The Art of Automation
About nine months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I received a message from a friend and colleague I met during my first year in-person at IBM’s Silicon Valley Lab. He was looking for a Visual Designer to create “sketch notes” for Jerry Cuomo’s then-new podcast The Art of Automation. Always eager to take on creative projects unrelated to my daily design work, I jumped on the opportunity! Me, I can do it!
Three months prior when I was two prompts into the 2020 Procreate Care Pack, I realized that the kind of doodles I wanted to create could not be done using my first love, Adobe Illustrator. Yes, you read that right. I tried to start a Procreate prompt list without Procreate itself! Well, I quickly realized my mistake. I needed a tool that felt more like the traditional pen and paper while still leveraging the digital perks known as layering, blending, and undoing.
However, I had no iPad and thus resorted to using Procreate Pocket (the iPhone app) to fulfill prompts three and onward for the list. When my friend came looking for "sketch notes” three months later, I zoomed in and out endlessly to illustrate for Episode 2 & Episode 3! As you can see by the pristine narrow type in some places, Adobe Illustrator came into play after all. I leveraged the tool to give these artistic pieces the sense of spacing and structure I crave as a designer.
If you haven’t heard, sketch notes are a visual form of note-taking, often used to guide an audience through a particular thought process. Recorded sketch note sessions can be found on Youtube by the hundreds, but The Art of Automation elected to use them as cover art, with the added twist of a new illustrator every few episodes.
Also, The Art of Automation itself is a podcast that leads listeners through the fascinating world of Enterprise Automation. Each episode averages about 15 minutes of discussion between Jerry Cuomo (IBM Fellow, VP, and CTO of IBM Automation) and a subject matter expert on the present and future of automation.
About six months after my contributions, I did a quick interview which provides insight into my process, artistic inspiration, the meaning behind each cover art piece, and automation in art. It has felt surreal to share that in addition to seeing my cover art wherever you stream podcasts, the related interview can be found on the IBM blog, in the titular e-book, or printed as paperback. Links are provided in sources below.
Featured artist interview for Prependix: The Art behind the Art of Automation posted on May 7th, 2021, published to e-book and paperback in February 22, 2022. Interviewed by Ethan Glasman. The Art of Automation: Prependix Blog, The Art of Automation on Amazon.
Pieces included: The Art of Automation Podcast Episode 2 and Episode 3 sketch note cover art.
