Robert Black Strategy Cartoonist

Be Creative. Be Smart…

Robert brings a fresh and creative perspective to your strategic planning or corporate workshops through his cartoons, videos and strategy journey maps.


  Companies who’ve used Robert’s work

AEMO
The Age
ANZ Bank
Asahi Beverages
A.T. Kearney
Aurecon
Aurizon
Australian Unity
BankVic
BHP
Boroondara City
CFA
CIMIC Group
City of Melbourne
Cochlear
CoreLogic
The Courier Mail
The Daily Telegraph
Dept of Premier & Cabinet
Downer Group
European Climate Foundation
Fujitsu
General Mills
Gold Road
HealthShare Victoria
Herald Sun
Icon Water
JLL
Komatsu (AUS,USA)
Lake Macquarie City
Latitude Finance
Leica Biosystems
Linfox Transport
LyondellBasell
Macmillan Publishing
Magistrates' Court of Victoria
Manningham City
Mars Confectionery
Melbourne Airport
Melbourne Water
Mensa (USA)
Minerals Council of Australia
Multinet Gas
NAB
Newcrest Mining
News Corp
Nyrstar
Optus
Orica
Origin Energy
Oxford University Press
OZ Minerals
Panasonic
Perilya Mining
PEXA
Prince Charles Hospital
Property Council of Australia
Rio Tinto (UK)
Schweppes
Snowy Mountain Hydro
South32
Telstra
Telstra Health
Toyota (AUS)
United Energy
University of Newcastle
Ventia
Veris
VicTrack
VISA (AUS)
Vocus
Western Power
Windlab
Woolworths Group
World Resources Institute (USA)
Zurich Insurance
… far too many to list here.
Filter:

“Robert’s insightful images have distilled where we we want to go into very clear, clever images. His capacity to rapidly condense complex, often technical issues, into drawings which really "cut through" is a real gift.”
, ceo at   

  Strategy Journey Maps

Robert’s strategy journey maps have been very popular in companies and teams, with dozens commissioned by Australia’s largest corporations …

To learn more and see examples visit the Journey Maps page.

  Corporate Videos

Robert also makes corporate drawn videos, which explain the why behind complex issues. Here’s a video for the Australian Energy Market Operator …

To see more about how his corporate videos help clients simply and clearly articulate abstract or complex strategy ideas in a highly engaging format, visit the Drawn Videos page.

  What is strategy cartooning?

Robert attends strategy workshops to produce cartoons that aid group conversations.

Strategy Cartooning uses drawing and visual metaphor as a business tool to assist companies with their strategic thinking, helping management groups to see problems from a new visual perspective, sometimes with a good dash of humour.

Cartoons are also a great way to encourage group conversations around abstract and difficult topics — e.g. how to do more with less in 2024? People can struggle to remember presentation bullet points, and yet vividly describe the metaphors of a cartoon weeks or years later.

Robert also draws cartoons on commission, both individually and in series. Typical uses for this are management books, company safety campaigns, websites, presentations, manuals and videos.

  About Robert

  Contact

Contact Robert on

As well as being a cartoonist, Robert has worked as a graphic designer, web developer, programmer, and publishing workflow automator. With a personal interest in engineering, entrepreneurship, and strategic thinking, Robert has been an active participant in industry bodies, holding various roles at State and national levels of the Australian Graphic Design Association and the Australian Cartoonists Association.

Robert is a professional member of both the Australian Cartoonists Association and the National Cartoonists Society of North America.

 

  My cartooning journal

When I tell people I work as a Strategy Cartoonist, sometimes the easiest way to explain it is to give some examples of what I do...

Dynamic Charging  

January 2022
the client wanted hand-drawn renderings that were highly accurate, yet had the human touch …
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Unsolicited client feedback  

July 2021
This is a selection of unsolicited client feedback I received via email in July 2021 …
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Covid-19 and Staff Communications  

March 2020
Cartoons remain a potent and affordable way of quickly conveying any essential message to staff or customers …
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Cute animals  

August 2018
Who doesn’t love cute animals? Well, some people it seems, which is why The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning in Victoria commissioned Jock and I to create a social media video campaign …
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Finalist at the 2017 Stanleys!  

November 2017
Last night I had the honour of being a joint-finalist for Australia’s Animation Cartoonist of the Year …
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Journeying to Sydney  

October 2017
Recently I’ve been making quite a few trips to Sydney to create Journey Posters for large corporate clients who are household names …
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A workshop with The Lot  

March 2017
Last week I participated in a large two day strategy workshop, and this time the client wanted the works — huge pre-drawn workshop banners detailing the structure of both the workshop and the next 12 months …
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Tinderbox’s flaming 7  

February 2017
Every so often, I get an interesting job that brings my skills as a cartoonist to a design project. Recently, one such project was modifying the application icon for Tinderbox 7 …
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Company Blogs and LinkedIn Posts  

December 2016
Recently I’ve had a number of companies approach me to draw custom cartoons for their corporate blogs, or articles they’ve written for posting on LinkedIn …
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Finalist at the 2016 Stanleys!  

November 2016
Last night I had the honour of again being a finalist for Australia’s Single Panel Gag Cartoonist of the Year at the national awards for professional cartoonists — The Stanleys. That’s 2 years in a row for The Sharp End …
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The Pencil Sharpener logo, logotype and
all artwork and content on this site are
Copyright © 2000–2024 Robert Black

I, Robert Black, explicitly REFUSE PERMISSION to ALL PARTIES to USE, COPY, or CACHE any image, video, text, or code hosted by this site (including all subdomains), especially for training AI or machine learning models.