The Pen Addict 17/transcript

The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript
Episode:	17
Title:	Sketchnoting With Mike Rohde
Release Date:	June 7th, 2012
Hosts:	Brad Dowdy Myke Hurley
Guests:	Mike Rohde
Additional Information
Official page:	Episode 17
Audio File:	Audio Episode 17
Podcast page:	The Pen Addict 17
Length:	4646 min <br />0.767 h <br /> minutes
Previous Transcript	Next Transcript

Myke Hurley: Hello, and welcome to episode 17 of The Pen Addict podcast, your weekly show where we discuss pens, paper, and the analogue tools that you love so dearly. My name is Myke Hurley of the 17 Decibels Network, and I'm joined, as always, by my good friend, colleague, and The Pen Addict himself, Mr. Brad Dowdy. Hello, Brad.

Brad Dowdy: Hey, Myke, how are you doing today? I'm very well, very well. How are you? I'm doing fantastic today. It's a really, really good day that I'm really excited about what's going on on the show today.

Myke Hurley: What is going on today?

Mr. Myke Rohde

Brad Dowdy: Well, we have a fine gentleman being our first guest on The Pen Addict podcast, Mr. Myke Rohde, who many Pen Addict readers might know. He's a designer out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and what he is most widely known for, at least in the circles that I travel online, is the sketch notes that he does. And welcome, Myke.

Myke Hurley: Hey, guys. Nice to be here. Thanks so much for joining us. It sounds like the traffic's really upset at you.

Mike Rohde: We've got somebody in the background beeping. I guess he wants a parking spot or something. I don't know. Maybe they're a fan of the show.

Brad Dowdy: That's what I think. He just wants to get on the show.

Mike Rohde: Beep if you love The Pen Addict.

Brad Dowdy: But I've talked to Myke Rohde for, I don't know, maybe four or five years. I started The Pen Addict blog and was just kind of doing my own thing. And then I'm on the internet one day. And I don't know if it's through Twitter or through Flickr how I first came across your first set of sketch notes. It's not your first set of sketch notes, but how I found you was I think through probably your first set of South by Southwest sketch notes. And that's kind of how the whole sketch noting thing just really blew my mind. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do, how the sketch notes thing started for you, and kind of where it's all at today.

Mike Rohde: Well, professionally I'm a designer. I've actually been in the business for over 20 years and started as a print designer of all things. And in the mid-90s switched over to web design because I was really fascinated by that whole arena. And then eventually now I'm doing user interface design, lots of software applications, iPad, iPhone applications, and learning about user-centered design. But all along the way, even from when I was in college, I used sketching quite a bit. Sketching just came naturally to me. As a kid I drew all the time, so it was natural for me to integrate that into my design process. And so ever since I was in school and as a professional I would use pencil sketches or pen sketches to figure out problems. So you're presented with a list of things to do and you'd use sketches to solve, like, where would this go? And what if I did this? And, oh, that looks terrible. I can't do that. But the nice thing about sketching would be I could go through a lot of ideas very quickly and then kind of narrow down on the winning idea and then proceed. Rather than, especially later in the design profession, it's not uncommon to maybe immediately jump into Photoshop or some other software tool to solve your problem. And I find the problem with that is you kind of get locked into the way the software works instead of thinking about the solution in a broader sense. And so I've always integrated this sketching approach. And I've shown it to clients and they get to see it and we use it as a solution tool. But I never really shared it as a final deliverable, as a final thing that people would look at until I started sketchnoting. And the way sketchnoting started was back in 2007 in the spring, I had become really frustrated with the notes I was taking. I had become sort of a fanatical handwritten note taker, but I didn't really draw. I would write every last detail. And I used these giant books and pencils so I could erase mistakes. And it had become really a burden, kind of painful to do notes because I was always thinking I was missing something and it was really stressful. And then I would find out later that I never really looked at the notes I took, so they had limited value. And so there was this conference coming up in Chicago in the spring of 2007. And I had a Moleskine sketchbook sitting on my desk that I didn't know what to do with. And I thought, you know, I can't do notes like this anymore. It's just not working. What if I set some limitations for myself? Because often when presented with design challenges, a good thing is to actually set limitations because it makes you think creatively. So the limitations that I chose were, well, I've got a small pocket-sized Moleskine book. So I literally can't take the notes that I used to take. I don't have the space to do that. And another limitation was rather than using a pencil, why don't I take a pen? So I had a Pilot G2 pen laying around, and I took that and the book, and I went to the conference. And rather than getting every last detail, I just listened for the big ideas, like what is the message that these speakers are telling me? And then sort of analyzing it in my head and then capturing it slowly, very methodically and thoughtfully, using all the tools that I had available to me as a person. In my case, not only writing notes, but I love typography. So I used lots of typography and drawing little pictures to express these ideas that I was receiving from the speaker. And so after I was done, I just really had a great time. I didn't have any of the stress. It was fun to do. I enjoyed doing it. And then I shared it online on Flickr and noticed that the speakers really seemed to like it. They found it right away as well as other attendees. But more fascinating, even people that weren't at the event seemed to enjoy them because they were kind of a compressed way to share what happened at the event. It was a way to get a sense of what the event was like without being there. And so that was sort of the beginning of sketchnotes. And from there, they've sort of taken off and in a lot of ways have gained a life of their own now being created by people all over the world in Europe and Australia, South America, all over the place. People are just taking this idea and sort of running with it. And that's kind of where it is today.

