Graphic
facilitator Brandy Agerbeck creates conceptual maps of conversations.
Since 1996, her drawing and thinking skills have facilitated groups
in finding clarity and understanding their work. Brandy has worked
with groups from 2 to 1000, across industries, creating images to
help people navigate the complex world around them.
"Who ever said that pleasure wasn't functional?" - Charles Eames
"You know what looks good can change, but what works works." - Ray Eames
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Thursday, February 14, 2008
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Sunday, February 10, 2008
Scrap Drawings I think a great quality to have and one I'm proud to possess in resourcefulness. Anytime I make something, I look at the scraps and often sparks the next idea. I had a heck of a lot of fun making these drawings from the scraps of the Congratulations sign I made below. I especially like the purple acrobats.
posted at 11:17 PM
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
How I Got Here - La Linea
When I was a pup, I watched The Great Space Coaster.
...
I've been sitting here about ten minutes thinking about the The Great Space Coaster. I didn't like TGSC. Huh. I found Baxter super creepy. And Gary Gnu. I kinda liked Speed Reader.
Maybe I'm just a Muppet purist.
Aaaaanyhow... the one thing I really loved on TGSC was the La Linea cartoons. Osvaldo Cavandoli's cartoon of an artist's hand drawing one continuous line drawing of a guy.
Mr. Linea walked along the line. The line runs out. He curses at the artist in gibberish. The artist draws another line. Sometimes the line is water, a rope, and animal. Simple premise with a bajillion variations. I was a big fan.
Or maybe I like the swear-y jibberish most.
I draw constantly as a kid. Am an artist. Fall into this work as a graphic facilitator and take on a continous line style:
Congrats! I wanted to send the VizThink organizers a Thank You/Congratulations for a great conference. I made this out of Astrobright paper, Mr. Sketch Markers, black permanent markers, scissors and rubber cement. It was super fun to draw.
And I may be a little high from the rubber cement...
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I've now got my VizThink '08 index cards archived in my portfolio right here.
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Jackie had watched the same segment too, and before the show was over she sent this other clip:
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Friday, February 01, 2008
Adventures in Wiki After two days of nursing my annual headcold and prepping images, I've updated my page on the VizThink wiki!
posted at 5:17 PM
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
VizThink in 3"x5" Pieces! I am home safe a sound from VizThink '08. I knew I'd be making some kind of visual record of my experience at the conference. After overpacking for several options, I choose to draw on 3"x5" index cards. Why?
Normally, I listen to large groups of people and map their conversation into one image. Here I'd be listening to mostly singular presenters/facilitators. So, a smaller scale could work.
I knew a lot of sessions would be hands on. That wouldn't be conducive to one map, and I wanted to participate.
Thankfully, I wasn't working this conference, so I wanted to be flexible to opt in and out of drawing.
3"x5" were easy to fit on my table space.
I could think about this conference in all the good seeds of thought I could use later, so individual cards worked well.
I used just about 100 cards in two days.
posted at 9:20 PM
Monday, January 28, 2008
Look at the very sweet cake Emily Shepard drew for me for my birthday today!
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Friday, January 25, 2008
See You Later! I'm off to San Francisco for the first ever VizThink conference. No idea'r who I'll meet or what I'll see, but here's two Muppet clips for visual thinking fun:
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Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Wondering what the heck I've been?
Here's literally what's been on my mind:
Things are actually going very well. Just loads of stuff keeping me away from the site. Loosetooth.com is here to document and share my work. Workin', workin', working. Not much documenting and sharing.
It is November 20 and I am alreadytotally booked for December with graphic facilitation work and uh, some social life. I'm hitting the reset button and most likely not blogging until January 2008.
Have a very happy holiday season! Hug your loved ones, laugh a lot and eat good food.
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Friday, November 16, 2007
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Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tube Migration A flock of mailing tubes just took residence in my office closet.
They will live comfortably in my closet. We have a symbiotic relationship. Every time I work a graphic facilitation gig, I take one out into the world. They hold my paper and later my finished drawings. I help them spread their population.
