Minimum Viable Pencil Case (minimum tools needed to sketchnote)

Sharing is good

While at the Sketchnote Symposium last weekend I was fortunate to spend time with my friend Mike Rohde, author of The Sketchnote Handbook and the person who coined the term “sketchnote.” He’s a very down-to-earth, unassuming, and non-judgemental person with is a wonderful speaker and wholly approachable. I got him to share his pencil case with me. Ok, that’s pretty sketchnote-geeky, but I thought it important to show that you can use what you have to create sketchnotes and not invest in expensive pens and the like. In this photo of Mike’s pencil care are three colored felt tip pens, a couple of common mechanical pencils with different leads types, and a few Pentel ball point pens. There are only two “specialty tools” – the white pen is a fine tip artist’s marker with water-base ink and the short silver thing is a mechanical pencil given to him by a sketchnoting friend in Italy.

All you need to start your sketchnoting journey is a black ball point pen, a blue ball point pen, a couple of highlighters, and maybe a mechanical pencil with an eraser, and paper to write on.

It’s that simple.

Want to try Mike Rohde’s pens? Go to his Pens page on the Sketchnote Army website.