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The
History and Evolution of the
Graphic Facilitation / Recording Field
by
Christina Merkley
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Technological,
Publishing and Relationship Advancements
Technology
development has had a big impact on the graphics field.
First, being spanned in San Francisco,
the early field grew as its Silicon Valley
counterparts grew. Many
of the field’s first and lasting clients have been technology
companies like National Semi Conductor, HP and Apple.
Much of the advancement of the field follows the boom (and
bust, and boom) of the tech sector.
The
second way that technology has impacted the graphics field has
been in the actual physical technology that visual practitioners
use to document and distribute their visual medium.
In the very early days, it was not uncommon for pioneers
like Sibbet to have to redraw their large displays, by hand, into
smaller scale renditions, which would be photocopied and mailed
to participants. Eventually
large photo-stat cameras were employed to take photographs of
the wall size originals (but these huge machines were only available
in the largest metropolitan centers).
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The
field remained hampered by cumbersome, time consuming and
expensive post-meeting reproduction methods until cheaper
and more user-friendly alternative emerged in the mid to
late 90s … in the form of digital cameras and photo-editing
programs, as well as large scale printers and scanners. This new technology was instantly revolutionary
for this field. Enabling
many smaller size operations to do the work that only collectives
with in-house studios were previously able to do.
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A
documentation service business Landau Art has also emerged
in recent years to service the needs of this specialized field.
The
adaptive influence of technology continues to make its mark on
this field as several firms integrate multi-media platforms into
their sophisticated web documentation,
graphic planning, communication
campaign, and story mapping
offerings.
A
publishing breakthrough occurred in this decade, in the form of
pre-printed wall templates, called Graphic Guides® by The Grove
Consultants. These large
size forms invite those who are ‘graphics shy’ (thinking
they aren’t artistic enough to do graphic recording or graphic
facilitation on their own) to bring visuals into their facilitation
and group work. There are a number of processes that have been
‘template-ized’ by various companies into their own
products line: Strategic Visioning, Scenarios,
Focus
Group / Product Development, Graphic
Coaching, and Disaster
Response. These tools
have helped spread the graphics medium deep within many companies
and organizations and into the toolkits of many internal and external
consultants.
Another
boom to graphics work during the 1990s was the development of
various processes that have a graphic component to them, such
as Future Search and
The World Cafe. As well as the continued and evolving work of
assorted design, information architecture and visual thinking
theorists, including (but certainly not limited to): Bob Horn, Richard Wurman, and Edward Tufte.
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