Social Media Week – The Art of Doodling

Doodle.ly iPad Application

Discussing “thinking graphically” and the benefits of doodling (particularly during meetings) the panel all remarked on the connection between seemingly distracting scribbles and improvements in retaining information.  Doug Jaeger, former President of the Art Directors Club and Professor at SVA, remarked that he had recently leafed through his notebooks from high school history and the doodles caused him to remember facts rather than reading the notes themselves.

Lance Ulanoff, Editor-in-Chief of Mashable, has brought his doodling to a rarefied level – not only using them as creative tools in his professional responsibilities, but also often including them as integral parts of the articles on Mashable.  As a co-founder of Doodle.ly, Evan Vogel clearly sees the desire for a digital representation of the sketchbook that provides and experience as close as possible to the physical one as possible.  Within the doodle.ly application, a selection of media (including pencils, crayons and markers) takes the experience of drawing on an iPad very close to that ideal.  Of the entire panel, Ulanoff was the sole proponent for the use of a stylus for his sketching rather than just using a fingertip, remarking that the muscle-memory from years of drawing made the process uncomfortable without one.  Interestingly, he used fingers and gestures when using his tablet for everything else that could be discerned from the audience – confirming that (for him) the implement was important, not the medium.

Image via CrunchBase

Alexis Ohanian, co-Founder of Reddit, revealed that some of his doodles have led the approachable public persona of the companies he has been involved in.  The “Reddit Alien” for example, started as one of his sketches and evolved into the mascot we know today.

The entire session is available online through this Livestream link:
Video

The Doodle.ly application makes the sharing of sketches and integral part of their creation.  The social part of doodling, particularly the communal process, was mentioned as an upcoming improvement to the platform.  The panel agreed that the tactile art of sketching need not be lost to the digital environment, but rather can, and should, become an important part of the new social experience.

Other members of the panel were:  Erin Sparling (Director of Design Technology at the Wall Street Journal) and Bettina Korek (Founder of For Your Art).