My four approaches to scribing
Scribing is often a mixture of approaches - in the way information is gathered, the speed and nature of its execution and the framework that underpins it. A few of those ‘frameworks’, for me, are:
The Event Story Scribe
Maps out the main milestones and information. Sometimes it’s non-linear. Sometimes there is a path joining up the chunks of event in the order it comes. Often it’s a process of taking notes when information is being delivered and transcribing it when there is a lull.
This way you can listen more carefully, synthesise better and let more complex visuals evolve.
The Gallery Scribe
A collection of single cartoons, all created live, that focus on one idea each. More time is spent honing ingredients like humour, metaphor and drawing. This kind of scribe is great for sophisticated single images that can be plugged into outputs and messaging post event. If you are able to recount the idea with humour then the images can have real impact. These pictures do still come together to tell a story though and I often join them together as one continuous frieze -both on the event and as the digital output.
All images below were made on an event. Some have been coloured digitally during or post-event.
The Get it Down Scribe
Sometimes there’s no time to pause - the scribing is the note-taking. The drawings are simpler but translating on the spot means you can get in a lot of detail.
The example below is a composite of several scribes - to protect confidentiality - but is representative of 60/90 - minute conversation captured on whiteboard with the aim of recording conversation flows and all the main points covered.
This is the digitally coloured version that is sent to participants at the end of the event.
Rich Picture Scribe
The objective here is to turn a subject into a scene that describes all of its different interconnected parts. It might picture a real place or process but more often it is a fictional situation that translates the real world into something more imaginative - a space station or air traffic control. It’s the event story hung on a metaphor and the analogies that spring from that can really illuminate the content.
This example was the result of one day’s workshop on a big whiteboard.
These are not strict categories and scribes will often be a mixture of approaches.
