“Our visual voice matters because the visual empathy we express with it, leads to shared understanding and helps us attune to the audience we communicate with.”

I believe we experience more harmony in our communication and have more synergy in collaborations when we get on the same page with ease. Empathic communication is incredibly powerful in creating connection and emotional wellbeing. It helps us establish and maintain trust in our relationships and learning experiences. 

The element that is frequently missing in our communication, is the expression of our visual voice. Most people who could have taught us in the past how to express ourselves visually, didn’t have the skills themselves. The systemic construct of many parts of our society uses communication and educational approaches that in general don’t stimulate empathy and visual expression in our communication and/or are hardly visually inclusive in learning environments.

My years of experience in the field of visual communication as a design department leader stimulated me to learn and integrate empathy in my work. For the past ten years I have been intensively trained in Nonviolent Communication (NVC), and NVC based mediation and conflict coaching. In my Visual Empathy Courses I bring these two fields together because I experience how much empathy helps us understand the audience we communicate with and how visual expression increases the efficacy of training and development activities. This increases both the relevance as the impact of learning experiences.

To articulate the essential skill participants develop through my courses, I came up with the term ‘Visual Empathy’. I define it as ‘the visually attuned expression of our understanding, expressed with the intention to create connection with ourselves and others’.

Do you feel intrigued reading this, because harmony matters to you too, and you like to be effective in helping your audience develop their empathy skills?

Click on the orange button to start exploring the first steps in visually attuning your facilitation and communication to the audience in your training program.

Hi, I am Mireille van Bremen!​

◉ I am a Dutch national with Asian roots and live in Slovenia for 15 years. I am a mom and co-parent of a teenage son who lives with me every other week. 

◉ Besides many creative activities, I love improvised vegan cooking with my home grown veggies. I enjoy mountain biking, hiking and daily self-connection practices or simply spend time in silent solitude.

◉ Some fun facts 😊 I have a strong need for visual harmony and am a color freak. I paint as a meditation practice. Depending on the culture or religion, my name Mireille means ‘to look’, ‘to admire’, ‘peace’ and ‘miracle’. 

◉ I am keen in simplifying my daily life and I love that for most of my activities, my office fits in a backpack – well, except for when I bring training equipment along for my participants 🙂

Mireille van Bremen

Visual Empathy Trainer and Coach ◉ Conflict Coach & Mediator ◉ Graphic Recorder, Illustrator, Designer

EXPERIENCE

• 7 years owner of The Visual Mediator – training, coaching and visual communication services – based in Slovenia
• Conflict coach & Mediator at The Empathic Mediator
• 9 years Head of Design & Art Director in an internationally operating advertising agency in Slovenia
• 5 years owner of Studio LiEF – graphic design & illustration studio based in The Netherlands
• Trained hundreds of trainers, coaches, facilitators, leaders, designers, project managers, lecturers and teachers in developing their visual empathy skills
• Supported many entrepreneurs in being more impactful with their marketing & communications
• Created countless graphic recordings, visual summaries and other visual representations & illustrations

LANGUAGES

• Dutch (native)
• English (professional)
• Slovene (professional)
• German (basic)
• Any other with simultaneous translation

Organizations already working with me