Where we start
Session 3 measured what survived. The bench played the founder's talk at speaking pace and counted: type everything and ten of twelve ideas survive in 286 words, 84% of them the speaker's; keyword and one line in your own words and all twelve survive in 110. That number is about selection, and selection is the half of the job the bench can see. The other half is invisible to it: a page where twelve ideas survived can still be unreadable if each one landed wherever the pen happened to be. Layout is chosen before the talk, not discovered during it. Tonight is the choosing.
★ What you walk out with tonight. One talk captured on a skeleton you drew before it started, and a rule for picking that skeleton from the only thing you ever know in advance: the agenda. Seven patterns, three questions, one pencil line in the first minute.
One neighbour, so you land in the right place. A radial page with one centre and keyword branches, drawn after the meeting from notes you already have, is learn-mind-mapping-with-phoebe. Here, radial is one of seven live layouts, drawn while the speaker is talking, and the choice among the seven is the subject.
Rohde's seven, drawn small
6 min liveThe Sketchnote Handbook gives twenty-seven pages to layout, and they reduce to seven shapes a page can take. None of them needs a drawing. Each is a skeleton made of rectangles, a line, or a centre, and each one is good at holding a particular kind of talk. Learn them small first, so the whole set fits in your head at once.
LiveSeven shapes for one page4 min▶
Rohde's seven sketchnote patterns are indexed at Handbook pages 90 to 116. Two of them come with named variants: radial has a symmetric and an asymmetric form, and path comes as a c-shape, a w-shape, a z-shape, a zigzag and an organic line. The variants are refinements; the seven are the vocabulary.
- Linear. Rows, top to bottom, the way a page of ordinary notes runs. Good at a short list heard in order. It is the shape you get by default, which is why it is worth choosing on purpose only when the talk really is a list of a handful of things.
- Radial. One centre, ideas around it. Good when the talk has a single subject and the speaker keeps circling back to it from different sides. The symmetric version spaces the spokes evenly; the asymmetric version lets the heavy side of the talk take more room.
- Vertical. One column, narrow, stacked. Good at a short talk, a recap, or anything you will photograph with a phone and read on a phone. It runs out of vertical room faster than any other shape.
- Path. A winding line with stops. Good at a story, a journey, a process with a beginning and an end. The c, w, z and zigzag variants are just how the line folds to fit the page; the organic one wanders. The line itself says "and then", which is why it is the wrong shape for a list.
- Modular. Cells in a grid. Good at an announced agenda with a known number of items, because each item gets a cell and each cell has a fixed size. It is the most structured of the seven, and the one the rest of tonight leans on.
- Skyscraper. Tall columns side by side. Good at a comparison: three options, three vendors, three quarters, each in its own column, so the eye can read across at any row.
- Popcorn. Ideas scattered where they land, clustered afterwards if at all. Good when you know nothing about the talk in advance. It is the honest shape for a surprise, and the dishonest one for an agenda you had in your inbox.
Seven is a small number on purpose. The choice among them has to be made fast, from little information, and a menu of seven can be walked in the time it takes a speaker to plug in a laptop.
Self-studyTwo ways to describe the same page4 min▶
Rohde's seven are the maker's vocabulary. Two other sources describe the same pages from a different angle, and both are worth having in your head, because they are how people other than Rohde talk about layout.
Doug Neill's structured and organic split. His Verbal to Visual course runs nine modules and thirty-three lessons across four elements, text, layout, imagery and colour. Module 3 is layout, and its lessons divide the subject into a structured approach and an organic approach. Read against Rohde's seven, the structured approach is modular, skyscraper, vertical and linear, the shapes with cells and rows decided in advance; the organic approach is path, popcorn and the asymmetric radial, where the page grows as the talk does. That split is only the module titles from his course page; the lessons behind them are his.
