Test/Our Story

After collaborating casually for several years, Sophia Liang and Lynn Carruthers came to realize that there was no comprehensive training program for their field of graphic facilitation. Almost every graphic recorder they met had the same story: they stumbled upon graphic recording as a practice, pieced together a workshop-based education, hung out a shingle, and hoped for the best. There was no comprehensive training program for graphic facilitation, and no clear path to success in this emerging field.

So they launched The Graphic Method, providing in-person, interactive, experiential training for individuals and organizations who want to be competent and skilled at visual facilitation, graphic recording and visual thinking. At the core of their program lies the four ‘C’s: comprehensive, competency, continual learning, and constant support. After dreaming about creating a comprehensive training program for their field for several years, they launched The Graphic Method in July, in Austin, TX.

Sophia Liang

Sophia Liang is passionate about people and enabling sustainable communications within teams and inside organizations by utilizing the power of visual communication. She has an extensive background in designing experiential learning events with a focus on creating moments that matter. Her background has taught her that in order for people to truly listen and understand one another, they must be engaged on multiple sensory levels. Sophia believes that when groups are given the power to voice and visualize their own ideas, they have better conversations, and then make better decisions. Remember the last time you pulled out a piece of paper and pen to draw a diagram to illustrate your point? That’s what she does with her clients every day — listening, focusing, and synthesizing ideas into bite-size chunks to enable more productive and engaged collaboration.

Recent clients include Fortune 500 companies such as Walt Disney Imagineering, Dolby Labs, Google, and Genentech, as well as both not-for-profit organizations and government agencies. Sophia is part of the Grove Consulting Associate Network (one of the original graphic facilitation firms, based in SF) and has run graphic recording workshops at the International Association of Facilitators annual conference for the last two years. In 2012, Sophia co-chaired the annual visual practitioners conference, bringing together people from all over all over the world to learn and discuss the implications of our work and how we can better partner with our clients in these challenging times.

Lynn Carruthers

In the summer of 2000 Lynn Carruthers founded the visual practice at Global Business Network. Following her training in the basics of graphic recording at The Grove Consultants in San Francisco, Lynn was the in-house graphic recorder at GBN and later Monitor Group.  After a 20-year history with GBN and two mergers later, in July 2014 Lynn decided to leave her corporate job and strike out on her own.

In July 2013 Lynn was elected board president of the International Forum of Visual Practitioners (ifvp.org).

Lynn hosted her first Annual General Meeting of the IFVP at EuViz 2014 in Berlin.Lynn’s work is archived in the Smithsonian Institution and has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle. Her recordings were the the first-ever “analytical artwork” hung in the halls of the CIA. Lynn has presented at RISD, California College of the Arts’ DMBA program as well as Stanford University’s MBA program.