Live Illustration for Birmingham Tech Week: Capturing Conference Talks Through Graphic Recording
Live Illustration at Birmingham Tech Week: Capturing Conference Talks Through Graphic Recording
I recently headed to Birmingham Tech Week to spend a day live illustrating talks and panel discussions, capturing some of the ideas and conversations taking place across the event.
As an engineer turned illustrator, I’m in my comfortable place listening to complex ideas and drawing at the same time! It’s like all my chickens came home to roost. As someone who loves listening to people share their knowledge, Birmingham Tech Week provided plenty of interesting conversations to draw!
Over the course of the day, I created five pages of live illustrations, using my iPad to turn discussions into colourful visual summaries.
What is live illustration at a conference?
Live illustration, also known as graphic recording, visual note-taking, or meeting illustration, involves listening to presentations, talks, research, discussions or workshops and capturing the key messages through a combination of drawings, handwritten text and visual storytelling.
Rather than producing a word-for-word transcript, I listen for the themes that emerge throughout a conversation and pick these out to be drawn. I pick up the cues from the speakers and the audience and focus drawing the important points. These often represent the key messages that organisers want their audience to take home.
The result is an illustrated record of the event that people can explore, share and return to afterwards. Plus it’s much nicer to look at pictures than drown in a see of scrawly notes.
For Birmingham Tech Week, I worked digitally on my iPad, creating illustrations that could be shared with speakers and attendees after the talks.
Capturing conversations about inclusive leadership
One of the sessions I illustrated was What Does Inclusive Leadership Look Like?, hosted by George Hall with Ilyas Khan, Caitlin Stanley and Kenneth Dunn.
Although it focussed on leaders, I was interested that the conversation really focussed on individuals and employees. Several themes stood out to me, including the importance of creating a safe environment where people feel comfortable being themselves, recognising the value of different perspectives, and allowing leaders to acknowledge and learn from failure.
These are exactly the kinds of conversations I love capturing through live illustration. A discussion can cover a huge range of ideas, but a visual summary helps bring the key messages together in one place.
Why use live illustration at your event?
We've probably all been to a conference, filled a notebook with interesting ideas and then returned home without looking at those notes again.
That's one of the things I love about graphic recording. It creates a visual reminder of the day that people actually want to revisit. Not to mention, some clever folks at Cambridge University have proven that we remember things better with pictures rather than words alone.
For event organisers, live illustration can also provide useful content beyond the event itself.
Illustrated conference notes can be used to:
Share key messages with delegates after the event.
Create engaging content for LinkedIn and other social media.
Highlight important insights from panel discussions and keynote presentations.
Include visual summaries in reports, newsletters and follow-up communications.
Help people who couldn't attend discover what was discussed.
And because I create my illustrations digitally, the finished artwork can be shared with organisers in a format that's easy to use across their communications.
Live illustration for conferences in Birmingham and beyond
Birmingham is a brilliant place for conferences and events, from large exhibitions at the NEC to creative gatherings in Digbeth, business conferences in the city centre and community events across the West Midlands.
I'm based in Warwickshire and work across Birmingham, Coventry, Warwick, Northampton and the wider Midlands, as well as travelling further afield for conferences and events.
Whether you're organising a leadership conference, research symposium, sustainability summit or industry event, live illustration can help turn your conversations into something colourful, memorable and easy to share.
Looking for a Live Illustrator in the Midlands?
Based in Warwickshire I’m well placed smack bang in the middle of the UK and can reach destinations near and far. From Birmingham to London, Northampton to Herefordshire, Worcester to Manchester and beyond I am happy to travel to you for all your visual scribing and graphic recording needs!
Explore my live illustration services or get in touch to discuss your next event.
