Visual note-taking (sometimes called sketch-noting) adds doodles, sketches and symbols to your note-taking to increase focus in the moment, notice the most important parts of a talk, meeting, lecture, video, book or experience, and improve how much you remember in the long term.

It’s about capturing ideas, not making great art, so don’t worry if you feel like you ‘can’t draw’. Anyone who struggles with making easy-to-understand notes can benefit from learning about visual note-taking. In this workshop you will:

- Explore why visual note-taking supports focus, memory and learning

- Practice listening for important information

- Discover ways to structure and design visual notes- Practice drawing simple recognisable images and icons to represent your ideas

- Experiment to find your own style of visual note-taking

- Have fun!

– lets face it, doodling is more fun that writing

If you’ve ever been told off for doodling in class, or panicked over unusable notes when looking back through them, this workshop could be just what you need. Materials will be provided, but please feel free to bring along your favourite pens and notebook if you’d prefer to use them.

About your tutor

Ellie Julings is a community educator with close to 20 years’ experience of supporting people to overcome barriers, connect with others, and find their purpose while facing the challenges of day-to-day life. Most recently, Ellie has worked alongside unpaid carers running trauma-informed workshops on mental health, creativity and employability. She has a degree in Graphic Media Communication, a PGCE in Lifelong Learning, and a master’s degree in Creative Writing but the most important qualification of all is her own experience of facing mental health challenges, and the ongoing project of remaining a creative, grounded human through good times and bad. She can be found online at https://ejulings.com/

Please note - this workshop is only suitable for adults 18+

If you have any access, mobility or other health issues which you think could impact your experience of the workshop, do to let us know in advance and we will aim to make reasonable adjustments where possible, to ensure you have a positive experience.

We request resonable notice of at least 2 working days to be able to action any adjustments.

Any information disclosed to Swarthmore will be relayed to the workshop facilitator.

Visual Note-taking with Ellie Julings