The CHI 2021 vocabulary for critique. Zheng and colleagues, in "Sketchnote Components, Design Space Dimensions, and Strategies", looked at 103 sketchnotes collected from Twitter and interviewed six sketchnoters. They name four components of a sketchnote: content, layout, structuring elements, visual styling. And they place finished pages on six design-space dimensions: conciseness, structure, illustration, unity, personification, realism. It is the only fetched vocabulary for critiquing a sketchnote rather than making one. When a colleague's page feels wrong and you cannot say why, those six words usually locate it: low structure and low unity is a popcorn page that never got clustered.
| Pattern | Best when | Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Linear | A short list heard in order | Long lists run off the page |
| Radial | One theme, many facets | Speaking order is lost |
| Vertical | A short talk or a recap | Cramped after eight items |
| Path | A story, a journey, a process | A list forced to be a story |
| Modular | An announced agenda, count known | One cell overflows |
| Skyscraper | Options compared side by side | Uneven columns, one left empty |
| Popcorn | No agenda, shape unknown | Nobody can rebuild the order |
Pick the skeleton from what you know in advance
5 min liveYou never know the talk in advance. You almost always know the agenda, and the agenda is enough. Three questions about it pick the pattern, and the pattern is pencilled on the page before the first idea arrives. After that the pen only has to put things where the skeleton says they go.
LiveThree questions before the speaker starts3 min▶
Three questions, asked of the agenda and answered before anyone has said a word.
- Is there an agenda? If the invitation, the slide title or the speaker's first sentence names what is coming, yes. If it is "a few updates", no, and the answer is popcorn: let the ideas land, cluster them after, and redraw the recap as a vertical column on the way back to your desk.
- Is it a list, a story or a comparison? A list of topics wants cells, so modular or linear. A story, a journey or a process wants a path, because the order is the meaning. A comparison of options wants skyscraper columns so the eye can read across. One theme seen from many sides wants a radial page with the theme in the middle.
- How many items? Up to five, linear rows are fine. Six to twelve, modular, because rows that long stop being readable and cells do not. More than twelve on one page is a second page, decided now rather than discovered at minute seven.
The answers pick the skeleton, and the skeleton is pencilled in the first sixty seconds. For the founder's talk, the agenda was a list of about a dozen items about the autumn roast: modular, three by four, twelve cells, drawn light. When "Guji" arrives it goes in a cell, not wherever the pen was. The reason to do this before the talk rather than during it is simple: during the talk your attention is spent on choosing what survives, and there is none left over for choosing where it goes.
Self-studyWhen the talk breaks the skeleton4 min▶
Skeletons break. The founder's talk was a list for eight minutes, and then it stopped being a list and became a plea: nobody owns the checklist, and somebody has to. On a modular page that is one cell that overflows, because a plea does not fit in nine words, and the founder said more about it than about anything else.
The honest move is a second page or a popcorn corner, not a smaller pen. Writing smaller to fit the cell is the transcription reflex wearing a new hat: it spends attention on the page rather than on the speaker, and it makes the most important part of the talk the least readable part of the page. A margin cell, drawn when the overflow starts, says something true: this item was bigger than the agenda said. That is a finding about the meeting, and the page should carry it.
Rohde's art-and-structure scale, Handbook pages 87 to 88, explains why some skeletons survive this better than others. The structure end of the scale, modular and skyscraper and linear, tolerates overflow: an extra cell in the margin still reads as a cell. The art end does not: a lovely radial page with one spoke twice as long as the rest looks like a mistake, and a path that has to double back over itself loses the one thing it was for, the order. So when the agenda is uncertain, sit right of centre. A grid that gains a thirteenth cell is still a grid.
A Daybreak product manager arrived with a six-item agenda, drew a six-cell modular skeleton before the founder stood up, and captured all six in their cells. When the founder added the checklist at the end she drew a seventh cell in the margin, boxed it in the accent pen, and wrote "not on agenda" under it. Her colleague started with a blank page and popcorn. He had the same twelve ideas on his page, and two days later neither of them could reconstruct the order he had heard them in, including which item had been the plea.
