5 Reasons You Need to Draw People in Your Visual Thinking

Anyone who learns visual thinking with me knows that I deemphasize iconography. In fact, in the 422 pages of The Idea Shapers, 5% talks address pictorial images.

Why?

Because that 5% triggers the big, red I CAN’T DRAW button.

I am here to help you confidently push the green I CAN DRAW button.

I teach all sorts of drawing that is not iconography. The other 95% of visual thinking that is writing and drawing lines, shapes, symbols. Making choices about color and size. The mountains of meaning can made independent of drawing icons.

But when you are building your image-drawing skills, the question is:

What are the very first icons you should learn?

People.

Faces and figures.

Here are 5 reasons why:

1 | You are not a brain in a jar.  You are a whole human being.

Abstract thinking and spatial reasoning can stroke our intellectual self. Pattern seeking and making connections on the page tickles the brain.

Believe me, this is my happy place. Nothing better than a smarty party.

And… I am whole person. You are a whole person.

We are intellectual and emotional and logical and intuitive.

While the left brain versus right brain concept is widespread, it is not actually the ways our brains or bodies function.

We can’t be cleaved in half like firewood.

Drawing people help us remember that we are whole humans.

Whole humans full of ideas and thoughts and feelings.

Even the most basic representation of smiley faces and stick people brings life to our drawings. Zero shame in the stickman game. Any face or figure represents you in your physical form.

2 | See yourself among your thoughts, feelings and ideas.

When I feel overwhelmed, I often characterize the thoughts and feelings and ideas as a swarm in my head. Other times it feels like a heavy weight I am carrying.

When I pour all of that onto paper, I can now place myself side-by-side all of that information. 

I feel immediate relief getting it all out.

But I also have the opportunity to draw out where I am in relationship to the information.

Here I am in the center: 

Other times I may be looking back and reflecting. Or I could place myself far away from long-term goals.

Having a representation of myself on the page helps me not lapse back into being a brain in a jar.

This connects to one of my key reasons that I will always choose paper and pen over digital tools.

Physical drawings help me be more in my body.

When I am more in my body, I can better tune into physical cues when I am drawing.

Examples:

• Am I feeling tense?
• Is there pain? Where?
• Do I feel the goosebumps of a new insight?

Know what that is?

That is information.

The initial emotions are information.

The reaction to seeing it on the page is information.

New insights may come up as words and faces and bodies and all these emotion-mapping tools take shape in your drawing. Also information.

These emotions can be fleeting.

  Or could persist. 

Yep, you guessed it, more information.

This information need not be shameful. Or judged.

All of this is exceedingly useful information.

Making these kinds of drawings let us make sense of our emotions.

Giving ourselves space to place them down.

Take a look.

Get a little distance.

Even if only arm's length. 

4 | Your audience and clients need to see themselves.

 Any time you are supporting other people with your visual thinking skills, there is massive power in being seen.

You are helping the people you serve see themselves among their own thoughts, feelings and ideas.

As my graphic facilitation work evolved, figures became larger and more common. It began as I saw how my clients were having conversations like a collection of brains each in their own jar.

Not at all surprising. Very often our work selves are a fraction of our whole selves. At work, and definitely in the strategy meetings I visually support, we are shining our intellectual light.

We are rewarded for our ideas.

Our problem solving.

And these days, the pinnacle is being innovative. An amorphous goal to strive for.

^{Graphic facilitation of a human resources strategy meeting, 2011.} 

As far as bringing our emotional selves to work, safety and acceptance varies widely by organizational culture. At best, empathy, listening skills, and emotional expression are valued. At worst, any emotion is verboten as too touchy-feely or uncomfortable.

I began to add large figures on the charts I scribed to represent:

• The people in the room, so they could see themselves.
  ex. You as a leader in the organization.
• Their coworkers when they were talking organizational change.
  ex. Your colleagues who will be part of the plan you are creating.
• Their audience, customer, patient, student – the people they were there to serve or sell to.
  ex. The voice of the customer.
  

Once I started, I never stopped. Large figures became part of my visual vocabulary. 

5 | Use a large figure to shape your thinking.

Here's some "varsity level" visual thinking. But it is oh-so-learnable and will be a big part of Meaningful Mascots on November 12.

When I made larger and larger figures for my graphic facilitation clients, I made new spaces to put ideas. 

Now I could label the arm of a leader pointing towards the shared goal. 

During one of umpteen speakers on neuroscience, I could add a nice squishy brain where it belonged. 

I could add a wristwatch to a figure as the group talked about timing. 

There are 5 fantastic reasons WHY you should include faces and figures to your visual thinking.

You may be thinking, "Sure, Brandy, but HOW do I do that?"

That is precisely what I teach you in Meaningful Mascots on November 12. In this virtual deep dive day, you will learn:

✅ Incredibly simple facial expressions to capture a range of emotions. Yes, far beyond the very useful five faces in reason #3.

I even ship you my brand new Faces Deck in your workshop kit!

✅ To develop your own “everyperson” or mascot that gives you a go-to figure to draw.

Not only does this free up mental energy, it can also become a central part of your style.

✅ My secret sauce of how I use human figures to make my drawings more integrated.