In the 1964 movie, Mary Poppins, to the children’s delight and amazement, pulls a series of impossibly large items – a standard lamp, a potted plant and a coat stand - from her carpet bag…
I first saw the movie ten years later, in 1974, when I was just six years old. Fast-forward a few decades, and I am now a grown-up Visual Communicator. Which means I’m an Artist, Graphic Recorder and Business Illustrator. My task is to make the complex simple by collapsing ideas into simple and accessible visuals.
But simple isn’t easy.
Which brings me to my point.
What is the value of a picture?
A picture doesn’t simply unpack an idea – in fact, it does quite the opposite. A well-crafted visual packs ideas for the unpacking.
Like Mary Poppins’ Carpet Bag, a powerful visual can hold ideas that are much bigger than the picture itself. It too is paradoxically bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.
A strong visual captures, synthesises, sorts, sifts, collapses, “zip-files” and succinctly communicates. It distils, compresses, organises, clarifies and simplifies complexity. It speaks powerfully, even eloquently.
Whatever the visual process or visual device, whether it be a visual metaphor, design thinking, rich picture, drawing, painting, visual narrative, mind map, roadmap, graphic recording, or sketchnote – Pictures communicate. Powerfully.
A Drawing holds and carries meaning. It is a bespoke container, crafted to carry an idea. In many respects, it is the proverbial box reimagined.
The process of simplification, collapsing and distillation does not reduce quality and potency. On the contrary. The process of simplification creates a powerful concentrate, and gravity and potency are multiplied.
So, what is the value of a picture?...
Perhaps we should be asking, “what is the value of a clearly articulated Vision. Or a well-communicated Strategy?”
This is the Power of Visual communication. This is the Power of Visual Thinking.
Why, it’s Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!
