The power of shadows.

Shadows serve as a powerful tool for crafting metaphors, adding an extra layer of meaning that enhances the intended message.

They often subtly convey what the image doesn't explicitly state, prompting a second look and capturing the audience's attention.

Did you know there are 7 different methods for manipulating shadows to convey symbolic messages?

If you're interested in learning more, simply leave your details on my website, and I'll notify you when enrollment for the metaphor membership reopens.

Thank you,

Dario Paniagua
Visual Thinkers Coach

Every hole, every empty space can be a shape we can play with. 

Play what? We're playing with giving it a new shape and a new meaning. 

But what's going on in this image? Everything and nothing. 

This image could be full of meaning or have absolutely no meaning at all depending on who looks at it and how they interpret it. 

When we want to anchor what we want to say, we use keywords close to an image. 

On the other hand, when we want people to assign their own meaning to an image, we don't associate any phrase or word, and what people will interpret will depend on two things: Their personal past experiences and their culture of origin. 

By the way, what keyword or short sentence would you connect to this image?

These are the types of tips and knowledge we learn in the first Membership that teaches you Visual Thinking through non-cliché metaphors. 

You can enroll on this site for a limited time, and use the early bird code MAYBIRDS to access a...

During the middle ages, monks made little illustrations or notations in the margins of manuscripts. The technical term for this kind of doodling is marginalia. It's not the main illustrations. They are doodles done in the margins. 

These manuscripts are somehow connected to sketchnoting because they are books written by hand 'manu' means hand; 'scriptus' means to write. They are not printed books."

You can incorporate specific characteristics about these provocative drawings to take your visual metaphors to the next level. 

1) Blend to drive attention. 

Today, we use a highlighter marker to draw attention to a key piece of text we are reading. But back in the Middle Ages, when they wanted to highlight something, they drew a little symbol called the manicule. Which in Latin means 'little hand.' As you can see in these drawings, they were not just hands many times. They blended these hand symbols with something else to add an extra hook to highlight and...

 One of the most common mistakes in visual thinking is making visual maps or sketchnotes in which everything we draw has the same size.

A couple of years ago, a video by Dave Gray reminded me of the way the Egyptians represented their gods, and this is a great tip because most visual maps fail due to the lack of hierarchical levels. This means that when you apply visual thinking through a map or a sketchnote and all the drawings have the same size; we communicate that everything has the same importance. If everything has the same visual importance, it will be difficult to attract attention to those important parts of your map.

That's why the Egyptian perspective could help with hierarchy in your visual thinking.

The main characteristic is that Egyptian figures were depicted of sizes based on importance and not on their distance from the sculptor's perspective. For instance, the Pharaoh would be depicted as the largest figure in a wall no matter where he was situated, and a...

Accepting imperfection is essential for creating compelling visual thinking.

Nowadays, people post content with a lot of makeup. Think about the content that you see or that you post on social networks.

How many of the photos you post have previously passed through your filter. What are your main criteria to apply those filters? Probably perfection. They are all moments of perfection. The perfect photo, the perfect moment, the perfect occasion to show something. The perfect mess. Even those images that show messy situations, if you pay attention, are a perfect and neat mess.

For this reason, one of the most significant restrictions we impose on ourselves is perfection. The consequence of this is the fear of not meeting those perfect expectations.

Let me tell you something:

Good visual ideas are going to come from a context of chaos. Any creative process is born out of...