ABOUT ME - VISUAL THINKER . ILLUSTRATOR. GRAPHIC FACILITATOR. TRAINER

My name is Katrina Swanton and I founded Swanton Sketches in 2020 with the intention of helping individuals and companies to harness the power of visual thinking. 

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Visual notes have been proven to aid learning and retention. 

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They are an effective approach to summarise and share key discussions from meetings and events. 

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Visual summaries offer complementary approaches to communicate complex ideas from research papers or company reports. 

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Visuals grab attention and engage more people! 

I can help a range of industries and sectors to use visuals to bring together people and ideas, however my expertise is in Higher Education.  I have worked in the sector for over 20 years. I am a specialist in learning and teaching and gained Principal Fellowship of AdvanceHE for my leadership in supporting learning and teaching. I am currently undertaking PhD study (part-time) at Edinburgh Napier University focussing on assessment practices. 

News & Updates

May 2026 - As per my update in October, I have now embarked on PhD study - while it is still early days I am making a conscious effort to incorporate my visual work into my studies (I have shared an example over on my Graphic Recording page (https://www.swantonsketches.co.uk/Client-Work-Graphic-Recording). I have been delighted to take on commissions with researchers, to support visual data collecting methods and to disseminate research findings. I have also been working with colleagues from Glasgow University Law School to support the co-creation of a poster depicting the important work to decolonise the School (https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/law/edi/decolonising/)  - I hope to be able to share the outputs of this work in the coming months.  

October 2025 - From October 2025 I will be registering onto a PhD programme (part-time) and this will mean that for the next few years I will need to reduce my Swanton Sketches commitments as I juggle my full-time job at Edinburgh Napier University, my studies and my business. I hope to incorporate visual approaches into my studies and I will post updates here! 

July 2025 - Had a wonderful time in June supporting the Edinburgh Napier Business School and Bright Red Triangle sharing work underway to build the Entrepreneurial Campus. Was also grateful to be interviewed during the day about the support I have received from BRT over the years (I hope to share the video here in due course!). Was also delighted to hear back from one of my very first clients from Renfrewshire Council who have commissioned me to illustrate some reports to be more accessible to families and young people! 

May 2025 - I have been delighted to work with colleagues at Edinburgh Napier over the past few months on a range of projects. I produced a visual summary of an event on Innovation and Technology for Health and Social Impact - which brought together researchers and innovators from across Edinburgh Napier's five Schools to explore opportunities for collaboration and to spark new ideas. I will also be producing a digital visual summary of an event taking place in June in partnership between Edinburgh Napier's Business School and the Bright Red Triangle around the Entrepreneurial Campus. The Bright Red Triangle helped me to get Swanton Sketches started back in 2020 so brilliant to be partnering with them again! 

Some of our clients

Our client base is always expanding - but here are just some of the clients we have worked with to date...