In Plain English

I’ve long been a fan of the couple at Common Craft. They make a series of videos called “In Plain English”. In their own words:

“Our videos are short, simple and focused on making complex ideas easy to understand. We use a whiteboard-and-paper format we call Paperworks that is designed to cut out the noise and stick to what matters. “

I’m a frequent user of Twitter (you can add me @k) and found myself explaining the service to my dad recently. Instead of trying to explain the intricacies with a detailed email, I realized that “Twitter In Plain English” was the perfect solution:

I find it slightly ironic that their series is called “In Plain English” because it’s the animations, the simple diagrams and the medium that does the bulk of the work of explaining concepts for them.

Common Craft has found a market for people who need complex ideas distilled to very digestible and understandable formats. Whether it’s videos like theirs or creating a 6-panel comic strip, the hard part isn’t even creating the document itself — it’s in the rigor and skill needed to simplify the complex.

In See What I Mean, I will not only explain how to create the art for comics but also how to cut down to the essence of a message.