On Monday, I did my first-ever booksigning at the SXSW bookstore. My awesome publisher had copies shipped hot off the press to SXSW, for sale a whole month before the release date. People who picked it up at the conference officially owned it before anyone else…including me!

I’d never actually seen the final book before –I haven’t received my author copies yet, so I didn’t get to do the whole un-boxing-your-author-copies-at-home thing — the first time I saw the book, Adam Norwood tweeted that he’d seen it, so after a panel I rushed over to the bookstore to see it stacked next to Laura Dern (not a bad first impression):

I must say, I was not 100% about the book cover until I saw it in person. It looks really great, it has a matte finish, and feels real nice in your hands.

Here I am gesticulating to somebody. Loved getting to chat with all the folks that came up to by a copy. The added bonus was that everybody had their SXSW badge on, so spelling names was no problem…

After things wound down, I signed the rest of the copies:

Last I checked, there were only about ten or so left, so I’m hoping we sell out over the rest of the week.

Hope to have more pics up of the book soon. Thanks to my shutterbug wife, Meg, for all the awesome pictures. You can see a few more on Flickr.

In the meantime, be sure to get your pre-order in!

Austin Kleon at PechaKucha Night Austin 07 from PechaKucha Night Austin on Vimeo.

Above is the video for my Newspaper Blackout Pecha Kucha presentation last month in Austin.

What is Pecha Kucha?

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

It was incredibly difficult to time and plan out, and it’s probably the best presentation of my work that I’ve come up with. The audience was really amazing. Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to Carla and Herman for inviting me.

Here are all my slides in one deck.

And here’s the 20-second time-lapse video that’s in the presentation:

[ Watch a high-quality HD version on Vimeo ]

I was invited to draw TEDxAustin this weekend. I was skeptical about an event that was so secretive about its contents beforehand, but it far exceeded my expectations. It was well-planned, well-executed, and had a stellar lineup of speakers. I bumped into lots of great people and had some good conversations. Kudos to the team, and thanks to my buddy Sunni Brown for the invite!

The theme of the day was “Play Big,” so I decided to do something special: I drew the background stage and the studio in my sketchbook, then drew the speakers on sticky notes. I wasn’t sure what I was going to with all the drawings, and then the idea of making a video popped into my head. The video was shot with my Aiptek HD camcorder and cobbled together in QuickTime Pro on my slow-as-molasses Mac Mini. Watch the results. (Be sure to click HD!)

Favorites? As someone who hates answering the question, “What do you do?,” Steven Tomlinson’s talk about keeping all your interests in play really hit home. I also loved Carrie Contey’s talk on the power of the pause. John Philip Santos had some terrific images in his talk on genealogical genetics. Both the musical acts, Ruby Jane and John Pointer, were really impressive.

If written notes are your thing, John Lebkowsky has some great ones.

Here’s a photo that Shane Guiter took of me during a break (annotations mine):

See scans of all the sticky note drawings after the jump or on Flickr.

(more…)

Tonight I’ll be giving a slideshow about Newspaper Blackout as part of Austin Pecha Kucha night #7. Sneak preview of my slides, above.

What is Pecha Kucha?

PechaKucha Night was devised in Tokyo in February 2003 as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. It has turned into a massive celebration, with events happening in hundreds of cities around the world, inspiring creatives worldwide. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat”, it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: 20 images x 20 seconds. It’s a format that makes presentations concise, and keeps things moving at a rapid pace.

At the last Austin event, they had hundreds and hundreds of people, and I heard they even had to turn some folks away, but tonight It’s gonna be in a big empty retail space at 416 W. Cesar Chavez, so everyone should be able to get in. The doors open at 7:30pm, presentations start at 8:20 pm. There’s beer. No cover, only donations.

Come by, listen to some cool folks talk about their work, and pick up a postcard!

More info here.

Brea McAnally was kind enough to send me some pictures of my work in the “Old Media/Old News” exhibit at The Luminary Center for the Arts in St. Louis.

The show has been getting some really good reviews, which makes me even sadder that I won’t be able to see it in person. Here’s the Riverfront Times:

Yesterday’s headlines are re-presented in traditional (old) media by a group of local and international artists in this inventive elegy to the death of print journalism. Idiosyncratic, methodical processes seek to replace or reclaim the generative grind of tangible print….Writer Austin Kleon uses a Sharpie to black out the majority of text on a page, suggesting that what’s left reveals poetic insight into otherwise prosaic reportage….Fact, here, becomes marginalia, while emotional and personal experiences surface as all that’s most articulate, memorable or worth remembering.

