Hello!
☞ Before we get started:
When’s the last time you tested your website’s contact forms? Would you take a moment and go do that? (I’ll wait here!) Plugins can cause conflicts, captcha can break, spam filters can change, and email transfer is a mysterious thing. Because of all that, I highly recommend testing your website’s contact forms regularly.
My favorite children’s book growing up was Arm in Arm, written and illustrated by Remy Charlip. It’s a strange and playful collection of what could best be described as visual riddles.
As a kid, I could spend hours immersed in the book’s pages, following strings of words and simple drawings in fascinating loops. I still get a bit hypnotized when I crack open my old musty copy all these many years later.
I can see now that this was the first time I was captivated by graphic design. But while Remy Charlip’s whimsical designs got me magically lost, I’ve spent much of my design career combining pictures and words in the hopes of making things clearer.
That brings me to our topic this month: visual frameworks.
What are visual frameworks?
Visual frameworks aren’t new, we humans have been attempting to simplify and make sense of our complex world through pictures ever since we could paint on cave walls.
A visual framework is a simple diagram that helps clarify your thoughts, approach, strategies, and plans—first for yourself, then for your someone else. Pictures work well for many brains—they help us think creatively, can be scanned and shared quickly and easily, and are intriguing and memorable.
Advice from Dave Gray of visualframeworks.com (which includes an excellent library of framework sketches) encourages visual frameworks that are simple enough to fit on an index card and strong enough they can be scaled up into fuller visual explanations.
Dave’s diagrams are intentionally sketchy and ambiguous, tempting the viewer to get engaged in problem solving. I particularly like this one 🙃:
Visual frameworks for businesses
I first heard about using visual frameworks to build businesses a few years ago from marketer Sarah Moon. She says that creating a visual framework is “essential to truly building an authority-based business because it centers your big picture thinking.”
A visual framework can help:
- Establish work that’s original and unique,
- Drive sales by clearly communicating your offer,
- Clarify your direction and help you stay focused,
- Build cohesion within a team, and
- Inspire and define a body of work (articles, book, talk, workshop, etc.).
Visual frameworks and storytelling
Beyond sketchy notecard-sized visuals, I’m interested in how visual explanations can do more than convey a framework.
Can they also tell our curious and authentic human stories like the websites we looked at in last month’s letter? Can they bend minds in playful, messy ways like Remy Charlip’s drawings?
Because designs that can communicate unique personalities and playful imaginations offer inviting, human experiences that create awe, joy, and inspiration in others.
My messy creative process
This morning I dusted off the pen and watercolors and sketched a visual framework for my creative process.
This is pretty much the same process I use for everything I create, from designing to writing to artwork—whether I’m conscious about what I’m doing or not. That said, the more personal and open-ended a project is, the more the connections tend to look like the ones in the Mess diagram above.
It’s helpful for me to remember that making something isn’t a one-and-done task. When I can know there are steps along the way that allow me to prepare, explore, draft, and adjust, I can stay more open, flexible, and free.
What about you? What are you creating? What’s your approach? Maybe you could follow it to come up with your own visual framework?
xo,
Sarah
2 Responses
Love this Sarah! And your drawing of your process starting with the pillow. 😊
Thank you Lexa! Pillows, pillows, everywhere! ❤️