Visual Note-Taking
What is visual note-taking?
We're visual artists who bring meetings and events to life
Visual note-taking (also called graphic recording, sketchnoting, or scribing) is the practice of turning spoken ideas into real-time drawings using simple words and pictures.
Ink Factory provides live visual note-taking for conferences, meetings, and events, so your audience walks away with a clear, memorable summary of what was said.
You won’t regret it
Why Visual Notes?
Sixty-five percent of people simply learn better visually.
Words are abstract and difficult for the brain to retain. Visuals are concrete and more easily remembered.
HOW VISUAL NOTE-TAKING HELPS
Conferences & Webinars
Live visual notes keep audiences engaged from start to finish. Instead of passively listening, participants see their ideas and key points illustrated in real time, which increases focus, energy, and connection. The result is a stronger impact for your event and lasting takeaways for attendees.
In fact, the brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text. When visual notes are used in a meeting, many of the participants will be able to more quickly understand the content over content presented without visuals.
Presentations & Pitches
Visuals turn complex strategies into clear, compelling stories. Leaders and teams can communicate their vision in a way that resonates emotionally and logically, helping them build trust, inspire action, and maximize ROI. A pitch with visuals doesn’t just inform — it persuades.
If you want to make sure your ideas stick, use visuals. A study found that participants who viewed only text remembered 10 percent of what they read after three days. Those who viewed text paired with visuals remembered 65 percent of the information three days later.
Internal Meetings & Initiatives
Within organizations, visuals help teams align, clarify goals, and move forward with shared understanding. From strategy sessions to cultural initiatives, visual note-taking makes abstract ideas tangible, ensuring discussions lead to stronger collaboration and measurable outcomes.
Scientists have found that using visuals during meetings creates more ideas, creates better ideas, and increases recall.
How visual note-taking WORKS
In‑Person Notes
Virtual Notes
Digital Notes
& Draw
See visual
notes in ACTION
From strategy sessions to global conferences, our team of artists transforms spoken words into real-time visuals that spark clarity, boost engagement, and help ideas stick.
Racism in the Food System with Cornell University
National Asphalt Pavement Association’s Midyear Meeting
Next Level with James Wedmore
Worldwide Business Research
We're a small business with big impact.
Thousands of visual notes after our founding in 2011, we’re still the ones everyone’s talking about. Turns out when you turn run-of-the-mill meetings into hand-drawn masterpieces, people notice.
14+
100%
15
1,500+
500+
70+
15+
5
*have markers, will travel
What our clients are saying
Who uses Visual Notes?
Leaders & Strategists
When strategy gets complicated, visual notes make it clear. We capture your planning sessions live, synthesizing dense discussion into a visual roadmap everyone can actually follow.
What you get: Strategic clarity your whole team can see.
Clients say: “Ink Factory helped realize our goal of inspiring and motivating audiences in both providing something visually appealing and surprising to our audiences AND helping us to document all of the content in a way that motivates our audiences to take actionable next steps.”
Event Planners & Organizers
Visual note-taking turns a room full of listeners into a room full of participants. As keynotes and breakouts happen, we’re drawing them in real time, giving them something to focus on, be inspired by, and get excited about.
What you get: More engaged attendees and happy clients with lasting assets for greater ROI
Clients say: “Not only was it amazing to watch the boards being created but it caused a TON of chatter at our live program! Many attendees were taking pictures of the boards and were amazed and felt it truly captured so much from the sessions that they didn’t even need to take notes.”
Marketing & Sales Teams
Client pitches stand out with visual note-taking (and let your client know you heard them). Marketers know that visuals are how you grab attention, using visual notes for everything from pop-up events to social media marketing materials.
What you get: Assets that clarify your value proposition and stand out
Clients say: “The illustrations turned out way better than I could have hoped for! We attend this convention annually, and the team said it was the most engagement we’ve ever had out our booth. So, thanks for helping make the event a huge success for us!”
HR & People Operations
From town halls to training days, visual note-taking makes your mission, vision, and values land—turning abstract culture-building into something employees can see, remember, and rally around.
What you get: Stronger alignment, culture that sticks
Clients say: “The Ink Factory team was great to work with. They quickly understood what we hoped to accomplish. The artist grasped the context of our program session and created a visual that we can use to encourage more discussions about diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
About Us
We've lead the visual note-taking industry since 2011
Since 2011, we’ve been turning spoken words into visual notes that people actually remember. And we’re proud to say that we’re the largest team of full-time visual note-takers in the world.
Our artist-led and owned team have drawn visual notes at everything from Fortune 100 strategy sessions to industry conferences, bringing over 100 years of combined experience to every event. And because we’re a full team—not a solo practitioner—you’re never left scrambling if your artist gets sick or an emergency comes up. We’ve got you covered, no matter what.
Related visual communication services
Event Activations
Instead of drawing your speaker or panel discussion’s content, we draw what your audience has to say. Interactive and impactful.
Illustrations & Infographics
Polished drawings with a specific goal or call to action, created in our Chicago studio. Print them or share online for maximum impact.
Explainer Videos
Stand out from generic AI slop video production. We put our graphic recording skills to use by creating hand-drawn explainer videos.
Visual Note-Taking Workshops
Learn to think and communicate visually with our graphic recording workshops for teams.
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
Visual Notes FAQs
What are visual notes?
Visual notes are the product of visual note-taking. Visual note-taking, also called graphic recording, sketch-noting, or scribing, is the practice of turning spoken ideas into real-time drawings using simple words and pictures.
Ink Factory's specific style of visual note-taking means we draw large-format at the front of the room, and focus on capturing the key ideas from a session using text and visual metaphors. We don't do any work on the visual post-session; it's 100% live.
Who uses visual notes?
We work with anyone who needs help landing their message with impact. Small local businesses, Fortune 100 companies, non-profits and governments all benefit from seeing their ideas take form.
We've worked for pretty much every industry you can think of: healthcare, technology, software, engineering, sales, marketing, energy, retail, real estate, and so much more.
Do you need the presentation ahead of time?
Nope. The whole point is that we listen and draw in real-time. Receiving a presentation ahead of time is helpful for your artist to understand complex jargon, acronyms, or statistics. Your dedicated Ink Factory project manager will be able to work with you to set your artist(s) up for success.
Is visual note-taking distracting to those in the room?
Visual notes are a super engaging tool because your content is being synthesized and visualized in real-time. If anyone in the room is focused on our hand-drawn visuals, they are still connected with the content. We do recommend that the artist is positioned next to the speakers instead of at the back of the room so people aren't turning around to look at them, though.
Do you teach workshops?
We're continually expanding our learning resources on visual thinking and note-taking. You can learn more about workshops for teams here.
Do you do pro-bono visual note-taking work?
If you are a nonprofit organization working for racial justice or have a programming focus that directly uplifts & supports communities impacted by racial inequities, you are eligible to apply for a limited selection of our services pro-bono. You can learn more about the initiative and apply here.
Would digital or analog visual notes be better for my event?
Our team will work with you to select the best option for your event. Sometimes, it’s both!
Digital visual notes are great for events with big audiences because your AV team can project them large enough for everyone to experience. Digital visual notes are also useful for smaller brainstorming sessions with a lot of ideation and evolving thoughts, or for events where you’ll want your artist to be more mobile between groups or rooms.
Analog visual notes are ideal when you want a more tangible experience–nothing beats seeing one of our artists draw what your audience is hearing, or interacting with the final display of artist boards after the sessions. Analog visual notes work best at the front near the speaker(s) so participants can see what’s being drawn.