Mock-nature-show aside, this is a great day. I order my mailing tubes from Uline in sets of 25. It feels darn good to run out of tubes and the need to replenish the supply for the next 25 projects.
Better yet, when I ordered the last 25 I was in my old apartment, where I didn't have a good space to store them. They were very precariously stacked on a high shelf in a closet. They jutted out horizontally, barely balanced. Thankfully, they never tumbled. But it was a lousy solution.
Happily, they have a much better resting place in the new apartment.
Colleague and good friend Lynn Carruthers sent this article to me. We both make maps of meetings and are often on event where many mornings start with a "What was on your mind this morning?" exercise. This article supports our anecdotal evidence that "sleeping on it" is good.
"We think what's happening during sleep is that you open the aperture of memory and are able to see this bigger picture," said the study's senior author, Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist who is now at the University of California, Berkeley. He added that many such insights occurred "only when you enter this wonder-world of sleep."
I'm a eight-hours-a-night-er. I'm very pro-sleep for good mental functioning.
G'night and good sleep!
posted at 9:54 PM
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Work & Wear Michelle Boos-Stone, fellow/past IFVP Board member sent me a gift to the IFVP Conference to have a great time in her (much-missed) absence.
I didn't have a moment to check these out until today. These are snazzy! I strung mine on a ball chain: That's the first and last time you'll see those worn as a choker. But at the longer length, I think it'll work great for when I'm journalingatevents. Michelle gave me the 12 pack and there are good "Brandy" colors. The fuscia, orange, yellow, lime green and bright blue are the best.
The tips are great. A fine point when using the tip, a nice wide line when used at an angle: They are permanent markers - they bleed through and I'm not a big fan of the smell. But those things come with the territory with that type of pen. They are less smelly and less bleed-y than Sharpies. And though I adore my Sharpies, these TULs may be great for carrying in my bag for lectures and the library.
When I looked up TUL's website, I enjoyed the humor of the graphologist video. And checking out the products I remembered something...
Sure enough, TUL markers were designed in a collaboration between Office Max and Chicago's Gravity Tank! I had an interview with them awhile back. They showed me the dry erase markers. I haven't worked with them, but I was impressed that they are wearing their smartypants.
Conversation Without Words A couple months ago I ordered new business cards based on an updated design of my home page. Then I decided more homepage needed more changes. I had a stack of 1000 obsolete cards. Yesterday, I sat rewatching Safe Men and started drawing:
Alright... conversations. No words (yet).
I did the dear and turtle. I know I'm drawing bears very similarly to an online colleague, but I'm not putting my finger on who. Hopefully, they'll see it as camaraderie and not copying.
Then I began drawing individuals. I tend to draw very, very basic characters in my graphic facilitation. That's mostly a matter of speed. Capturing the content of the conversation is the number one priority. Adding character is a later priority is, I'd say, third priority, after organizing the content. Perhaps by practicing these folks, I'll get more personality in my real time work. Perhaps they'll
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Odysseus Returns! Tartuffe? What do I know?
So far 2007 has had me traveling far (Berkeley, CA) and wide (Buffalo, NY). Work has been good. My personal life has been squeezed into the spaces in between. My art? Plenty of ideas, little realized this year, besides my pinch pot frenzy.
July 18th, I took a detour. Numo, my lil' pet hedgehog, got sick. That kept me in the Nest, nursing him. Sadly, on August 3rd, I had to put him down. It was/is very sad. But check out his blog to enjoy his life. Viva La Numo!
Running a hedgehog hospice, being home for a chunk of time and a good conversation with a colleague sparked a run of Very Good Work on Loosetooth.com. Much weeding, focusing, getting a handle on everything.
Some people in my circles have shown themselves Complete Rockstars. Others stun me with the way they elbow their way through life. I'm thinking about my choice between those two. Other options.
I've begun acupuncture treatments with the Super Regina Chen. That's helped me learn loads about myself, physically, emotionally.
I'm working on hitting My Own Personal Reset Button. Please stay tuned.
Go Forth! Overuse Capiltalization!
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That's helped me learn loads about myself, physically, emotionally.
