What is the VAST Framework for Visual Thinking?
Over the last 2 decades, I have used visuals in all my roles as a student, an employee, and in the businesses I’ve built. I used it in my freelance design work, as a brand consultant, developing software, and in starting a successful, 7-figure video production studio, TruScribe.
Despite these being largely creative companies, I wasn’t using visuals in the ways you might be thinking. I used visual thinking for innovation, strategy, planning, and more…it just so happens that our client-facing products and services were also visual.
I’ve encountered countless business professionals who use visual thinking to elevate the work they do every day. They range from individual contributors to CEOs. They work in marketing startups, fast-growth tech companies, and market-leading enterprises.
Not only do these professionals work in different industries, but they also use visual thinking in different ways. Some used it to communicate strategy to their team. Others visualized websites structures before spending time coding.
The reason I was finding people with these skills in such a variety of places is that it is often an incidental skill. None of them intentionally learned to use visual thinking, nor were they artists, it just developed out of necessity. They had each stumbled into using it in their work.
They didn’t even call it visual thinking! But then again, neither did I until relatively recently.
It wasn’t until 2020 when I first heard the term, that I realized that all these different people were using the same skill in different ways and I want to show more people how to use it in their work.
I want to give incidental visual thinkers ways to develop these skills with intention. I also want to give professionals (even those with zero visual background) a framework to understand visual thinking and a clear path to becoming visual thinkers.
This is where the VAST Visual Thinking framework comes in.
VAST Visual Thinking Framework
Frameworks help us arrange, filter, and see the relationships between things more quickly - and it’s no coincidence that they are often visual. So of course I needed to come up with a framework.
There are 4 areas that visual thinkers can explore to gain skills, mindsets, and tools. These areas are:
Visual
Adaptive
Sharing
Tools
Together the 4 areas spell VAST, which is helpful in that the many ways you can be a visual thinker and the many uses for visual thinking are vast. Despite that vastness, there are basic building blocks that almost anyone can adopt, and there are more advanced skills that the most driven can opt into.
This is why I call the 4 areas of focus, the 4 paths of VAST. Each path then has levels based on a progression of these skills, mindsets, tools and time to exercise.
The VAST Visual Thinking Framework
The VAST framework consists of 4 paths with each path having 5 levels of skill development, mindset shifts, and tools.
There is one things I want to make clear:
I don’t expect anyone to master every level on every path.
You may not need to master any level of any path to be a great visual thinker. Some visual thinking only requires 1 level in each path. I’ll expand more on this later.
Let’s jump into each of the paths and learn a bit more before I convey what I think is most important about this framework and why I created it.
V is for Visual
This path is about developing your natural drawing ability to visualize information and ideas. In my work, I focus on drawing over other forms of visual creation because of its speed and versatility. When practiced, drawing is the fastest way to create images anywhere, anytime.Drawing is also a very natural skill for people compared to using computers and other design software. The reason visual skills are so incidental to people's work is because most people aren’t encouraged to develop their childhood drawing skills in the same way we push writing and math. We’re largely out of practice, which is why it can be daunting. Many people get caught up in the idea of artistry. The Visual path reflects that at a basic level, simple messy lines and shapes are good enough. But if you want to develop high-level visual skills and artistry, this path can help you get there.
The 5 Levels of The Visual Path are:
Elements - Learn to use words, shapes, space, and lines to draw information
Icons - Building a visual library of symbols and icons to represent information
Illustration - Drawing with more detailed people, objects, and scenery.
Composition - Balancing the space on your canvas
Style - Mastering the others levels you put your own flare into them.
If you’re daunted by the visual part of visual thinking, don’t be. It’s only one part of what you need to be effective.
A is for Adaptive
The second path is Adaptive. It focuses on how visual thinkers approach different needs in a business. Being able to draw doesn’t help you if you don’t know what you need to draw for a given situation or conversation. Business is dynamic and often requires us to switch quickly from a 10,000ft view to action and tasks.
When you have experience in your field, you know the language, what information is important, and how to apply it. When applying visual thinking to your work you’re largely looking for tools and frameworks that apply. But it can be important to know why you’re using those tools and frameworks and how you might apply them to other areas of your work and life.
