by Carly Smith

Austin Kleon is a writer who draws, or at least that’s how he describes himself. According to Kleon, he is “a visual thinker who is obsessed with the art of communicating with pictures and words, together.”

After drawing notes and presentations at SXSWi 2009, Austin, along with Sunni Brown, Mike Rohde and David Gray; presented an online webinar about the basics of visual note-taking.

Over 100 people participated in the online webinar, and the team received quite a bit of attention for it. They decided that visual note-taking would make an interesting panel topic at SXSWi 2010.

Kleon says that their “hope for the panel is that people will walk away with some basic skills to start taking their own visual notes.”

The panelists will cover things such as how to overcome your fear of drawing, how to be a good listener and how to properly share your notes. “Our hope is to create a whole army of visual note-takers covering SXSW,” said Kleon.

All four panelists have previous experience with SXSWi. Brown has been a graphic recorder for several keynotes during SXSWi. Rohde designed the official tote bag for last year’s festival.

Kleon is best known for his Newspaper Blackout Poems, and will be coming out with a book featuring his art in 2010. Kleon’s black out poems feature newspaper articles, partially blacked out with a permanent marker. The art then reveals phrases and poems within the article.

Visual note-taking is a way to transform your thoughts into a more understandable, and more memorable medium, in order to share with others. Kleon, Brown, Rohde and Gray use creativity and originality to present their thoughts in an entirely new way. Instead of simply scribbling notes, or creating an outline, these panelists will show you how to take what you hear, and draw your ideas on paper. The team will teach the audience the basics of sketching, and how to effectively map out ideas.

Please visit Austin’s site for more images.