Sketchnote Army

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and you have the whole sketchnote army now.

Mike Rohde: Yeah, the website sketchnotearmy.com was an idea that came to me in 2009 as I was starting to observe all these people all over the place. A lot of people, I didn't even know who they were. I do now doing sketchnoting like, wow, this thing is sort of taking off. There needs to be a way to showcase these things. So I just did a search, sketchnotearmy.com was available, and I grabbed it and threw up a site and just started showcasing other people's work as a way to, number one, show, hey, sketchnoting is this cool thing and there's lots of ways you can do it. There's not just one way. And the second thing was, hey, there's people, all different people expressing their own way to do it. It's their own personality and they're all over the world. So there's no geographic limitation to them at all. So that was the intention, and I think it's done a good job of really sharing and breaking ground for new people that would otherwise maybe get lost in the noise.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, what really caught my eye when I first ran across your sketchnotes was, I guess, really the typographic style. And it's that dark black pen on the ivory moleskin page and the way that it was so clearly presented. I think it boggles my mind, at least knowing how I take notes in the chicken scratch that I go through, how you capture it so cleanly and accurately. You know, I've watched a lot of your videos and we'll link to all this stuff in the show notes. Myke's got some great videos of some talks he's done and some sketchnoting he's done. And the approach that you use, I mean, you've got to realize when Myke's doing this, he's not going to be – he's not going to these conferences to be the official transcriber for the conference. You're not trying to capture every word that's coming out of the mouth of whoever's speaking at whichever conference you're going to. And then also you're not trying to capture what you think other people want to hear. You're locked in to, like you said before, the big ideas and what speaks to you, and then that's what gets transferred on the page, right? I mean, that's kind of how your process goes when you're sitting down at a conference.

Mike Rohde: That's exactly right. And, you know, so sketchnotes are, in a way, very personal. So, you know, you might have five different people sitting at the same event. And the sketchnotes might on the surface look similar, but each person is going to have a different takeaway, a different perspective. And maybe something will be maybe a little more important to them that they would emphasize. So there is a bit of a personal flair to it as well as, you know, capturing information, which I think that's what's so fascinating and so interesting for people is to see how many different ways the same principles can be applied using all different, you know, tools. I tend to choose a small book and a pen, but I have friends who use pencil and then they color over it afterwards. Or maybe they use a pen and they use markers. So there's – it's pretty wide open, which I really like that. I like the fact that it's varied and each person can bring their own take to it.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, and I think that's one of the keys you talk about. It has to be just that personal style or it's just not going to work when you're – you know, if you're someone that's trying to get into sketchnoting and do this, you know, don't do it for someone else. Make sure you're doing it for yourself. And that's how those ideas are really going to get on the page the best way.

Mike Rohde: Right, and I think, you know, you mentioned too that you're feeling challenged by, you know, your chicken scratch. You know, one of the things that I've found too is by just slowing down and listening for the big idea, you can be more deliberate about what you're capturing so you don't have to feel so rushed. And even myself, I find myself often getting caught up and trying to capture everything and I have to stop myself and slow myself down and really sort of analyze what's being said and then put something on paper. And it's kind of a nice feeling to be able to slow yourself down and not worry so much about capturing every detail. And I think that's a big key to, you know, doing this and having fun doing it.

Brad Dowdy: Now from those humble beginnings, you know, putting all the – going to the conferences and, you know, starting out just doing the sketchnotes for you. Just, you know, I mean, I'm sure you had never had any plans of it going to where it's gone today and posting those images on Flickr and it just kind of taking off. You know, what are some of the cool things that you've done recently? Like, for example, you know, I've known you for a while. But regardless of whether, you know, you've done the sketchnotes or not, there's a book called Rework by Jason Fried and the gang at 37 Signals that I'm a big fan of. And it just so happens that, hey, Myke Rohde did all the illustrations for the Rework book. And how did that all come about? Because I thought that was pretty cool and that's a pretty big deal, at least to me.

