When I started paying attention to visual Twitter, Sathya and his iconic yellow visuals quickly became a routine and welcome part of my feed. People were eager to like and share his visual takes on quotes and concepts.

Like this:

Sathya is relentlessly positive and incredibly consistent with putting out new and interesting visuals. He went from 600 Twitter followers in Jan of 2021, to almost 3,000 now at the end of April 2021. He also has a newsletter that is full of his and other people’s visuals that you can find here.

All this growth using this yellow aesthetic culminated into a book released on Gumroad, which is 100 of Sathya’s best visuals packaged nicely in one spot.

I was interested in sending Sathya some questions around how he developed his style and the tools that he uses. He delivered the goods, and I was delighted to learn he uses Canva to make all of his yellow visuals (which has a free version anyone can use).

Sathya has recently been exploring the power of mind mapping, and because this site is dedicated to all things visual, we thought it would be fun to present the responses in the form of a mind map.

So please enjoy exploring the branches of Sathya's creative process instilled within his mind map. For accessibility and links (or if you are not able to zoom in), below is a bullet point version as well.

Tell us about the creative projects you work on

• I make visuals out of:
  • Quotes
  • Tweets
  • Interesting ideas/ concepts
  • I’m the Yellow Fellow
  • 3 major topics
    • Practical philosophy
      • Stoicism
      • Modern day self-help
    • Creativity & Learning
      • Creative struggle
      • Life-long learning
    • Visual thinking
      • Visual learning
      • Visual notetaking
      • Sketchnoting
      • Mindmapping
      • A bit of ADHD

How long have you been visually creative?

• Oct 2019
  • Joined Twitter
• Nov 15, 2020
  • First visual
• Nov 23, 2020
  • Joined Daily Visual Community
• Dec, 2020
  • 500 Followers
• Jan, 2021
  • My birthday
    • Feb 2, 2020
  • 1000 Followers
• Feb 2021
  • 2000 Followers
• March 2021
  • First podcast appearance
  • First session by HelloMeets
• April 2021
  • April 11, 2021
    • ‘How to make Visuals’ session
  • April 14, 2021
    • Published ‘The Yellow Visuals‘ ebook
  • End of April
    • Hopefully will touch 3k followers

How did you decide on your unique style?

• Started with mimicking
  • Jack Butcher’s black background style
  • Didn’t like dark background in a visual
• Joined the Daily Visual community
  • Tried various forms
  • Black + White
    • Jack Butcher
  • White + Black
    • Craig Burgess
  • Yellow + Black
    • Sathya
      • Became the Yellow Fellow
    • I get icons from The Noun Project
    • Finalized based on feedback

What tools do you use for creation and publishing?

• Pen & notebook
• Canva
  • For visuals
  • Infographics
• XMind
  • Mind maps
• Scapple
  • Concept maps

Is there one image you are particularly proud of?

• 3 visuals
  • Beauty is in the repetition
  • Curate-Compress-Create
  • Maybe this mind map?

Are there any creators who work at the intersection of writing and art who inspire and motivate you?

• Visuals
  • Jack Butcher’s Visualize Value
  • Craig Burgess’s Unobvious & Daily Visual community
  • Liz and Mollie
  • Janis Ozalins
• Sketchnoting
  • Mike Rhode
  • Doug Neil, Verbal to Visual
  • LetSketchin
• Mind map
  • Tony Buzan
  • Hazel Wagner: TED Talk on ‘Want to Learn Better? Start Mind mapping’
  • Visakan
  • VigNotes
  • Alex Paval

What advice would you give anyone who wants to start (or continue) using visuals to grow an audience?

• Experiment
• Embrace yourself
• Consistently create
• And importantly, hold on!
  • You got this!

• A famous Ira Glass quote visualized by Aletheia Délivré.
• My take on two very different kinds of success. 
• Edith Zimmerman on how repetitive actions tie into creativity.
• How to Increase Your Attention Span by Marta Brzosko.