Humans, people and persons

Keep it simple, this way you are still fast. Focus on what you want to express!

Let us start with the body: To draw a person can also be very much simplified. The simplest form is just one line, which might not be enough. If you want to take the first evolution, just use a rectangle with a circle on top. Easy, peasy.

If you just add a second of this and draw two lines with a circle, symbolizing the hands, you have a couple = people who can interact. As soon as that you can play around with icons, which might describe their relation, look here:

You can already notice the pointing index finger attached to the arm – just a line and a circle. And you can already see the nose, showing the direction of sight. Simple elements change your figures. Looking at possible hand variations, you have:

Of course you can play also with the body and the expression of it. Here it becomes a bit more to practice, because you are not only combining simple straight lines and circles, but the manner of the body is curved plays a bigger role. But it is doable after a bit of practice.

In the end it is about creativity. You can combine all the above with icons, shadow and coloring to use the skills seen in the former chapters and end up with e.g. a secured situation icon:

There are other ways to draw a body – up to a perfect drawing. I find 2 more shapes interesting to know about.

I want to give you this family of elements to enrich your notes in a simple and efficient way. So there are typically stick figures, star people and the typical game character design. I personally do not use star people a lot, because hand expressions are useful to my work and they are harder to draw on star people. Though I use game people much more. They are easy to use if you want to draw groups of people, like displaying a team or an audience. You can see two simple examples down below.

Adding some details – for quality and for information

To add some expression to the figure you can always use the same facial characteristics like in the former chapter, use the hand positioning above and try to play with the body language. Another group of elements you can use, to distinguish the figure throughout your sketchnote or to give them a certain character upfront are typically visible accessories, like hair, a tie, a hat.

And to give the person a character you can give