Using Visual Communication in Events

This month’s guest editor is Ellie Chapman, founder & graphic facilitator at Lim, who explores the benefits of showcasing content from events through communication visuals.

As the saying goes, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ and you only have to look at history (take the Parthenon in Greece with its stone carvings) to see how humans have used visuals to communicate for centuries.

Yet, all too often in events, the amazing content shared simply vanishes after the event. There is so much opportunity when it comes to capturing content in engaging, informative and shareable ways and we don’t always maximise it.

Visualisation is an effective way to share that content, both during and after an event. I love working visually because not only does it support communication across cultures and languages, it also supports different learning styles to process and understand information.

At Lim we collaborate with clients to understand specific accessibility requirements, ensuring that their visuals are tailored to suit the needs of participants.  

There are multiple benefits to showcasing content through visualisation and it’s not just at the event itself, it starts long before a participant steps into the room and will have an impact long after; so there are many opportunities to use visuals to engage and inspire action. Here, I’ll break it down:

Before: It’s important to set the scene for how you’re going to be sharing content during the event, use the opportunity in pre-event comms to get people excited and inform them. Use images, infographics, and videos. It’s way more interesting than an email with a list of bullet points.

During: Working visually is an enabler for groups because it enhances understanding, improves engagement and makes your content more accessible. Also, often in events, there is a large volume of content shared, but not much time for people to process what they’ve heard. By working with a live scribe, you can create a visual that captures insights from participants. Asking questions like what is ‘their biggest learning’, or ‘the one thing they are going to do as a result of being at the event’. The result? Participants are encouraged to interact, contribute ideas, and see their ideas represented visually. 

After: When people go to events, it’s important they can communicate what they’ve learned with their teams when they are back in the office. Equipping participants with the visual tools makes it so much easier for them to do this. As events and meeting organisers, it’s as easy as sending the visual outputs quickly after an event. Get it right and you increase the impact of the event.

Adding visuals to your events also makes complex information easier to understand; it can help speed up decisions; it brings people together - a simple sketch can align a room full of different perspectives faster than a 10-slide deck ever will – and can spark new ideas because working visually unlocks creativity. The possibilities to engage, collaborate and inspire are endless.

Lim will return to The Meetings Show in 2025 to create a live visual in the Blank Canvas and capture content for the TMS Playbook, which will pull all key themes from across the stages and include all nuggets of insight. So if you can’t get to all the speaker sessions you want to attend, don’t worry, we’ve got you. Innovation, check.