This is a hard book to review as I have been sketchnoting for years. I picked this book up because I was teaching the technique and I wanted to give some more tangible resources to my students without going through the trouble of making too much of my own stuff.
The book is beautifully constructed with lots of lovely sketchnotes and some exercises. He covers techniques, materials, supplies, rudimentary layouts and encourages you to get on sketchnoting.
Reading this book took me a year, on/off (I literally finished to try and get to 52 this year) because it is focused on the practical side of sketchnoting. Rohde makes sure that you have the opportunity to try your hand at drawing straight away giving you tips and tricks to making different figures and symbols. That part worked the best for me, and even as an experienced sketchnoter it’s nice to be challenged as I have tended to stick to the symbols I’m comfortable with. Rohde has also done a handbook that is even more practice focused and I’ll be picking that one up in the new year.
Overall it is a great introduction, though I found that if you want to learn sketchnoting, it’s the same as everything else, you have to do it badly lots of times, get good professional feedback and try again.
