or another type of drawing tablet, go for it!
Step two: Select your color palette
Estimated time: 3 minutes
Next, determine your color palette. Before we start a session, we decide which colors we’ll use in that visual note. Having a limited number of colors to work with will unify your final image, as well as make it easier to grab markers while you’re drawing on the fly. Lay them out in an organized way so you can easily reach them.
For this exercise, in addition to black, select one warm color (orange, red, yellow, pink) and one cool color (blue, purple, teal). It’s also good to have a lighter and darker color as well.
Step three: Assess the time
Estimated time: 1 minute
Drawing live is all about timing. A visual note-taker needs to draw at the correct pace, so their canvas doesn’t end up blank at the end or run out of room 10 minutes before the end of the talk. With this in mind, have a clock on hand so you can pace yourself. The talk we are providing is just under 16 minutes long.
At the 7:30-minute mark, you should have roughly half your paper filled with content. As the clock nears closer to 16 minutes, you’ll know how much time you have left to fill your board.
Step four: Prep your canvas
Estimated time: 15 minutes
Often before a session or talk starts, we prepare our boards with the title from an event’s agenda. That gives us time to draw the title large and make it look really good! Do the same with this talk. When drawing your title, choosing the size and placement of your title will set the composition for the rest of your drawing.
\Will you place the title in the middle, across the top, across the bottom? It’s up to you,but your title should be the biggest element on your page. Just like this article’s title is the biggest font on the page, the title should stand out before anything else. No other content you draw after the title should compete with it.
The title of this talk is: Designing Your Best Life
If you feel comfortable, you can add a visual to your title, something we call an “anchor image.” The anchor image complements the title and makes sense with the content of the topic being discussed. In the photo above, we’d consider the Chicago skyline the anchor image.
Sketch in your title and anchor image with the pencil, then ink over it with a marker and color it in. Erase the pencil lines. Now you are ready to start drawing live.
Step five: Listen and draw
Estimated time: 15 minutes (the length of the talk)
While taking visual notes in real-time, keep the following in mind:
- Your goal is to capture the key takeaways from the talk. Take time to listen before writing. You don’t have to be drawing or writing the entire time. You are the filter for content. Size of content indicates the importance or hierarchy. If you draw something large, it’s very important. If it’s small, then it’s a supporting detail. Use a larger marker for important points, and a smaller one for details.
- Sketch your notes. If you’re not sure if something you’re listening to will be relevant to capture, you can take “pre-notes” by lightly writing in pencil where you might want to draw that point. If you have time to get back to it, draw it in with a marker.
- Don’t stress over visuals. Letters are visuals in themselves! If a visual comes to you, draw it. If you find yourself racking your brain for something to draw, move on. Visuals should be extremely simple and shouldn’t take more than one minute to draw. If your first note ends up with no “visuals,” it doesn’t matter. You still succeed in capturing content!
- Don’t watch the video while you are drawing. Play the video and then minimize the window so you only hear the audio.
- Don’t forget to check in with the clock! Set a timer for every 5 minutes to keep yourself on track if necessary.
After you’ve finished preparing your notes by drawing the title, press play on the video below and start drawing to start your first visual note:
Step six: Try it again
Estimated time: 15 minutes (the length of the talk)
Look at what you just created! Great job! But maybe you’re not 100% happy with it. Maybe you didn’t incorporate as many visuals as you wanted, or as much content as you could have.
Well, you get to do what we wish we could–listen to that talk again. If you want to build on the drawing you’ve already started, you can, or you can start fresh.
After you’ve finished the second round, step back for a moment of self-reflection, and ask yourself the following:
- Are the main points clearly denoted?
- Did I capture a majority of the key concepts?
- Is my handwriting legible?
- Did I use color consistently throughout?
- Did I run out of room on my page, or fill up space too quickly?
- Does my title stand out from the rest of the notes?
- Did the visuals I used make sense with the content?
These questions are excellent ways to reflect and improve every time you create a new visual note or sketchnote.
The Beginner's Visual Note-Taking Toolkit
Want to keep going on your visual note-taking journey? Sign up for our newsletter below and get FREE instant access to our visual note-taking toolkit for beginners. The digtal PDF kit contains:
- An illustrated breakdown of a sketchnote
- Handwriting practice sheet
- Tracing sheet for 16 simple icons
- A visualized guide to the steps outlined in this article for creating your first visual note
Download the Beginner's Visual Note-Taking Toolkit
Learning visual notes takes practice
Congratulations–you’re on your way to becoming a pro visual note-taker. Post your first visual notes won Instagram and tag @inkfactorystudio so we can see what you created.
Like any skill, visual note-taking takes time and meaningful practice to develop. Podcasts, keynote speeches on YouTube, and attending conferences and classes are great ways to practice your skills.
Want to get a head start on learning visual notes? Your team can hire us to teach a visual thinking and communication workshop.
FAQs
How do I get started with visual note-taking?
Practicing the foundational skills of visual note-taking is the best way to get started: listening, composition, handwriting, drawing icons, using color and hand-lettering are the main skills you should know. Our blog is full of how-to guides that can help you get started on your visual note-taking journey!
How long does it take to learn visual note-taking?
The time it takes to learn visual note-taking varies greatly depending upon a person's experience with the core skills that make up visual note-taking: drawing, hand lettering, listening, and writing.
A trained artist or someone with great handwriting will have a much faster time learning visual notes than someone who is new to all these skills.
At Ink Factory, a professional visual note-taker takes at least six months to train because we have the highest standards for quality in our industry.
However, a casual note-taker might learn the basics in one afternoon! It all depends on how much you practice.
Do you teach visual note-taking?
Yes, we teach visual thinking and visual note-taking workshops to teams. You can also find plenty of free learning resources on our blog.
Do I need to be able to draw to do visual note-taking?
Yes...and no! A professional visual note-taker should be able to draw simple and fast icons. A casual or amateur visual note-taker doesn't necessarily need to know how to draw. Drawing is a skill that can be learned, and drawing for visual notes can be as simple as drawing circles, squares, and stick figures. Check out our blog post on developing your visual library for visual notes to learn more.
What's the difference between visual note-taking and sketchnoting?
Sketchnoting is a form of visual note-taking. Sketchnotes are typically a way of referring to small, casual visual notes drawn in a sketchbook.
What tools or materials do I need for visual note-taking?
You shouldn't have to invest a lot of money to get started! As a beginner, we recommend a large sketchbook (8.5x11"), no-smudge black markers in a few different sizes and nib shapes, a set of simple color water-based markers (totally optional), a pencil, eraser, and white out.
How-To Schema:
Don't tell, show.
LET'S GET STARTED.
Visuals make it easier to communicate problem solve, and motivate people to take action.
Let us help you figure out how.
You won’t regret it
