Live Illustration

Live illustration is:

  • Spectacular,
  • moving,
  • projected,
  • inspirational,
  • everyone is waiting to see what comes next and
  • it quickens the discussion.

With live illustration we will hit through even the stimulus threshold of conference-zombies!

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I want to know more!

When making live illustration, we’re performing analogous and instantaneous visual illustration, but not on large sheets and boards, rather by a desk, as if drawing comic strips, that the audience can follow through large projection surfaces, while the presenters can see the illustrations on control panels.

What problems can be solved with live illustration?

  • Participants are more engaged by their mobile phones than by the projected presentation.
  • Attention is getting languid towards the end of a long day.
  • “They’ve seen it all!”

Why is it good?

  • The motion picture, the nascent drawing can do the trick of sustaining attention,
  • humorous, entertaining, inspirational,
  • helps the audience to mark what’s been heard
  • spectacular.

„Live illustration” with document camera provides considerable added value in the below cases:

  • large audience, over 50-100 people
  • speeches without presentation (neither PowerPoint, nor Prezi), when there’s nothing for the projected illustration to interfere with
  • rould-table discussions, where’s nothing else but discussion going on
  • Q&A sessions, interactively with the audience, and
  • large group events, used as a tool of moderation, facilitation, even for several hundred participants, visualizing the instructions instantly.

What Our Clients say About us

“Just a big thank you to your company for really capturing the spirit of our workshop in your paintings. It really lifted the spirit (which was already high) in the room, reminded people about what we were doing caused them to have fun at the same time as it captured the content and the seriousness of what we were doing. We will be using the painting to continue to remind us of two great days in the office for hopefully a long time going forward.”

Ulrica Fearn, DIAGEO SSC – General Manager

What Our Clients say About us

„Szilard was very quickly able to capture the discussions our groups were having and his interpretation of the conversation and the visual representation not only provided an aide memoire but also a starting place for new and further discussions on these topics. The graphic recordings as an artefact are much richer than a series of notes and lend themselves to being easily used in other sessions.”

Melanie Currie, Nottingham Trent University

What Our Clients say About us

„Grafacity is already returning ‘guest’ at the beginning of the year because their visual notes are useful and work well in our company. On the one hand you can easily convey the gist of a meeting to those who did not participate with them, and, on the other hand, it is a huge help for me, as a HR manager, with newcomers because the Big Pictures placed on the walls are an important part of the orientation process. It is not only a simple PPT we use to tell them what our values and strategies are, but they are put on the wall and people can see them every day.”

Lilla BENEDEK, ABESSE Informatikai Tanácsadó Zrt. – HR Manager

What Our Clients say About us

„Thank you very much for your work and all the help and flexibility. It’s been really good to work with you and we would be happy to have something similar in the future. Many participants commented how much they were inspired by the illustrations!”

Júlia Dudás, KPMG Hungária Kft. – Marketing Specialist

What Our Clients say About us

„The visual facilitation of the T-Systems merger process is an entirely positive memory for me because I haven’t yet seen a better solution for communicating the process and results of managers’ meetings to the organisation. People expect to learn what has happened and want to see what will bridge the gap between the current situation and the final outcome, the decisions. Triggering emotions, and spiced with humour, visual recordings communicate the process to the organisation in a lasting and transparent form. Only a few people have the ability to both understand the larger context and monitor the current events and be able to visualise everything immediately. Szilárd and his team succeeded in doing so. I believe in this method and I believe it is a good thing.”

Dr. László Eszes, T-Systems Zrt. – Deputy CEO

What Our Clients say About us

„It’s been a real pleasure to work with Szilárd. His energetic presence and honest and open attention and support was inviting and inspiring for the team and for us. His drawings filled the space and inspired work. These drawings helped us get hold of the sensitive issues that could have easily become depressing and discuss them in a focused manner pulling the team through the danger of beating around the bush and explaining themselves. Visual representation makes it easier to recall the atmosphere of working together and, by recalling the structure and the atmosphere, it also makes it easier to work on with the results. The added value of Szilárd does not only appear after the workshop: our clients clearly were using the visual recordings during the workshop and were continuously giving us feedback about how useful they were.”

Attila Bokor and Gergely Szentandrási, OD Partner Kft.

Questions and Answers:

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1. Where will you work?

When doing projected live illustration, we typically work right beside or on the technical desk, in order to be able to connect to the projection system.

2. What do you need on the spot?

We’ll ask for a desk of at least 120 x 80 cms, a chair and 220 V power source. We can connect to the projection system via VGA or HDMI connections. We have the special camera.

It is of utmost importance that not only the audience, but also the presenter or participants of the discussion can see the drawings as they’re being prepared through a control display (we have VGA splitter, 30 m VGA cable and the display), and it is also to be made sure that the projected light is not in the direction of the presenter’s eyes.

It’s also useful for us in this case as well to be presented, that is, for the moderator or host to present the illustrators and their work as soon as the program starts. It enhances the effect a great deal, if participants are aware of what work live, why we are here, what they should pay attention on, that the pictures will be given to them, etc. We’ll give you support for presenting us.

Following the illustrated block it’s worth placing the cards at a proper place, so that the audience and the presenters can make photos of them, so they can recall the most important moments. Smooth wall surface or possibly a large scale sheet is necessary for that.                      

3. Won’t it distract the attention of participants?

We wrote on the visual recording services page based on the experiences of our clients and ourselves of the alteration of attention, and it goes even more for the live illustration. What works for the visual illustration in terms of the audience getting focused, manifests in a special way by live illustration. It can be seen sentence by sentence how the illustrator translates into drawings what’s being heard. It does not disturb the audience, quite on the contrary, they participate in the process of the discussion with high attention, and using the picture featuring all drawings they will be able to recall the main messages months or even years later. Of course, it goes only for the synchronous, truly real-time (visual) illustration, asynchronous illustration, “lagging behind” would be disturbing here. Luckily enough, at Grafacity we let only the sufficiently swift-handed illustrators by the document camera.