Go Doodle — How a little bit of drawing helps prove your point.
Doodling is a deceptively simple skill. We all yearn to draw all over our notepads at times, yet it doesn’t seem to serve us in everyday life. What can you get with the simple doodle?
For starters, doodling is a precursor to communication. It helps us succinctly draw together our points, playing with a variety of forms that capture, in an abstract way, the purpose of what we’re trying to say.
Here’s a thought
Don’t you think maybe Venn went through a few sketchpads coming up with his diagram?
Venn’s diagram is a doodler’s way of drawing together points without relying heavily on written communication. Reading means diving deep into sentences, forming connections slowly across a paragraph. Why say two things are connected when you can draw them together and show they’re related?
I’m not discounting writing, by the way. Writing is much crisper and more precise in the end because it uses acknowledged terms (words) we all understand to arrive at an exact statement. There’s a reason lawyers don’t communicate via cartoon. Even if the subject is up for debate, it’s harder to disagree about clearly worded intentions.
Back in the office
Doodling is purely a way of circumventing the usual rigmarole of the office by getting to the source directly. You can pin it up on the wall so that everyone can see your point from across the room in pad lighting. Everyone can contribute, and it becomes a visual map of where you want to go. The best doodles are simple, bold statements with few lines — almost a company logo in the message it comes to symbolise.
Doodling is also something we can do whilst in conversation. Speech is located in a particular part of the brain, different from the more abstract doodling centre. When we’re talking through an idea, we can draw through it too. A doodle is something you create amid a discussion. It’s a roadmap detailing the conversation you just had.
We all doodle in some form or another to jog our memory. How do you make your notes from the meeting stand out, how do you show a connection between ideas? Maybe you have a style of bullet pointing messages or drawing lines to connect them. You don’t need words here; you need a shorthand description that you can come to later.
Get me a pencil — I feel communicative
Lastly, it’s just good to draw, even the simplest of things. Very few of us are in the habit of submitting storyboards to Pixar, but perhaps you work in an industry that runs ads or deals with visual communication in some way. Suppose you can get your concept from the page to a designer you’re doing your job. Words will go some way, but perhaps you like the way someone is positioned, or you want to discuss how lighting will work. Doodle it out.
Doodling is communicating. We use it as a short form of saying something and effectively summarising a point. It’s not going to replace meaty words, which we need for the nitty-gritty, but it does bring to your team something they can rally behind — an abstract statement about where you’re going.
Not all doodles are purposeful — sometimes they’re just plain creative fun to engage the brain.
