Blog

Money Honey

Just as you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, you’ll engage more of your audience when you add some humor to otherwise dry or complicated messages. Amusement is one of the top reasons people share content, and the connection, warmth and inclusion humor inspires reflect well on the content’s source. While “serious” […]

comics, business comics, visual storytelling, VHMA, Breakthrough Visuals, veterinary offices

Convention Comic for VHMA

The public relations agency Communications Solutions asked us to create a comic for the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association, for distribution at their annual conference. In addition to the printed comic, we created life-sized stand up figures of the characters and all attendees received their very own superhero cape! A really fun project and a great […]

Virtual graphic recording, Terry LaBan, Philadelphia area graphic recorder, Breakthrough Visuals, sketch notes, illustration, visual storytelling

Tell Your Visual Story

Visual storytelling is one of the most effective ways to reach an audience. But it isn’t easy—creating visual stories requires carefully balancing words and images and requires skills that range from writing to graphic design. What makes a visual story really effective? Good Visual Stories are Unique With all the stock images available online you’d […]

Entertaining graphics, infographics, graphic recording, Breakthrough Visuals, Terry LaBan

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

“Here we are now, entertain us!” sang Nirvana in their hit song “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, released in November of 1991. 30 years later, audiences want to be entertained more than ever. Still, some businesses worry that an entertaining message will be taken less seriously. At Breakthrough Visuals we think even serious messages should be […]

Powerpoint presentations, Power Point presentationsinfographics, graphic recording, Breakthrough Visuals, Terry LaBan

Make Your “Meh” Presentation Marvelous

  If you want your webinar or online course to stand out, you need to show your audience more than talking heads and title cards. Your information may be valuable, but without engaging visuals it’s hard to hold people’s attention. All too often, even when presenters do use images, they’re generic ones that don’t reinforce the […]

No Drawing Skills Necessary

It’s common for people going into a visual thinking workshop to worry that they can’t draw. And at first glance, it may well look like drawing is a big part of visual thinking. But the truth is that anyone who can draw letters and numbers has all the skills they need to be an effective […]

Illustrations, kid's illustrations, children's books, cyber security, Cyber Safe: A Dog's Guide To Internet Security, Fortinet

Cyber Safe: A Dog’s Guide to Internet Security

Cyber Safe: A Dog’s Guide to Internet Safety, a children’s book which I designed and illustrated, is now available on Amazon! Young readers will love reading the tips a friendly dog named Lacey gives her cat friend Gabbi to help stay safe online. Each page combines comics and infographics, which in addition to being two […]

The Value of Surprise

In a recent NPR interview an expert on Artificial Intelligence was asked if, in a world of driverless taxis, cashier-less grocery stores and even robot-generated news stories, is there anything machines can’t do? He replied that AI is good at performing tasks that are predictable but not ones that involve the unexpected. Robots, it turns […]

Graphic recording, Terry LaBan, Philadelphia area graphic recorder, Breakthrough Visuals, sketch notes, illustration

The Long Haul

When the shutdowns began in March it was impossible to believe that coronavirus would still keep us from going about our normal activities for more than a month or so. Surely by May, June at the latest, people would once again fill offices, restaurants, schools, sports stadiums and convention centers. Now, on the threshold of […]