Not a Designer? Here's How to Turn the Bug Into Your Biggest Feature

Early last year I discovered the work of Jack Butcher via his designs called Visualize Value. It caused my attitude toward visuals and design to turn on its head.

He has amassed a huge and loyal following by making super minimal, black & white visuals that portray the perspectives of life. His designs are unmistakable, unique, and like nothing I've ever seen.

It made me wonder—how did he manage to capture my atttention, along with hundreds of thousands of others, with very few pixels drawn on the screen?

Make no mistake. He is one accomplished designer with deep industry experience.

But ironically, what he had taught me is you don't have to be a designer to make effective visuals.

I'm not a designer. I'm your typical engineer, the non-artistic type. Well, ask my kids who find a lot of joy making fun of my hand drawings!

In fact, that very bug turns out to be your biggest feature.

How so? Because it makes you focus on perspectives over aesthetics.

When you focus less on the aesthetics, you give yourself a huge room to work on the perspectives. To explain what an idea really means.

You think less about the micro and more about the macro.

This is where you shine. This is what you and only you can offer. You use your hard-earned experience to explain how A and B are related, how C is different from D, how E is more advantageous than F, how G can uniquely solve problem H. I can go on forever.

And once you've figured out that part, turning that idea into a visual becomes the easy part! You'll be amazed by what you can do with just basic shapes, arrows, and lines.

Life is beautiful. What you have less in one area becomes a blessing in another.

#visualleverage