Mike Rohde: Yeah, that all came as a result of doing sketchnotes. So you're right. I never really planned for it to go where it has, although I'm very happy in the way that things have unfolded. And it's been challenging along the way to, you know, to release some of the control to other people and just let it develop itself. But in the beginning, it started just like you said. I just did it for myself because I was so frustrated with the old notes I was taking and it was just a good, positive way to express myself and then share. And after doing it for myself and just sort of exploring around, eventually I ended up at one of 37 Signals conferences called the Seat Conference. And they didn't even know I was there. I was hiding in the audience. I made some friends and I did my sketchnotes and put them up just like I always did. Well, they got wind of them and found out and they posted them on the 37 Signals blog, which has a pretty good readership, even more now than at the time. And from that point, they just sort of have taken off. And I started having a relationship with Jason and David over at 37 Signals and just ended up syncing with them. I seemed to capture what they were trying to say. And so when the Seat Conference came up again, the third version, which had different speakers and a different focus, they actually invited me to come down as a guest. So I didn't even pay to get in. And now it's to the point where I'm being hired to come in and do this work for events and organizers. And then they use that as a giveaway for their attendees, either as PDFs or even as little booklets, which I've done with some clients. So that's where it started from. And I just kept in touch with 37 Signals. I kept showing up at their events. You know, Jason Freed came to Milwaukee and I showed up with a friend and I captured that and had a chance to talk with him. And he just kept seeing me pop up all the time. And they really liked the work that I did. And the next thing you know, they were writing a book, which he sort of hinted to in Milwaukee. And they needed someone to illustrate the book. And they thought that I was a perfect fit, having seen all the work that I'd done, you know, for them and with their stuff, that they thought I'd be a good bet. So they brought me in and we worked together to do illustrations, which had, you know, a bit of a sketchnote-y feel, but were a little bit more, you know, thought out and a little more finished in some senses. They weren't done real time. So that's sort of the process. It was just a matter of, you know, showing up and popping up again and again and, you know, being visible. And that led to the project, which turned out really well in the end.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I thought it was fantastic. And if anyone's looking for an interesting book to read, I highly recommend Rework, not only for the content, but also for Myke's illustrations. It really worked well in that context.

Myke Hurley: It works really well on, like, the Kindle and stuff because the drawings are in black and white. So I read Rework on the Kindle. Oh, okay. So I didn't miss anything because I was reading it on an e-ink device. You know, I didn't, the images weren't either omitted and they weren't, they're not color. So, you know, it wasn't an issue.

Mike Rohde: Nothing lost. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's one of the good things about going with such a simple medium, black ink, you know, and even, you know, maybe a little shading. It renders in pretty much the worst case scenario. You could fax, you know, my illustrations to someone and still be able to see what they were. So that's, I think that's a positive.

Sketchnotes Tools

Brad Dowdy: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Now, you know, a lot of people listening to this show want to know about the tools that you use to capture your sketchnotes. And we're going to get into that. We got a couple of sponsors today we want to make sure we get to. So, Myke, do you want to take care of that real quick?

Myke Hurley: Excellent tease, Brad. Well done. Yes. So we must talk about our first sponsor this week, and that is Squarespace. We're so pleased that Squarespace has come back to us this month, and they're going to continue to support this show and their network throughout the whole month of June as well, which is fantastic. Squarespace gives you absolutely everything you need to create an amazing professional website by utilizing simple-to-master WYSIWYG tools. They give the total control over to you, no matter what level you have in the web design process. If you're like me and have no coding background at all, you can just click on some things and drag some sliders, and you can make fonts larger and smaller. You can pick from their extensive Google Fonts library. You can change all the font colors if you want to make the sidebar widths bigger. You can do that by just dragging a selector. It's absolutely fantastic. A recent addition to Squarespace that I want to tell you all about is their new domain service. With every annual account, you get a free custom domain now, and they will take care of all the DNS stuff in the background. If you want Google Apps integration, they'll give you that as well. They'll make sure that MX records and all that sort of stuff is taken care of. All you need to do is say what domain you want, and you just tick a box to see if you want an email address, and they'll sort it all out for you. Squarespace have created the ultimate package to start on your next website. It's painless and hassle-free, and it starts at $8 a month, equivalent for the annual plan. I must mention, because while we were talking and I was poking around your site, Myke, I noticed that Row Design is a Squarespace site.

Mike Rohde: It is indeed. I'm a huge fan of Squarespace, and I've been with them over a year. I just recently switched Sketch Note Army over because I was having WordPress issues with old versions and spam and stuff. I've been so pleased with Squarespace. It's just been so easy. It totally takes my focus toward creating content and thinking and not about fooling around with details. I'm a huge fan of theirs. I try and convince people to go with them whenever I can.

