The Baltic states and a big, blank sheet...

The Blank Sheet

I've travelled extensively for Drawnalism in the last few years but my my first visit to the Baltic states was memorable. The organisers of the one-day event at which I was working had set up a huge three metre long board with an accompanying sheet of paper.

Armed with several early morning cups of strong coffee I unpacked (all of) my markers and got cracking.

The seminar was organised for ENRD (the European Network for Rural Development) in Vilnius, Lithuania.

The event started with a plenary session in the main room, with the delegates then splitting up to visit the various workshops. With anything up to three separate talks or sessions happening at the same time, drawing all of them was not possible, so after discussion with our client, I prioritised three sessions. In this way, I was able to cover a great deal of the conference.

A long drawing like this usually lends itself to a timeline of the proceedings, picking up on the key points in a linear, left-to-right fashion, but due to the nature of this event, the final drawing acted more as a broad summary of the whole day.

Drawnalism helps delegates remember the key points of the day, and informs them, simply and graphically, what has been happening elsewhere at the event. We like to encourage them to take photos, tweetcomments and tell us other things they think we should include in the drawing. We then photograph the pictures ourselves, clean up the images and compile them into a document that we send to the client for redistribution to the delegates to help with their recollection after the event.

The Finished Piece

If you would like Drawnalism to make something something similarly engaging at your event, you can contact us here.