We’ve all seen them – they embellish greeting cards, decorate walls, and fill our social media feeds: visual quotes, the marriage of inspiring words and graphic artistry. Finding just the right quotation can have a huge impact, lifting your mood, making you laugh, stirring you to make a change in your life.
The most powerful quotations are those that make you feel understood, expressing a fundamental truth in an entirely new way.
Weaving together artistic elements with inspiring words is a potent combination. Whether it’s an artistic rendering of the words themselves or decoration of the space around those words (or both!), a visual quote can significantly enhance the words’ impact. Simply by drawing the letters in a certain style, or arranging the words in a certain shape, or creating a colorful image or design to surround the words, artists can give new resonance to already powerful words. Have you ever felt the urge to create your own visual quotes, but you didn’t know where to start?
As with any form of art, the options for creating visual quotes – the style, the medium, the tools, the color palette – are limited only by the artist’s imagination. Some take a traditional approach, using paint and canvas. Others might mix their media, combining textiles, oil pastels, and photography, for example. Still others might go purely digital, taking a graphic design approach to the art of making visual quotes.
And then, there are whiteboards. Think about it: That bright white surface, bursting with creative possibilities. A collection of beautiful, colorful markers. Powerful words (your own or someone else’s). And limitless avenues for imaginative modes of expression.
Using whiteboards to create visual quotes is actually pretty brilliant. When embarking on any creative venture, the blank surface can be quite intimidating. But the very impermanence of a whiteboard makes it a much less daunting task. It’s easier to get started knowing that if your artistic experiment goes awry, you simply wipe it away with a damp cloth and start again.
Choosing a whiteboard as your artistic medium means you get the best of both analog and digital worlds. Hand-drawn art allows the viewer to really connect with the artist. It shows more of the artist’s passion, emotion, even uncertainty and imperfection – all of which combine for a more affecting experience. Digital creative tools, on the other hand, give the artist the ability to revise their creations throughout the process.
With whiteboards, the artist can achieve the intimacy of hand-drawn artwork and the editing ability of digital tools.
Whiteboards are also an eco-friendly and wallet-friendly way to dabble artistically. No need to invest in canvases or sketch pads that might, as you explore and experiment, end up in the trash. No need to buy brushes and paints, or oil pastels, or colored pencils. You merely need a high-quality whiteboard or two and some good whiteboard markers. When you’re done with your creations, you can wipe them clean and start again, using whiteboards over and over again!
You may be thinking that using whiteboards to create visual quotes means you can’t keep your creations forever or share them with the world. But here’s the thing: Just because your artwork is created on a whiteboard doesn’t mean you can’t capture it for posterity. As we explored in recent blog posts, you can use your phone to scan whiteboards. In a nutshell, you can use the scan feature in the Notes app on your iPhone, or use the Google Drive app if you have an android phone, to digitally capture your creation. You can then share your visual quote, sending it to a friend going through a difficult time, or posting it on social media to spread inspiration far and wide.
Wondering where to start in your journey as a whiteboard visual quote creator?
Wonder no more. M.C. Squares has you covered with a variety of ingenious whiteboard products to meet every need. Let’s start with a good set of markers. Our Tackie markers (which, by the way, are perfect not just for whiteboards but for writing on any non-porous surface, like glass, ceramic and plastic) are smudge-free and wipe clean with water or a damp cloth. Tackies are available as a 6-Pack and a 12-Pack, and in two widths, Bullet-Tip and Fine-Tip, to unleash your fullest creative expression.
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You may also want to try our Surface whiteboards. Thanks to the magic of BubbleBond®, our exclusive, super-sticky, no-residue backing, these personal whiteboards stick to flat surfaces or shiny vertical surfaces, like glass or stainless steel. That means your Surface stays put on your desk or table as you create, and it sticks beautifully to a window, mirror or refrigerator once you’re ready to display your work! Surfaces come in two shapes –square and rectangle – to meet all of your design needs. |
The newest kids on the whiteboard block are Jotters, our modern, two-sided whiteboards that take the place of notebooks or legal pads. There’s a wide-open whiteboard on one side if you prefer your creative process to be totally unrestricted. On the other side you’ll find a familiar paper template – either notepad, legal pad, graph paper, or dot grid – to give some structure and scaffolding to your art.
Another great whiteboard option for creating visual quotes are our Tiles, a system of interconnecting whiteboard cards. Tiles have rare-earth magnets on the back AND BubbleBond®, so they mount not only to any magnetic surface (including other magnetic whiteboards!) but also to shiny surfaces like glass, plastic and metal. Tiles come in a variety of sizes and shapes, from Mini Tiles (5" square), to Large Tiles (11" square), to Columns, or if deciding on one size isn’t your thing, pick a Kit with a combination of each. You can really get creative with a Tiles Kit, creating visual quotes that work individually or together with other creations.
It’s never easy to carve out time for self-expression, but the rewards are plentiful. A creative outlet can alleviate stress and anxiety, give your self-esteem a boost, and help you process your emotions and experiences.
If you’ve been struck by the power and beauty of visual quotes and you’ve wanted to try your hand at creating your own, don’t put it off for some time down the road.
Whether for your own personal inspiration, or to encourage your nearest and dearest, or to share with the great wide world, the time for starting this new creative venture is now.
