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.

News & Updates

February 2025 - What a busy few weeks! In January I was delighted to collaborate with researchers at a project being led by the University of Glasgow where I supported early career women lawyers to share by drawing their experiences. The culmination of this work will be an illustration which will feature in a book coming out later this year. I also enjoyed a trip to UWS in Paisley to live sketch discussions around care experienced student experiences (please see the gallery for more details https://www.swantonsketches.co.uk/Client-Work-Graphic-Recording ).  At the end of February I was commissioned to live digital sketch discussions held at a Royal Academy of Engineers event in Edinburgh. There was a photographer taking photos that day and he caught me deep in concentration (see above!) 

January 2025 - Happy New Year! I cannot believe that this is Swanton Sketches fifth year of operation - so grateful to all of my clients and supporters! Excited for the projects coming up this year which already include book illustrations; live recording at conferences and workshop support! 

Autumn 2024 - Keep an eye out in my galleries for the work I have completed for a learning and teaching conference at Staffordshire University. I also completed a project for the University of Edinburgh on Decolonised Transformations. Christmas portraits have also been keeping me busy this season - it is always lovely to be able to complete personalised commissions that bring joy!  

August 2024 - Another month has whizzed by and I was delighted to complete the illustration project that I had been working on with a collaborator at Durham University and started a NEW illustration project in partnership with the Hutton Institute.  The next couple of months will be focussed primarily on an exciting collaboration with learning and teaching professionals at Staffordshire University, building on the work I completed last September on Phenomenon-based learning - always great to get asked back for more! 

July 2024 - A highlight for July was another live graphic recording opportunity in Dundee for a collaborative research project exploring van dwelling. I captured themes and discussions emerging from a workshop led by researchers from the Hutton Institute, University of St Andrews and Edinburgh University. The output from the day can be seen on my graphic recording webpage. 

June 2024 - A busy few months where I have been working on an illustration project with a collaborator at the University of Durham on Prevent legislation; live sketched at a Scottish Funding Council event on National Equality Outcomes (and I feature in this great summary video produced rapidly after the event (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWsz8ZBYgoY); I supported the final couple of workshops for an ESRC-funded research project on Domestic Homicide (led by researchers from Glasgow Caledonian University and Glasgow University) and I am particularly proud to have been welcomed back for the fourth time to work with the University of Liverpool's Academy on their Making an Impact Conference (previous examples of my work feature on their website: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/researcher/making-impact/resources/ )

March 2024 - A highlight from this month was working with student leaders and the Scottish Undergraduate Oncology Conference which took place at the University of Edinburgh on 23rd March. I was commissioned to help scribe the co-creation of a SUOC Manifesto for cancer quality improvement in Scotland with Dr David Morrison, Director of the Scottish Cancer Registry and student attendees. You can take a look at what we created over in the graphic recording tab. 

Some of our clients

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