The History of Graphic Recording
You might’ve landed here with the question
“Who invented graphic recording,"
or
"where did graphic recording come from".
I love nowt more than a deeeep research session, so buckle in and get ready to learn some stuff. (Firstly, if we’ve never met. HI! I’m Katie Chappell, graphic recorder and live illustrator, founder of Illustrated Live. I’ve been drawing live at meetings and conferences since 2016 so according to the research I’m part of the ‘third wave scribing’ - coined by Kelvy Bird, author of Generative Scribing - as I formally trained as an illustrator and came into the industry through that door, rather than via facilitation.)
Aaaaanyways. Enough about me. Let’s nerd out on graphic recording facts… I made this into a video in case you CBA to read. Did my very best to find photos of everyone but some people are just… HIDING. On with the video:
Most people think graphic recording is new. It's really not!
Us graphic recorders have been kicking about for decades, and it's been developing for over 50 years.
**wibbly wobbly dream sequence** Let me take you back to some architects in San Francisco.
The San Francisco Origins (1970s)
Interaction Associates founded 1969 by David Straus and Michael Doyle
Both former architects — trained to think in large-scale visuals
Developed "group memory" — butcher paper on walls
1976 book "How to Make Meetings Work" (600,000+ copies sold)
The Pioneer Network
Geoff Ball and Doug Engelbart at SRI — "explicit group memory"
Joe Brunon — "Generative Graphics"
Fred Lakin at Stanford — tools for visual experimentation
David Sibbet — founded The Grove Consultants 1977
The Democratised Approach
Early practitioners were facilitator + recorder combined
Drawings had to be simple, fast, functional (illustrators have kind of ruined this, tbh)
Never about artistic virtuosity — about making thinking visible
"You don't need to be an artist to do this"
The Corporate Breakthrough (1995)
MG Taylor Corporation introduces Ernst & Young to DesignShop
EY licenses methodology, invests millions of dollars
Graphic recording suddenly in front of Fortune 500 companies
Kelvy Bird calls this the "third wave" — shift to personalised scribing
The Professional Community Emerges
IFVP founded 1995, incorporated 2002
Jennifer Hammond Landau coins "visual practitioner"
Still the largest professional organisation in the field
Digital Transformation (2010s-Present)
First iPad graphic recordings ~2011
Procreate becomes the industry standard (as well as Adobe Fresco for vectorised graphic recording)
COVID accelerates virtual delivery
By 2023, iPad most popular method, even for in-person events
Why This History Matters
Understanding origins explains why it works
Rooted in facilitation, not decoration
50 years of refinement behind what you see today
Right, you can pick your own adventure now.
Either read more research (this article is a tiny snippit from my MEGA page about the graphic recording industry.)