Myke Hurley: What I'd say, your site is a great example to me of what's so fantastic about Squarespace. I look at it, and I never would have known. You clearly are not using – well, I would assume you're maybe not using one of the basic templates. You've done some design work on it yourself, and that shows the brevity of Squarespace. I mean, because you can be someone like me who's based our entire website off of one of their templates, or you can be someone like Mr. Rody, and you can just – if you're a designer of your own kind, you can use that. Just use Squarespace's powerful posting tools. They're iOS app, and they're really great hosting services. So I would suggest that you all go check out Squarespace, no matter what your level. And you can do this by going to squarespace.com forward slash 70 decibels. From there, you can start a two-week free trial. And if you sign up, make sure you use the code 70decibels6. It's 6 because we're in the month of June. So that's 70-D-E-C-I-B-E-L-S 6. Use that at checkout, and you'll get 10% off, and this will let Squarespace know that we sent you. So thank you to everyone that has signed up for showing to Squarespace that we're a good place for them to advertise, and I want to thank Squarespace again for taking the time to sponsor us. It's fantastic. So gentlemen, please proceed.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome, awesome. I think how Myke's conversation and I started all these years ago was, you know, I love what this guy's doing. These sketch notes look awesome. What tools is he using to capture these notes? Now, you mentioned you used the pocket-sized Moleskine sketchbook in Pilot G2, 0.7 millimeter, I'm pretty sure, right? That's right, yeah. And that's what you started out with. Has that carried you through all these past few years? Is that what you're still using now? Have you found better things or things that don't work as well for you? So tell us about what you're using.

Mike Rohde: Yeah, I get into the details. Yeah, I used for a long time. I was sort of flipping back and forth in the beginning between a 0.5 and 0.7, and I ended up settling on the 0.7 just because I could get more ink flow, which felt better for me. The smooth flow was important, and I wasn't as worried about the detail. Again, I was moving towards big ideas and capturing thoughts, so the 0.7 worked well.

Pen Addiction

Mike Rohde: Eventually, I started, well, I'm truly a pen addict, so I'm always, I'm the guy at the office, at the office max aisle, looking at every pen and wondering what's new and, you know, I'll buy things and try them out. So I've tried all kinds of different gel pens. I tend to prefer gel pens, so I can say that. 0.7 typically is the size that I choose if I can get it. And lately, the current pen that I'm really in love with is called the Pentel Energel. In the last few years, because I carry a pen around in my pocket all the time, I typically don't go with fancy pens because eventually someone, it'll either be forgotten or someone will use it and it'll never come back or what have you. So I've taken to taking just good quality gel pens. And the reason I like the Energel is it's a capped pen, unlike the G2, which has the clicker. So, you know, if you accidentally forget and click that thing open and throw it in your pocket, you could have a pair of ruined pants pretty quickly. So having the capped pen is good for me because I can cap that thing and throw it in and I'm never worried about it leaking on me. The ink flow is really good on the Energel, though. I've been really pleased, especially on Moleskine Sketchbook paper stock, which is primarily what I use, but on other stuff too. It's got a good flow. The ink dries pretty quickly. Another pen that I've really enjoyed is the Uniball Signo 207. And I know that's sort of a popular competitor to the G2. That was the pen that I went to after the G2. I can't remember the reasons why I went away from the G2. I didn't really dislike it. I just was exploring and found some of the inks seemed to dry faster. The balls were a little bit smoother. I think the G2, maybe I had a bad batch, tended to be skipping and I was having problems with them. And I think that encouraged me to try some different things out. So the Uniball 207s are really nice. I like those a lot. And I think another one, I actually was really surprised that the Bic gel pen line was pretty good. Like for some reason, like I had this idea that Bic pens were sort of like, you know, not very good quality. And I just picked some up on a whim when I was at the store and I'm going to try these out. And I was actually very impressed with the gel ink quality. And so those have been nice. Another one I used for a while was the Uniball Vision, not the Vision Elite, but the Vision, which is a gray barrel. That was the first cap pen that I took because I could cap it and I knew that it wouldn't open. The problem I had recently with that was I was doing some sketch noting and it might have been the pen itself, but it was just not laying the ink down real well. And that's when I switched to the Energels because I had some laying around and really liked how they felt. So that's kind of been the direction that I've gone. I've tried a few others here and there. I think from JetPens I picked up, I think it was an Oto. Is that a Korean brand? With the funky, I really like the funky metal barrel with sort of an angular cap, which when I first got that, that kind of freaked me out. Like, how do I put this back together? And eventually I got it and I lost that pen somewhere. I love that pen and I lost it somewhere along the way. So I probably have to pick up a new one.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, they designed some really good pens. I like their designs.

Mike Rohde: What Oto was it, Myke?

Mike Rohde: What was that called? An Oto? It was an aluminum barrel.

Brad Dowdy: There's an Orca, O-R-C-A, and oh, there's one more. Not the Tash. The Tash is the small portable one. I'll have to think of the name. I know exactly what you're talking about. It's long, skinny, and it's kind of got like an angular cut cap that snaps on.