More pictures, some lifted from The Luminary’s Facebook page:

If any of you St. Louis folks still haven’t seen it, it’s open until March!

Hey folks, quick heads up: I’ll be chatting with my friend John Unger on Blog Talk Radio Thursday night, February 4  at 9PM ET / 8PM CT. We’ll be drinking bourbon and talking about art. Listen in here.

UPDATE: MP3 Download (1 hour, 13MB)

Here are my doodles done during our talk:

Those of you who live in or near St. Louis: there will be an art show featuring some digital projections of my blackout poems at The Luminary Center for the Arts starting with an opening reception tomorrow, Saturday, January 30th from 6PM-9PM. The show runs until March 27th.

Unfortunately, I won’t be at the opening reception. Plane tickets ain’t cheap, and with the book coming out soon, I have to save up my travel funds. It’s too bad, because some of my favorite creative fellas live there: Dave Gray, Bill Keaggy, Dan Zettwoch, Kevin Huizenga…it’s a town with a bunch of good brains in it, and I’ve always wanted to visit.

Maybe next time. If you go, take an iPhone snap for me and send it my way.

I’m teaching a visual thinking for writers workshop here in Austin next month. (View a few slides from my previous class.)

Description:

As visual thinkers, we concentrate a lot on pictures, but rarely on words. Join us at the next Vizthink Austin, where we’ll learn visual thinking techniques that can help us become better writers. Using simple school supplies that can be found at any corner drugstore, we’ll step away from the computer and make writing with our hands, using index cards, scissors, and even old comic books. Whether you’re trying to write an office e-mail, a grant application, or even The Great American Novel, this session will help!

LOCATION: Leadership Austin, 1609 Shoal Creek Blvd, Suite 202, Austin, TX 78701 (Map)
DATE: Wednesday, February 3rd
TIME: 6 – 8 pm

More info

see it bigger

On May 12th, I’ll be doing a Vizthink webinar with my friends Sunni Brown, Mike Rohde, and Dave Gray (as moderator) on visual note-taking. Price is $99, but you get access to the live session AND the recording AND it all goes to the good cause of keeping the Vizthink staff and community afloat financially.

Visual note-taking 101: Techniques for making your notes more visual and memorable
with Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin Kleon

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 | 11:00am EDT (15:00 GMT) | 3 Hours

Ever since Leonardo put pen to paper, visual note-taking has been a route to improve the quality of your thinking, make information more memorable, and make your ideas easier to share with others. Learn practical techniques and “tricks of the trade” from modern visual note-taking masters Mike Rohde, Sunni Brown and Austin Kleon. In this three-hour course you will learn how to use visual note-taking to improve your listening skills and take better, more memorable notes. The focus of this class will be on how to write, sketch, and diagram ideas live, in real time, as you hear them. Many of the techniques you will learn will also help to improve your skills in drawing your ideas at the flip chart or whiteboard.

Get more information and register here. (Also: dig the new VizthinkU portion of the Vizthink website!)

Sunni does graphic facilitation for a living, so she’s used to talking about her and her work, but this will be the first time that Mike or I have dug in and tried to explain what it is that we do.

The seminar will be in three parts. Sunni will talk about the art of listening and Mike will talk about being an editor vs. a stenographer. My part is called, “But I can’t draw!” I’ll be addressing folks’ fears of the pen, and talking about how there’s a a drawing alphabet just as there is a writing alphabet, and if you just learn the alphabet, you can draw anything. I’ll be using some cartoon theory, Lynda Barry’s “Two Questions”, Ed Emberley’s “Make A World”, and ripping off Dave Gray’s stuff on how to draw.

(TIP: I’ll be collecting a lot of my materials for the talk under the tumblr tag “But I Can’t Draw!” if you want a sneak-preview.)

This should be a lot of fun. I’m thrilled to be associated with these folks, and a little overwhelmed at the prospect of teaching with them: after all, it’s been only three years since I learned that this stuff even had a name…

Please let me know in the comments if you have any specific questions you’d like to have answered or topics you’d like addressed!

see it bigger

UPDATE: Here’s a sneak-preview of the introduction/bio slideshow I’m making for my portion:

UPDATE: A recap of the event.