
Ask HN: Examples of 'hand drawn' animations in blog posts? - jmheinkle
I want to write articles. They have technical content, so they benefit from explanatory diagrams.<p>I don&#x27;t want to use formal diagramming tools to make the diagrams, I want to draw them instead.<p>Does anyone know of any tasteful examples where people use digital drawing tools to do this?
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echeese
I like Lin Clark's drawings on the Mozilla Hacks blog:
[https://hacks.mozilla.org/author/lclarkmozilla-
com/](https://hacks.mozilla.org/author/lclarkmozilla-com/)

~~~
boltzmannbrain
These are great. Are they done by hand, or with a drawing tool?

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open-source-ux
This is not quite what you asked, but still worth taking a look...

Children's publisher Usborne have made available for free some classic
computer books from the 1980s aimed at kids. The books use illustrations
extensively to explain concepts.

These books have been discussed a few times before here on Hacker News. Scroll
down to the bottom of the link below for the free PDFs.

[https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-
codin...](https://usborne.com/browse-books/features/computer-and-coding-
books/)

Don't be put off by the fact the books are aimed at kids. I'll repeat what I
said about these guides in a previous Hacker News discussion: Not only are
these books well written with clear, concise explanations, they are also more
readable and enjoyable than many programming books published for adults today.

I've often wondered why programming explanations don't use simple graphics or
diagrams to illustrate programming concepts. Anyone writing a technical guide
(of any kind) would benefit from reading these as a source of ideas and
inspiration.

~~~
eb0la
I really like hand-drawn diagrams from Apache Kafka and Confluent blogs and
slides.

Most of them are done with a tablet without "fancy" software.

To do something similar in my presentations, I used an old DIN A4 Samsung
tablet with Autodesk Sketchbook with good results.

I found very useful to be able to worki with layers, so I could draw the
diagram on the top layer, and fill the shapes with colour in a layer
underneath.

But the _best_ part is I could focus on the storytelling, not in redoing
again, and again the diagram in Powerpoint. With a hand drawing, you can
iterate fast the concepts until you find it good enough.

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kaushikt
I've been fiddling with figma lately for this purpose but I do like some of
the examples here.

I will be seeking inspiration from paras Chopra's
[https://invertedpassion.com](https://invertedpassion.com)

Quite well done.

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reverentgeek
About 4 years ago, I started creating hand-drawn illustrations for all my tech
presentations and blog posts. There are lots of benefits, including being
unique and engaging. I've written on the subject many times. Here's the most
recent post: [https://reverentgeek.com/how-to-be-a-superhuman-
communicator...](https://reverentgeek.com/how-to-be-a-superhuman-
communicator/)

Ask me anything ;)

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blcArmadillo
Is it the look of hand drawn you're after or is that you feel it will be
easier to just draw with your hand? If it's the former you could use something
like inkscape to draw the diagrams as SVGs and then use rough.js [1] to render
them in a hand drawn way.

[1] [https://roughjs.com/](https://roughjs.com/)

~~~
jmheinkle
Thanks for the response.

It’s primary because it’s easier and more natural.

I’m worried about seeming “unprofessional” or to a lesser extend unorthodox so
I’m looking for examples and guidance.

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Kagerjay
John Papa draws it by hand

[https://medium.com/the-node-js-collection/having-fun-with-
no...](https://medium.com/the-node-js-collection/having-fun-with-node-and-
cosmos-db-8399de1fd459)

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jmheinkle
Self comment: in addition to echeese's suggestions, found this great blog post

[https://jvns.ca/teach-tech-with-cartoons/](https://jvns.ca/teach-tech-with-
cartoons/)