Mike Rohde: But that had really nice ink inside. And I've been also one to fool around with hacking pens. So if you do a little bit of research, you'll find that I've got some information. Like, for instance, Myke, on the Tornado 51s, we picked some of those up in Portland last year. And I love the shape of that. I picked up a couple and got one for my wife. But I didn't like the inserts. Their gel inserts just didn't seem to be as smooth as I wanted. So I actually took the inserts from another pen, like a cheap pen, and got out a pair of scissors and an X-Acto knife and chopped them down. And I was able to replace that insert because it's pretty standard. So I tend to fool around with, you know, hey, can I hack this insert and put it in this pen? Which, you know, that might lead to you guys have had discussions about the high-tech C and all the cases, all the barrels that have been being produced for those.

Brad Dowdy: Oh, I could write an entirely new blog. Like if I shut down the pen addict today and I just said, okay, I'm going to close the door. I'm going to start a new blog. I could write every day about pen hacks. So if someone wants to steal an idea out there, just go write about pen hacks because the amount of email and comments I get about pen hacking is extraordinary. I bet. I mean, because people, you know, like you get used to a pen and say you're using the Energel now. And, you know, this is my pen. You know, this is Myke Rohde's pen. And I'm sketching it with Energel. But, you know, there's something about the barrel that you don't like. You know, it comes cheap over time. It doesn't handle it well. You know, what other barrel can I put these? Most of these gel pens that you're talking about are refillable. You know, what other pen barrels or bodies can I put in that has, you know, a better grip, a more durable barrel and things like that. And, oh, the questions I get. And that's one thing I just haven't had the time to spend to, like, figure out. Like if I could come up with, like, a chart, you know, or like if I could do, like, Brett Terpstra's text editor chart. Oh, yeah, exactly.

Brad Dowdy: For pen hacking, if I could have a pen hacking matrix, I would be the king. But, boy, I don't have the time for that. But that's the truth. I forgot that I have seen you talk about some of that before in the past. Now, the interesting thing I find about, you know, talking to you and your sketch noting process and talking to some other designers and other guys who do sketching, the 0.7 millimeter is really the key, I think. It's really the sweet spot because, you know, you want to see that dark ink, those thick lines. And, yeah, I think, you know, don't let me put words into your mouth, but I think, like, the gel provides you a real clean, sharp edge line. Right. Because these images eventually, you know, you're not doing a lot of digital work or Photoshop on the front end. But, say, on the back end, if you're, you know, getting something produced or something, there might be some cleanup. And that gel pen provides you a cleaner edge that, you know, there's not probably as much to clean up when you're digitizing some of these files.

Mike Rohde: Right. Yeah, and you can cover areas. So if I need to fill in, like, typography, I can fill it in pretty quickly with a 0.7 rather than, say, like, a 0.3 high-tech C. You know, that would be lots of detail to fill in. But that's just my style. You know, there's other people that use those finer pens and love them. And I've used the fine pens for a while, actually. I lost, back in the old days, I used to have a Palm Pilot. One day I lost it in the cushions of my chair. Of course, I hadn't known that for six months until I found it in the cushion of my chair. But after I lost it, I didn't want to buy another one. I thought, well, how can I solve this problem? And I had another Moleskine laying around. It was just a regular book. And so I had this idea, hey, what if I draw, like, a calendar inside there with a pen? And I happened to have, I think it was the Uniball Signo 038, a really nice, fine pen. And I just started drawing a weekly calendar in my Moleskine, you know, line book. I just built a template out and drew out, like, six months ahead. I did it all by hand, and I kept a manual calendar for probably about a year. I really enjoyed it. There was something nice about it after being so immersed in digital tools. And that actually is, I think, the most popular Flickr image that's in my collection is the Moleskine Planner Hack. And so it's – and I've got another site for that. I think it's called plannerhack.com, and you can go see the image. And so that's – there's another connection to using pens and hacking things. And back then I used the 038 because I could write events in the calendar, and they would dry almost immediately. And I would never have to worry about smearing. So, you know, there was definitely functional reasons why I choose the tools that I do.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I remember that calendar hack. I'm pretty sure I linked to it on the pen addict at some point. If not, I definitely stole the idea for personal use because it's so simple. I mean, it's like, man, this common sense stuff, it really works, you know. So, I mean, it's a real simple idea, real clean, and I've definitely stolen that in the past. Good, good. But you're right. I mean, the tools, you know, you've got to pick the right tool for the job. And, you know, a lot of people ask me to recommend things, and it's really hard. They, you know, they ask me to recommend a certain pen, and my answer is usually, well, you're not telling me enough information. You know, you need to tell me more about what you're doing. And, you know, if, you know, talking about sketchnotes, I would never recommend, you know, like a Pilot Hi-Tech C 0.3 millimeter for that just because, you know, you're going to be hindered by, you know, some of the speed and some of the clarity and some of the finickiness of a pen that fine. And, you know, a lot of, you know, guys who are very creative like you really lean on those 0.7 pens just because it's a little bit more expressive, I think. Yeah, I think so. So that's a, you know, a good thing to keep in mind, you know, if you're going to try to take, you know, try to get into sketchnotes or do things like this and that, you know, require, one, you to be creative, but, two, to, you know, think on your feet. You don't want the tools to impede you at all, and I think the 0.7 millimeter is really the sweet spot there.