The 5 Levels of Adaptive are
Filtering - Learning to filter information and capture it visually
Frameworks - When and how to apply structures to our visual work
Mapping - Getting a 10,000 ft view of the situation and capturing feedback
Systems - Understanding and designing with system thinking
Storytelling - Articulating ideas visually to inspire and build a shared understanding
S is for Sharing
Visual thinking can bring a lot of value to you in your personal or solo work; speeding up learning, externalizing thoughts and ideas, prototyping plans, etc. But the benefits multiply when you use visual thinking in collaboration, whether that’s brainstorming with a colleague, gathering feedback from your team, or using it to present on stage.
If working with others comes naturally to you, then there are ways visual thinking can make that even more rewarding. If you find collaborating, communicating, or working with others difficult, visual thinking might be a way for you to do it in a way that works for you.
The 5 Levels of Sharing are:
Solo - Using visual thinking to capture, process, and communicate your own ideas
Present - Using your visual thinking share an idea or POV with stakeholders
Collaborate - Visual thinking in collaboration with others to create a shared understanding
Facilitate - Creating space and guide a conversation that can be captured visually
Perform - Use your visual thinking to provide a more public experience at events
T is for Tools
The fourth path is about learning the Tools of the trade. I love being able to use visual thinking anytime, anywhere, with just paper and a pen. But using the right tools for the environment is always preferred. You can’t take a whiteboard to a lunch meeting at a restaurant and paper might not be suitable for a virtual meeting.
During the 2020-2021 pandemic lockdown, many people learned to adapt a lot of things to the virtual space. But many people I’ve spoken to tell me they have lost the ability to use a whiteboard with others. Fortunately, there are many new ways to collaborate virtually. These will be crucial for the future of business, so it’s important that we adopt them as soon as possible.
The 5 Tool paths aren’t necessarily a progression. But they will help you find the tools and information to fit the tools to your work.
The 5 Levels of Tools are
Everyday - The tools you use to practice and integrate visual thinking in your work
Digital - Storing, sharing, and organizing your visual thinking
Virtual - Getting visual in virtual spaces such as zoom calls and webinars
Physical - Getting visual in physical spaces such as boardrooms and workshops
Stage - Getting visual in performative ways for conferences and speakers.
Mastering the Paths
There isn’t one way to ‘master’ visual thinking. I want you to use this framework to find the right path or paths for you. You don’t need to learn all or even most of it to be a visual thinker. You can choose how to integrate visual thinking into your work.
The 5th level of each board is often where people have put in the practice and gained the most confidence to push their style, get on stage, and lead with visual thinking. But those aren’t the majority of visual thinkers in business settings.
Most people are using visual thinking to scratch out ideas, iterate a product prototype, tell stories, and so on.
Let me give you a better idea of what I mean.
Getting Started
When you’re starting out, you can learn a little bit in each path and you’ll have all you need to start building skills and applying visual thinking to your work or daily routine.
Solo Work
If you wanted to learn visual thinking to process your own thoughts and ideas, your VAST learning might look something like this.
Putting the most emphasis on the Adaptive path, so you can apply your visual thinking to a variety of topics and needs.
Visual Facilitation
If you wanted to facilitate a group as they reflect on the outcome of a strategic project, then your VAST learning might look something like this.
Having more skills with team dynamics and a variety of tools to meet people where they are, whether in person or virtual.
Sketchnoting
If you wanted to create sketch notes for team consumption or event content, then your VAST learning might look something like this.
Here we see the need to push a bit further up the visual path and be more comfortable drawing in front of others.
Graphic Recording
Graphic Recording puts the visual thinker out in front of an audience, sometimes on stage, and the end result of 45-90 minutes of work is a highly polished visual capturing the keynote address.
This form of visual thinking pushes further into Visual style and Sharing in a performative way. The Tools path is a bit misleading as you may only need to learn the skills necessary to perform the way you intend to.
The VAST framework is meant to help you understand and choose how you want to apply visual thinking in your work and build the skills, tools, and practices to specifically achieve it.
Ready to take the next step in your visual thinking journey? Register today for my latest course, Unlocking Visual Thinking in Your Work.