Twelve ideas, two skeletons
4 min liveThe same twelve ideas from the founder's talk, on two pages of the same size. The left page is a modular grid, drawn before the talk from the agenda. The right page is a path, the twelve ideas in the order they were spoken. Nothing survived on one that did not survive on the other. What differs is how you find a thing next week.
LiveWhich one you can read next week2 min▶
The modular page answers "what did he say about pricing?" in one glance. The eye goes to the money row, finds PRICE and NEW SUBS and FINANCE next to each other, and reads three cells. It does not matter that the founder said those things four minutes apart, because the grid was drawn from the agenda and the agenda grouped them.
The path page answers "what came after the sleeve?" The eye follows the line from SLEEVE to LEGAL and the answer is there, because the line is the order. Ask that same question of the grid and you are hunting: the grid threw the order away the moment "Guji" went into a cell instead of after "date".
Neither page is better. Each one kept the question its skeleton was built to answer and discarded the other. The founder's talk was a list, so the grid is the honest shape for it: nobody will ever ask what came after the sleeve, and somebody will ask about pricing on Thursday. The path is the honest shape for a story, where the order is the point and a grid would have hidden it. Choosing between them is the whole of Part 2, done in a minute, from the agenda.
Self-studyWhere the bench's numbers land3 min▶
Session 3's bench measured the keyword-and-one-line capture at 12 of 12 ideas in 110 words, about 9.2 words per idea, with 0% verbatim overlap. Put that capture on a modular page and it is about nine words a cell: a capital keyword and one short line under it, which is what a cell of that size holds comfortably. The number the bench produced and the shape of the page agree with each other, and that is not a coincidence. A cell is a budget, and nine words is roughly what the budget buys.
Put the same 110 words on a popcorn page and nothing is lost, and nothing can be found. The words have no cells, so the reader has to scan every cluster to know whether pricing is in it. Put the typing capture there, 286 words and ten ideas, and the page is a paragraph in disguise. Layout does not change what survived; the bench already measured that, and the bench cannot see layout at all. Layout changes whether anyone can find what survived, and that is the only thing tonight is for.
The anti-preset from session 3, the page where every idea got an icon and a banner, kept 4 of 12. Layout would not have saved it. A beautiful modular grid with eight empty cells is a beautiful record of what was missed, and the empty cells make the miss visible in a way a popcorn page never would. That is one more argument for a skeleton: it shows you your own gaps while the speaker is still talking, when there is still time to fill one.
Up to five lines, linear rows will hold it. Six to twelve, draw the grid. If you could not write the agenda at all, that is an answer too: popcorn tonight, and a vertical recap afterwards. The counting takes thirty seconds and it is the only preparation the page needs.
Skeleton first, then capture
★ 22 min · everyone capturesYou brought an agenda you know in advance. A neighbour reads it aloud as a talk, one sentence per item, at speaking pace. Before they start, you have already drawn the skeleton. The rule for the whole exercise: nothing goes on the page during the talk except into a place the skeleton made for it, or into a margin cell you draw when it overflows.
Read the agenda you brought and count the items. Write the count in the top corner. If the agenda is a paragraph rather than a list, rewrite it as a list first; a paragraph hides the count, and the count is the whole input to the next pass.
Pick a pattern with the three questions. Is there an agenda: yes, you are holding it. List, story or comparison: say which, out loud, to your neighbour. How many items: the number in the corner. Six items that are a list is modular, two by three. Four steps of a process is a path with four stops. Three options is three skyscraper columns.
Draw the skeleton in the first minute with a pencil or a light pen: cells, or a path with stops, or a centre with room around it. Label nothing yet except a one-word hint in the corner of each cell if the agenda gives one. Leave a margin on the right, two fingers wide, for whatever the talk adds.
Your neighbour reads the agenda as a talk, one sentence per item, and you capture into the skeleton using session 2's icons: a keyword in capitals, a mark, one line in your own words. The pen goes to the cell, not to the nearest white space. If a cell fills before the sentence ends, stop writing; the keyword is already there.
