Drawing business ideas using words, images and colour can help make the process of communication clearer, quicker and more visible to a key audience. This can be useful in business settings when it’s important to sell an idea or proposal in a fresh yet compelling manner — and grab attention (and maintain it) all in the same strike.

I recently did some work with a leading public affairs specialist using exactly this method. Their team were giving a critical presentation to the senior management group of a large services company and they wanted to steer away from the usual approach of text-heavy PowerPoint or Word proposals.

You’ll note that exact names and content in this post have been replaced by ‘Lorum ipsum dolor’ to maintain confidentiality – but the underlying point is clear. Pictures help capture people’s imagination, engage conversation and help draw attention to a business story.

Some other areas for consideration:

• The presentation and the proposed business strategy within it became clearer and ‘to the point’ by using a bespoke picture. The senior management team could see ‘the bigger picture’ with all the content on one sheet of paper, as opposed to multiple slides;
• The picture also allowed the team to engage and interact with the key decision makers in conversation around the table, as opposed to losing them in PowerPoint slides where ‘we talk, you listen’;
• The drawing followed a tight brief and was executed by hand and carried a visual ‘river’ metaphor that was relevant to the audience and presentation theme; and
• Each member of the senior management team was given a copy to refer to during the conversation, to take away as a ‘leave behind’ or to circulate with colleagues (in both hard copy and digital format) so that the content could ‘live on’ beyond the initial meeting.

Detailed grabs of the final image: