An Impressive Collection of Hand-Drawn Mind Maps

Posted by Ian McKenzie

Written on May 29, 2008

I’ve always been envious of the mind maps that illustrate Tony Buzan’s books. Full of colourful lines and images, they make my mind-maps look anaemic.

Graphics and colour are an integral part of mind mapping. A number of the guidelines Tony Buzan suggests for creating mind maps involve using graphics and colour:

Start in the centre with an image of the topic, using at least 3 colours.
Use images, symbols, codes, and dimensions throughout your Mind Map.
The lines must be connected, starting from the central image. The central lines are thicker, organic and flowing, becoming thinner as they radiate out from the centre.
Use colours – your own code – throughout the Mind Map.

Yesterday I visited a site with a collection of hand-drawn mind maps. Paul covers a variety of topics with his maps. This map below outlines a variety of uses for mind maps. (Click on both maps below for full-size image.)

The map of his favourite painters reminds me of the works of those painters.

He has maps on inspiration, spirituality, diabetes, and more. He has a good summary of Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats illustrated with… hats.

If you want to see the kinds of mind maps Tony Buzan envisions, this site will give you a load of ideas. If you’d like to give it a try, Paul has a number of templates that you can download to get you started.

Popular Mind Maps @ eDragonu

Father’s Day Mind Map

Mindomo - Web-based mind mapping software

Mind Mapping

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Comments

Hi Ian,

I have a directory of 900+ mindmaps with thumbnails and links to their original sites. Maps are tagged by subject and you can select to see just those with the tag you want.

The maps are also categorized by type (true mindmaps, spidergrams, concept maps …) and you can filter to see just one type, as well.

Many (maybe most?) of Paul Forman’s creative maps are in the directory. If you like Paul’s work, then another mapper who’s work I’m sure you’ll love is Adam Sicinski, and there are many of his there as well.

The site is at http://www.topicscape.com/mindmaps/

regards,
Argey

Comment by Argey on May 29, 2008 @ 8:45 pm

Ian,
Thanks for the great link. I love anything that helps get me out of linear thinking.
- Karl

Comment by Karl Edwards on May 30, 2008 @ 7:40 am

Karl - I’m need periodic reminds and inspiration to expand my thinking beyond the linear.

Argey - That’s a great collection you’ve got going there. I’ve already “lost” an hour this morning digging through some of the diagrams.

Comment by Ian McKenzie on May 30, 2008 @ 9:17 am