How a Rich Picture is made…
The images in this article are from our ongoing work with researchers involved with the Future of Treescapes
People often ask us ‘what is a Rich Picture?’.
Actually they don’t. No one asks that at all. We are asked ‘can we do a graphic recording but without the live event’ and we say ‘yes but it’s more complicated than that’.
We call these images ‘Rich Pictures’. Except they are not Rich Pictures, a Rich Picture in its truest sense is a form of collaborative visualisation and automatic drawing. We tap into that learning process to create what is really a highly polished, complex business diagram.
But how do we do it and why is it different from a graphic recording? There are two major differences. Firstly when you are creating a live illustration at a meeting or an event there is no filter, no time and it’s only the illustrators take. We understand business, how people speak and what the event is like and thats how we get the results we do live. That doesn’t happen with a ‘static work’. Secondly when you slow down everyone wants a say on the image, and rather than face endless rounds of amends and tweaks a process is needed.
We use virtual tools and rigorous process to decide on Rich Picture content
We tap into the core methodology of making Rich Pictures in their original manner - a splurge of consciousness capturing every thought, tangent and nuance. But we are constantly refining the image. Not just as a way to make it easier to draw, or drawable at all, but as a method of content prioritisation and level setting.
Rough drafts of Rich Pictures are part of the process
The early work in making a rich picture is a mess of scribbles, post it notes and workshops. Using Graphic Facilitation techniques and careful questioning we start to create rough images that are iterated into a final polished image.
We know this is a success after the fact when we hear from clients that their people have printed it out and stuck it up next to their desk. Or used it as a screen saver. Who else does that with an operating model diagram, a strategy document or a vision statement?
This image was made as an engagement tool as part of at Reading University
