Visual Stories for The University of Alabama Holle Center for Communication Arts

This year, we have been enriched by so many inspiring and influential people through our work graphic recording and visualizing stories. We’ve been traveling near and far to capture ideas, and have found ourselves in some of our favorite rooms to date.

One of our most impactful projects came to us in June, courtesy of Dr. Robin M. Boylorn, Holle Endowed Chair of Communication Arts at The University of Alabama. Robin invited us to visually capture the work that she and her advisory board would accomplish during their first-ever retreat, in Chicago, IL. 

Since this group was convening for the first time, our goal was to make the experience special. Robin came to us with a 3-part project scope:

1) Pre-event portrait illustration

2) Live, on-site graphic recording

3) Post-event board member story illustrations, which would serve as a thank-you gift to each member 

Needless to say, we were stoked to dive in. We started by illustrating portraits so that they could be used on things like presentation decks, team building memos, and social media shares in preparation for the June retreat. Here are a few of those portraits: 

Then we joined the team in Chicago to listen in and capture their retreat work. Our time with the Holle Center Advisory Board (HCAB) on that day was a full day of story-sharing, truth telling, and hard work. We found ourselves inspired by the community and compassion in the room, as we drew alongside a group of professionals who truly cared for the wellbeing and success of person they were guiding. 

We drew digitally, on iPad, and shared the drawings in real-time to a large in-room projector. We also shared the finished jpgs with the board, as a reminder of what they had accomplished together. Here are a few of the deliverables from that day:

After our time together in the windy city, we continued to work with Robin over the following weeks as we illustrated each board member’s life story. This meant gathering key milestones from each member,  including their portrait as a visual centerpiece, and creating a custom visual story for each person. (Yes - this also involved the joy of drawing a few adorable, beloved pets.) A selected few of those illustrated stories looked like this:

It was a delight to bring the HCAB story to life.  We’re always eager to jump into longer-term projects, listen to personal narratives, lean into a strategy brainstorm, and everything in between. 

If you’ve got a story to tell, reach out! We’re ready for it.