Mike Rohde: Yeah, I think, you know, I was going to say that that made me think of this idea that the tool actually forms how you work. So if I were to use a 0.3.8 or a 0.3 pen, you know, that's going to change what I draw and how I solve problems simply by the thickness of the line, whereas 0.7 is going to change the way I think 2 to some degree. Just, you know, like, or if you're using a Sharpie, like if you use a Sharpie, you know, you can't get detail with that very easily, so you sort of work in a different way. So I think in a lot of ways, the tool you choose forms how you solve the problem and how you work, which is really fascinating.

Brad Dowdy: Exactly, exactly. And, you know, one last comment on the pens. I really like the Energel a lot myself, and I think, you know, compared to, I don't know if you found it compared to the G2, because the Moleskine sketchbook paper is very thick and sturdy. It's really good. It's actually, I'm not a huge Moleskine fan. Out of their products, that's easily the best product in my mind. I like that paper a lot. And the Energel has always been known as, it's a very pitch black ink, like the G2, but I've noticed that it dries faster. Yeah, I think so. Than the G2. So anyway, that's just my two cents, and I think that makes for a really, really good sketch noting pen.

Faber-Castell Pencil

Mike Rohde: Yeah, it does. It seems to, and as far as pencils go, I can mention that there is a favorite pencil that I use. It's the Faber-Castell E-Motion, which I think they produce pens as well, and I haven't explored that, but it's got that funky, tear-shaped barrel. Yeah. It's sort of thick in the middle and thin on the ends. It's really comfortable, and I use, it's got a really thick, the leads in there are like 1.4 millimeters, so they're really thick. And I typically get an H quality, so they're very slippery and really, you know, they kind of loosen you up. But again, there's that point of the tool at changing how you work, you know, using a pencil. It gives a whole different feel and makes me think differently than when I use a pen. So, but that's been a great pencil. I've used that for many years and recommend it to a lot of people. And I should probably explore their pen line and see if there's anything they have that's, you know, can use a drop of gel insert into.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, really. I haven't used any of their pens, I don't think. But I was actually going to ask you about that pencil because I've noticed you're doing a lot of the process posts for your sketchnote handbook that's coming out soon in pencil. So I want to talk about that. But first, let's do our second sponsor real quick because I really want to get into the sketchnote handbook thing. So what's our second sponsor today, Myke?

Myke Hurley: Our second sponsor this week is Harvest. Harvest is a painless time tracking and invoicing application. It's relied on by the most innovative teams in the world in over 100 countries worldwide. Teams that include such fantastic companies as HappyCog, Volkswagen and Squarespace. And a ton of other freelance developers, designers and consultants use Harvest as well. If you go to their website, they have lists of, you know, some notable people that use the service. And, you know, I picked those three out, but I could pick many, many more. And you're going to see some that you recognize in there. You can track your time effortlessly from anywhere using their web client or one of the many apps that they have on platforms including Android, iOS, and they've recently released a native Mac application as well. You can send your clients professional and attractive invoices directly from Harvest via email, PDF, and on the web as well. And they can pay you instantly, either by credit card or using fast payment gateways that they integrate like PayPal, Authorize.net, Trust Commerce and more. So it makes your clients, gives them ways to pay you quick, fast and efficiently, making sure you get the money that you need. What Harvest have done is created a service so intuitive and easy to use that you can spend a lot less time worrying about your timesheet and much more time focusing on your work. You can try Harvest for 30 days for free today. No credit card, no obligations. And to do that, just go to getharvest.com and you can sign up for a free trial there. After your trial period is over, though, if you want to use the code 512, so 512 at checkout, you'll receive 50% off your first month. So do it quick as this offer expires on August 1, 2012. Thanks so much to Harvest for sponsoring this week's episode.

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Awesome.

Myke Hurley: Let's see if we are. Where are we going to now, Brad?

Sketchnote Handbook

Brad Dowdy: Well, I want to get into the sketchnote handbook because this looks really cool. When you announced that, I was like, oh, this is going to be great. And the thing that I think I'm going to enjoy the most about it is, like we talked about Rework where it's someone wrote a book. It's a text-based book and Myke's illustrations are in it. Well, this book is like – correct me if I'm wrong, Myke, but it's going to be like sketchnote from front to back almost. Maybe not that much. But it's like you said – you mentioned it's going to be almost like a graphic novel style as opposed to a text-based book, right? Right.

Mike Rohde: That's exactly right. In fact, I've gone so far as to bring a friend of mine, Del Witherington, out in California to convert my handwriting into a font so that we can actually typeset the parts that need to be typeset, like the copyright pages and so forth. Those will actually be in my handwriting. That's so awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Wow. I don't want to divert you, but that's got to be a serious process. That's got to be a lot of work.