Anything that did not fit gets a margin cell and one word on why: "added", "overran", "not on agenda". Then read the page back to the speaker by cell, not by order, and see whether they can hear their own agenda in it. Swap and repeat with the other agenda.
Agenda in the corner first. Item count, pattern name, date, speaker. Four words, written before anyone speaks. That corner is the skeleton's label and the proof it was drawn in advance.
Skeleton in pencil, capture in pen. Two tools with two jobs. The pencil line is a suggestion the talk is allowed to break; the pen is the record. Next week the eye reads the pen and ignores the pencil.
Cells the same size, all of them. A big cell for the item you think matters is a prediction, and the founder's plea came in the item nobody predicted. Equal cells let the overflow tell you which item mattered.
Keyword top left of the cell, mark top right, line underneath. Same corners in every cell, so the eye learns the cell once and reads twelve. Session 5 is about why that consistency is what makes a page scannable.
Margin cell, not smaller writing. When an item overflows, draw a new cell in the margin and continue there, with an arrow back. Shrinking the letters to fit is the transcription reflex, and it hides the one item that turned out to be bigger than planned.
Count at the end. Cells filled, cells empty, margin cells added. Three numbers, written at the bottom. Empty cells are items the speaker skipped; margin cells are items the agenda missed. Both are things to say in the meeting after the meeting.
Draw the skeleton light enough to break. The pencil is a promise about the agenda, and agendas lie a little; a talk announced as six items becomes seven, and a list becomes a plea at minute eight. A light skeleton lets the talk overrule it without making the page look wrong. A skeleton inked heavily before the talk turns every surprise into a mess, and the surprises are usually the part worth keeping.
Before session 5
25 min- Capture one real meeting on a skeleton chosen in advance. Read the invitation, count the items, answer the three questions, pencil the pattern before the meeting starts. Photograph the page afterwards, skeleton and all.
- Write one line on whether the pattern survived the meeting. Did every item land in its place? How many margin cells did you draw? If the skeleton broke, name the question you should have asked differently before it started.
- Find one page from session 1 or 2 and redraw it onto the pattern it should have had. Those pages were captured with no skeleton at all. Give the same ideas cells, or a path, or a centre, and notice which items are suddenly findable and which order is suddenly lost.
- Hand one page to a colleague and time how long they take to find one specific item. Ask "where did he say the batch size?" and count the seconds. Write the number on the back of the page. Session 5 is about that number, and how to get it under thirty.
Three questions
Clear all three and session 4 gets stamped in your passport.
1 · When is the layout of a sketchnote page decided?
The agenda is the one thing you know in advance, and it is enough to answer three questions and pick one of seven skeletons. During the talk your attention is fully spent on selection, which is what the bench measured; there is none left over for deciding where things go. A pattern discovered at minute three has already put the first three ideas wherever the pen was.
2 · An agenda arrives with six announced items. Another talk is billed as "how we got from the first roast to the autumn blend". Which skeleton for each?
Six items is a list with a known count, and a known count is what modular and linear are for: draw six cells and each item has a home. A story's meaning is in its sequence, so a path keeps the one thing a grid would throw away. Option D has each shape answering the wrong question, and popcorn is the honest shape only when there is no agenda at all.
3 · Two pages hold the same twelve ideas, one modular and one popcorn. What does the layout change, and what does it not?
Session 3's bench counts ideas and words and is blind to layout by design, so two pages with the same capture score the same. What differs is the reading: 110 words in twelve cells is nine words a cell and one glance to the money row; the same 110 words scattered have to be scanned in full to answer any question. Layout is for the reader you will be next week.
What this session teaches, and where it came from
Every fact on this page, and its verification tier, is recorded in the course's source map.
Session 4 cheat sheet · pin this
Your page can now be found in: the item you want is in a cell or at a stop, and you know which. Session 5 is whether a colleague can read it in thirty seconds without you standing next to them: hierarchy, one rung of Rohde's lettering ladder, containers and connectors, and the one accent pen. Bring the page you timed, and the number on the back.