Can You Sketchnote a Focus Group?

Short answer: yes.

Slightly longer answer: yes, but not live.

Brew a cuppa, grab a biscuit, and buckle up.

Why Focus Groups Are Gloriously Messy

Focus groups aren’t neat. They’re voices, emotions, post-its, and the occasional tea-spill that instantly becomes a metaphor for society. They’re democracy with flipcharts—brilliant, chaotic, and wildly unpredictable.

We’ve spent six years diving into these rooms:

• Patients telling the NHS what it means to be human when your spleen’s gone rogue.

• Carers describing social services in tones ranging from mildly miffed to full Greek tragedy.

• Employees giving feedback on company values, which is basically group therapy—except HR is watching.

...And that’s barely scratching the surface. We’ve captured voices from every walk of life, across sectors as diverse as the humans who power them.

If there’s a room full of people trying to talk about something that matters, chances are: we’ve sketched it, caffeinated ourselves, and “accidentally” liberated a chocolate digestive from the biscuit plate.

So. Can you sketchnote a focus group?

Yes. But here’s how….

1. Be in the room

Not just physically—emotionally. We soak up the tone, the awkward silences, the tea-spills

that become instant metaphors for society. We chat in the breaks. They share. We listen. Everyone leaves with crumbs and catharsis.

2. Move around

We don’t lurk in the corner like sketching gargoyles. We hover. We circulate. We eavesdrop—politely. Think hummingbirds with sketchpads. Drinking the nectar of human insight while pretending we do understand office banter about Q4 deliverables.

3. Capture everything (but draw later)

We photograph flipcharts. Post-its. The occasional biscuit pile. We sketch just enough to trap the mood. But the real art happens after, when we sift the scribbles into something coherent. That big idea—was it transformational change? Or giant hamster wheel? (Both work, honestly.)

4. Reflect before sketching

Trying to sketchnote one live? Unless you’re part octopus, part supercomputer, and part tea urn, it’s a no-go. (We tried. We broke a pencil. Possibly a law of physics.) The next bit of our process really matters. After all the participants have gone home….

We slow down. We let the dust settle. We revisit notes. Photos. Memories. Then we shape the story. The final sketchnote isn’t just a summary—it’s a visual narrative. Accurate. Emotional. Alive. And yes, sometimes we agonise for an hour over whether the metaphor should be a lighthouse… or a rubber duck. (Answer: lighthouse duck. Don’t ask.)

Bonus magic: two artists, one room

If your budget allows two of us, it’s double the joy. Two sets of ears. Two sets of eyes. Twice the insight. We check each other’s metaphors (Is that a phoenix… or just a chicken on fire?) We even finish each other’s doodles. It’s double the insight and double the brain power.

As one client put it:

“I have no idea how you do what you do and manage to encapsulate everything so fluidly, but you do. What a skill you have.”— Gemma Parry, Partnerships Manager, Sporting Equals

That line lives rent-free in our heads. Because that’s the goal: to make the invisible visible. To turn a storm of voices into something that sticks.

So yes, we can sketchnote a focus group.

Some sketchnote artists draw live in the room—and that can be brilliant for capturing quick summaries or structured discussions. We sketch live at plenty of events too, when the pace lends itself to instant visuals. But focus groups are different. For us, they deserve more than speed. They deserve time to breathe. Space to reflect. So we don’t aim to finish on the day, because immediacy isn’t our goal; doing justice to people who’ve shared their lived experience matters deeply. Our sketchnotes grow out of conversations, silences, and the courage it takes to speak. They’re shaped not just by what’s said, but by how it’s said.

We create with care, with attention and with a pencil sharpened not just for drawing—but for listening.

And yes—there’s usually caffeine, and always a biscuit or two.