Mike Rohde: Well, I have to give a lot of credit to Del. I did a lot of work to produce the letter forms, but he's done a lot of work scanning and drawing them in and producing a font from them. And it's turning out really, really great. We're still in the process of finalizing that, but that's going to be a lot of fun. And our intention is, after the book's released, to offer the fonts for sale for anybody who wants to have handwritten fonts to match that. So it's kind of a fun thing to not only use it but then to share it with other people, and then they can find ways that they can use it as well. So, yeah, it's a very different book. And I think I'm very excited to be working with Peach Pit. They're the ones that are producing the book. We're aiming for an October release for the book. And the thing I like about the book and working with Peach Pit is they're just so open to trying new things. You sort of have this idea sometimes that book publishers are very stodgy, and there's only one way to do things their way, and they're not open to any change. And I think what I like about Peach Pit is they're just so open to trying things. And so when I got connected with them, one of the reasons I chose to go that way was that I could have full control and that we would intentionally make it like a graphic novel. It's going to be all hand-drawn and all sketched throughout the whole book, which is a little bit more of a challenge for me. I can't just sit down and write the text and hand it off to someone else because then I have to convert it to illustrations and produce the final work. But I think in the end, even though it's going to be more work for me, I think the end result will be a lot more interesting and a lot more fun. And I'm excited. I'm sort of in the middle of it now. So I'm a little bit scared and a little bit excited at the same time, like scared and wondering if I'm going to meet the deadlines and how – do I actually – do I have the authority to be writing this book? That keeps popping up in my head again and again. But I think it's going to be a community book where I'm involving 12 – at least 12 other sketchnoters who are going to provide information and maybe more. So they're going to provide some stuff. I have to select those people yet. So it's going to feature other people in the community and show the variety. That's one of the keys to the book is show the variety of the work. But then get down into a couple of things, how to listen well, why you should even consider sketchnoting, what's the benefits. Like can it make you take notes better? Can it make your note-taking fun? That might even be the more important of the two things. And then finally drawing principles out of the sketchnotes that you see so that you can actually apply these ideas in your everyday notes. Even if it's – you take regular notes and one quarter of your page, you doodle a little bit and you use these techniques. That would be a huge win, I think, for the book just to help people to have options and to make notes that they enjoy creating and having fun so they can't wait to take notes at the next event or boring meeting about insurance at the company. So that's really the goal of the book is to reach out to a lot of people and give them options.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, I think that's great. I think it's – and you definitely have the authority to write that book if my opinion counts for anything, which it doesn't.

Mike Rohde: Thank you very much.

Brad Dowdy: No, I'm really excited for it. It looks pretty cool. Myke's been doing some posts about the sketching and that's where I saw the pencil. I was like, oh, he's using pencil to get all these ideas down for the book. I hadn't seen many pencil sketches. But, man, your style is very – I can notice it from a mile away, which I think is good. I mean you've really developed this style over the years and I think it's awesome. I'm really looking forward to this book.

Mike Rohde: Well, that's good and we just got the covers approved today. I was submitting covers. So the next – so two things. You mentioned that I'm documenting the process. I find there's so many books that are put out and you don't really know what the process is or how hard it is or what you're really going through. So I thought it would be fascinating to try and capture that a little bit and share that with people as a living record of some kind. But certainly it helps people get excited about the book to see it slowly coming together. And we just finished the cover approvals today and I've got lots of people looking at it and helping. And so hopefully at the next post I can share a little bit of that and talk about where I'm at. And it's a tough project, but I think it's going to be worth it when I'm done. That's what I keep telling myself anyway.

Brad Dowdy: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I'm certainly looking forward to it and I definitely keep following the process and I'll be anxious to see more of your thoughts on it. But yeah, it looks really good. I think it's going to be – I think it's going to do really, really well.

Brad Dowdy: That's good. Yeah. I think that about wraps it up for today. Myke, do you have anything else you want to talk about as far as sketchnoting goes or any other projects or anything else you want to mention?

Mike Rohde: You know, I would say that if you're curious about sketchnoting after hearing about this, I think Myke and Brad are going to have links in the show notes. Go check it out and give it a try. I always recommend to people not to be afraid of it. The big message that I've been sharing with people for the last year when I go to speak is, you know, sketchnoting is about capturing ideas. It's not about art. So if you're a bad artist, if you don't feel like you can draw at all, that's okay. That really the message to you is, how's a way that you can capture these ideas so that you can remember them so they're meaningful to you? And then maybe they're meaningful to other people because then you can share them. When you look at those visual notes again, you can say, oh, yeah, we talked about this and that. And, you know, it's a way of mapping out your thinking. And so don't let the fear of not being a good artist hold you back. If you feel like you're a bad artist, just don't show anybody. So that's my encouragement is just give it a try and try it out. And there's tons of links. Sketchnote Army can show you a wide variety of quality of art but also approaches. And just give it a shot and give it a try.

