03 de November de 2020
Time, perseverance and money are the key ingredients for any entrepreneur. Anybody who wants to see their ideas succeed requires dedication and investment. However, beyond these fundamental elements, there is another critical factor that, as well as ensuring success, also turns entrepreneurs into visionaries. What is this magic ingredient? De la vision.
Without a doubt, vision is an essential tool on any entrepreneurial journey and, with this in mind, the lecturer and psychologist, Cornelia Brezing, led a dynamic and creative workshop on Visual Thinking, at the modern facilities of the Impact Hub Barcelona, for the winners of the first stage of the EAE Lab Pyramid program of the April 2020 intake.
Would you like to discover more about visual thinking and what the workshop involved? Let’s find out!
Visual Thinking: A strategy for thinking better
The specialist Cornelia Brezing emphasized that "Visual Thinking is far more that just thinking visually. In fact, it involves applying different visualization methods in order to think better”. These methods enable us to give a visible and tangible form to our ideas, complex concepts and plans that are not yet well defined.
Benefits of Visual Thinking
So, what are the benefits of this methodology? There are many, but the key advantages include:
“To use conceptual drawing as visual language, you do not have to be an artist or even know how to draw”, explained the expert. It is a very simplified drawing that works with basic shapes, metaphors and symbols”.
Enhancing self-awareness through Visual Thinking
The workshop consisted of a number of stages, each designed to develop and incentivize different capacities, such as exploration and creativity. The first stage focused on painting pictures and portraits with the aim of fostering a connection at both an internal and external level.
“The participants made contact with drawing very spontaneously, as they had to draw quick portraits of their classmates with their eyes closed”, explained Cornelia Brezing. “This dynamic makes us question our beliefs: that we do not know how to draw, that other people always draw better than us, that we are not allowed to draw if we are not experts, etc. It is just a fun activity that helps us connect with the inner child that we and the others have inside!”.
Coming from different Master programs, the participants experimented with two very different ways of visualizing information:
“The infographics can and should tell stories”, explained the director of the workshop. “The participants managed to explain their narratives in a highly entertaining way, each with their own style and beauty”.
Unleash your creativity
The second stage of the workshop focused on awakening the students’ creativity. To do so, the lecturer organized an intuitive painting exercise.
Brezing explained that “We can feel paralyzed when faced with a blank sheet. So, we start with a few doodles and we soon see fantastic animals start to emerge, or futuristic vehicles, oxygenating plants. Flying telephones and much more. These were just some of the ideas presented in the final (visual) pitch of the session”.
To prepare for the last stage of the workshop in which they presented the final and visual pitch, a range of different "visual innovation prompts" were used, such as turning it around, drawing it backwards, making it more simple, more technical, multiplied, slotted together or segmented.
“It’s amazing how a playful, experimental mindset can help us to move forward”, explain the lecturer. “We avoid get bogged down by rational judgment, searching for solutions and logic before the right time to do so. This enables us to come up with the most creative ideas. By activating both hemispheres of the brain and enabling us to go with the flow, drawing is a fantastic tool for creative processes”.