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A Short Look at Graphic Recording's Long Roots

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Graphic recording has become a highly sought-after practice by the world's top organizations at meetings to help communicate big ideas visually.

Surprisingly, the roots of the graphic recording profession as a communication tool go back thousands of years...

Modern graphic recorders owe a spiritual debt to the court scribes of ancient Egypt—prized for their ability to document important events by drawing hieroglyphics.

From the documentarian scribes of ancient Egypt in North Africa to the Sub-Saharan region of the continent comes the griot. (circa 13th c. C.E. in the Mande empire of Mali.)

Without written language, griots kept the community's wisdom, history, and traditions alive through poetry, music, and storytelling—they were the heart and soul of the people.

With its emphasis on listening and drawing for others, modern graphic recording came together in the only place it could've, the Bay Area of the early 1970s.

San Francisco, a hotbed of socio-technical innovations, used graphic recording to help groups be more creative and document key discussion topics—often centered around peace, love, and understanding. It was a groovy time.

When big consulting firms adopted graphic recording in the mid-1990s, it helped spread it Globally to become a general practice. (Thankfully, the spelling hurdles that plagued scribes for eons lessened due to tech advancements.)

Today, Griot's Eye believes a good scribe is part reporter, mutual educator, visual modeler, and inspirer. We apply that thinking to the roots of scribing: listening, drawing, and the storytelling spirit of the griot to form our unique approach to graphic recording.

Want to learn how to be a Graphic Recorder?

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