Myke Hurley: Yeah, I've made sure that I've got everything in the show notes. There's loads of links to all of Myke's stuff. Okay. I want to thank you so much for joining us, Myke. It's been a real pleasure having you on. And I'm really, personally, I'm really excited about the book. Oh, thank you. Sketchnotes, I've been, I kind of knew of sketchnotes before I knew of you, if that makes sense. I kind of was aware of the work that you've done because I'd seen it around in reworking on some blogs and stuff. And it kind of fits in with the way that I like to take notes where it doesn't really make sense to anybody but me. And me and Brad have spoken about that before. So I'm really excited for the book as a way to kind of help me really get into it. And so I'm kind of holding off a little because I'm that excited about it. I remember when you announced the book, I think Sean Blanc had linked to it. And that was how I found out about the actual book and sort of got to know you a bit more as a person from that. And I'm really excited. And we must have you back on the show when the book is coming for release. Yeah, that would be great. So we can talk about it again and catch up with you about it.

Books

Mike Rohde: That would be great. And I was going to mention, too, there's two books that came about because of reworking. There's one that's released now and one coming in August. The first is The $100 Startup by Chris Gullabo, which is in a way sort of an extension of where reworking sort of talked about the principles that 37 Signals followed. Chris took a bunch of people and he interviewed how they got their businesses started and then he produced this book that shows really practical ways to start a business with $100 in your pocket and just bootstrapping it, which I think, Myke, you can certainly relate to. And I think Brad as well. And I think a lot of people listening might be interested in checking that out. And so we did illustrations for that. And then in August, there's a book called The Little Book of Talent, which is by Daniel Coyle. He wrote a book two years ago called The Talent Code, which is this idea that people are not born talented. They actually, some people just do better jobs training and working those muscles and skills by the way they train. And so he went around and found all the principles that all these talent hotbeds were producing great tennis players or singers or what have you and found that there were principles that they all followed. And so he wrote a book in 2009. And this little one, Little Book of Talent, is like a reference book you throw in your bag and it's got 52 rules to help you remember how to improve your talent. So that's coming on August 21st.

Myke Hurley: Awesome.

Brad Dowdy: Yeah, those type of books are right up my alley. I've been looking at the $100 startup for a while. I need to get that. It looks really interesting.

Mike Rohde: Yeah, it's pretty interesting. It's a lot of interesting stuff, especially if you're thinking about, even if you're just thinking of starting a side business for extra money, I think he's got some really practical thinking philosophically and practically on how to go about that. So well worth it, I think.

Podcast

Brad Dowdy: Awesome. Well, I think this is easily the best interview we've ever done on the Pen Addict Podcast. So I'm really excited about that. And I want to thank you again, Myke, for spending some time with us today. And if you want to tell – well, like Myke said, we'll have all this in the show notes. But if you want to tell people real quick your website address, how they can get in touch with you online, things like that, if you'd like to share that.

Mike Rohde: Sure thing. You can reach – my website is rowdesign.com, R-O-H-T-E-S-I-G-N.com. The same on Twitter, rowdesign on Twitter. And you can find me there. And from there, you can find pretty much everything else. The other website you might want to check out is sketchnotearmy.com. And that's where you can see showcases of other stuff. So yeah, come up and send some replies out and let me know what you think of the interview. And I'm happy to answer questions and to be part of the community.

Myke Hurley: Thanks for having me on, guys. It's been really great. It's been a pleasure. It's been an absolute pleasure. Brad, where can people find you online if they would like to do so?

Brad Dowdy: You can find all the pen talk and reviews at penaddict.com. And you can find me on Twitter at dowdyism, D-O-W-D-Y-I-S-M, where I try not to make my Twitter avatar look exactly like Myke's. I saw Myke just changed his avatar. But I remember a few years ago I took a Twitter avatar like on a Brit's background. And I put it up there. I was like, oh, man, I like this picture. This worked out pretty good for a Twitter avatar. Then I see Myke Rhodes' picture come up in my feed. I'll be damned if it didn't look like you're standing right next to each other.

Brad Dowdy: Maybe I need to put it back for that. I don't know. I forgot about that. That's right. I saw you put a new avatar up this week. I'm going to assume it was just for this show for the big bump you're going to get in your Twitter feed. The penaddict bump. That's right. Myke, Mr. Hurley, where can they find you or any other questions about the show?

Myke Hurley: I'm also on Twitter. I'm not in front of a brick wall. And I am iMike, I-M-Y-K-E. If you want to get in touch with the show, you can do that by going to 70decibels.com forward slash contact. Select The Pen Addict from the drop-down list and you can send us some notes in that way. And you can also reach Brad directly at thepenaddict at gmail.com. Thanks very much to Myke and Brad for joining me and for having this show. And thanks for listening. Until next week. Bye-bye.