A few months back, I posted on Instagram a short video of myself hand-writing something on my iPad, and someone commented, “You mean you actually write that stuff out by hand?” And I realized, I’ve never really explained how I make these handwritten and illustrated stories, so I thought I’d take a minute to do that in this video. (OK, it’s actually 3 minutes and 29 seconds)
And of course, here’s a handwritten and illustrated version of the above video:
![Then I consider how I best think I can present it. Sometimes it's a single image I draw. [Illustration “What do you call these things?” ]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-2.jpg?width=730)
![Sometimes it's an entire YouTube video. [SCREENSHOT OF YouTube Video “The Seven Summits of My Neighborhood”]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-3.jpg?width=730)
![Sometimes it's a written piece with some images and illustrations, [SCREENSHOT OF Outside Online story “The Ultra-Trail Cape Town 100K Is Not for the Faint of Heart”]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-4.jpg?width=730)
![and occasionally, it's an entirely handwritten piece with illustrations that I draw. [SCREENSHOT OF Outside Online story “I Did A Plank Every Day For 120 Days. Here's What Happened.”]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-5.jpg?width=730)
![But it is a lot of work compared to typing something. I type somewhere between 60 and 75 words per minute, and when I hand write something, it's much, much slower than that. [Photo of Brendan Leonard drawing]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-7.jpg?width=730)
![I never had any formal graphic design training aside from learning how to design and print newspaper pages in the early 2000s, which gave me an idea of how to manipulate words and images to make the most of the space I had. [PHOTOS OF OLD NEWSPAPER PAGES]](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-11.jpg?width=730)
![A big chunk of my following is on Instagram, so sometimes I will engineer these stories so that they fit on 10 Instagram portrait-sized slides. [SCREENSHOT OF INSTAGRAM CAROUSEL] You hope to grab people's attention with the first one, and hopefully, they scroll through the next nine slides and get the entire story.](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-12.jpg?width=730)
![I actually learned to write in graduate school for newspaper journalism, so it's funny how different this process is from all of that, but as much as I hate to admit it, that was a long time ago. I mean, I got reading glasses last year. Which I basically only wear to draw and write on this iPad, which is something that didn't exist when I was in grad school. [PHOTO OF READING GLASSES NEXT TO IPAD] I guess if you stick around long enough, you're going to have to learn to adapt and meet people where they want to be, and learn some new skills in the process.](https://cdn.outsideonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/semi-rad-hand-write-stories-14.jpg?width=730)
The post How I Write and Illustrate My Outdoor Adventure Comics appeared first on Outside Online.
