Whether you’re keeping it local or hopping borders this year, thoughts about holidays are starting to crop up for many of us. Whether you’re a person that plans every detail or someone that prefers to work things out on the go, there are several components it’s pretty important to nail down. Sorting the transport, finding the golden Airbnb with good reviews and a location that doesn’t come with a 10,000 step-trek into the city and making sure no one has packed a year’s worth of clothes for the five-day visit are all important parts of the trip.

Visual storytelling also has some essential components and the way you plan and deliver these is the difference between a full, fun and restorative break and landing five hours from your destination with no bus service and no local currency.

The audience and your goals

The first part of the visual storytelling trip starts with the audience, the destination. Understanding your audience is vital - knowing the problems they face and the things they like will inform every part of your visual storytelling and getting it wrong could mean you miss the mark and don’t land your message like you’d hoped.

Knowing your audience plays a major role in the way you plan your marketing goals and the things you want to achieve. We’ve said it a lot on this blog, but planning your goals is so important. Along with your audience, your goals underline every part of your storytelling and every component needs to stem from one vision to really do your visual storytelling justice. No one wants to pack for a holiday in Portugal, only for their flight to land in Norway.

As you tackle this stage of the project, a good question to ask is, ‘What do I want to leave audiences with?’ This can question can have many answers but some good points to start from include:

• knowledge

• a feeling

• a call to action

• an increased awareness of you and your brand

• key points and essential learnings

The storytelling

Once your destination is clear, you can begin to work out how to get there. But before any visuals are involved it’s important to think about your storytelling more fundamentally. Storytelling is an incredibly powerful way of sharing information and messages that will resonate and stay with people. It gives you lots of ways to build in the information and details that add so much depth, so it deserves some careful consideration.

There are several classic narrative structures, some of which lend themselves more to journeys and some of which are more suited to being informative. Whichever you choose, setting the scene and giving your audience context are a must. A good example of a narrative centred around an individual is the hero’s journey, while the three-act structure is a good way of presenting situations, information and solutions. There is some great information on different narrative approaches here.

The visuals

Now we get to check-in and unpacking, bringing the story to life through rich and engaging visuals. These are the visual storytelling components that will bring your story or message to life.

Scenes and settings

Whether it’s a story about one person’s journey, a new theory and its implications or the process for translating medical documents - every story needs a setting. This could be very figurative or more metaphorical depending on your subject and sets the thematic stage for your narrative to play out in. It is the foundation on which your other visuals and scenes will draw on and provides plenty of opportunities to incorporate insights about your audience or build towards your goals.

Characters

Even if your subject matter is highly abstract, characters allow you to express and progress the ideas within your narrative. You can use your audience insights to make these characters appealing and engaging to viewers, improving the impact of your visual storytelling and your message.

Style and tone

Visual storytelling allows you to communicate in obvious and more subtle ways. The style and tone which underpin your visual storytelling can help you create emotion and set moods. Through choices around colour and imagery, you can also incorporate your brand and personality.

Animation and movement

Movement and animation guide viewers through your story, framing the action and focusing attention on the points and moments you want viewers to take in. More than this, they can add extra engagement, humour and charm. If your visual storytelling is animated, this could be through a character’s facial expression or the way a prop moves. Features like these only make the engagement and entertainment of visual storytelling stronger.

Visual thinking

Visual storytelling allows you to bring your story to life in so many ways and if your story is animated rather than filmed, the possibilities are even greater. Visual thinking covers aspects such as characters but also extends to the props, illustrations and visual devices you use. Through the choice of props and illustrations, you can tailor your video or image perfectly to your audience and their preferences, and to the needs of your subject matter.

Devices such as visual metaphors and set pieces are an effective way of explaining and connecting information, putting it in contexts which are easier to understand. Visual metaphors are one of our favourite visual storytelling techniques. The other bonus of this hands-on approach to visual thinking is that your video or image will be unique to you and will stand out from the crowd of more generic and template-based visual storytelling.

The connection

All of these visual flourishes allow you to access one of visual storytelling’s greatest components, connection. To not make use of this would be like flying to Paris and staying in the airport. Connection is at the heart of storytelling and the reason it is so powerful. You can build it into your visual storytelling by thinking about your audience and what is relevant to them.

Based on this, you can add broader references to pop culture and society that your audience will relate and find meaningful. Not only does this make your image or video more engaging but it improves the impact of your storytelling. The other benefit of these references, and visual storytelling in general, is that you have opportunity to create an emotional connection with your audience, inviting them into your world and to feel and empathise with your subject matter and any calls to action.

The script and the sound

If you’re making an explainer video, a strong script and good sound make all the difference. Like a phrase book with all the essentials highlighted, a script brings together your narrative, tone, style and brand in one place - ensuring you hit your goals and style guidelines while making your video feel consistent throughout. Capturing these things in the script is important because the script is used by a creative team as a basis for the visual thinking and ideas.

The script is also what will be performed by an actor or read by a voiceover artist, making it the gift that keeps on giving. Your choice of actor or voiceover artist is an important one, their style and tone needs to embody the style and feel you are trying to create with your explainer video. And while we’re talking about voiceovers, we couldn’t not mention music and sound effects. These can add impact, engagement and make your video more entertaining but they also run the risk of making your narrative harder to follow or too busy. Like with so many things, a good balance is key.

Why use visual storytelling?

Getting these visual storytelling components right is crucial and the results can be incredible! As a whiteboard animation studio that are big fans of the visual storytelling technique, we think it’s important to explain even further why it’s such a good way of sharing your message. We’ve already mentioned how visual storytelling can make your message and its delivery engaging, original, relevant and able to connect with viewers. Visual storytelling makes:

• complex subjects easy to understand

• dry subjects entertaining

• your message memorable and engaging

• your calls to action inspiring

Venngage found that 49% of marketers rate visual marketing as Very Important to their marketing strategy, and 22% consider it Important, and 19% say that their strategy is nothing without visual content. We enjoy every project we work on, here are three recent examples.

We have been using visual storytelling to supercharge and share ideas since 2004 and even helped pioneer the whiteboard video genre when we created the RSA Animates series. Sharing ideas and making them accessible in this way is our passion and we are honoured to have worked with organisation such as TED-Ed, the RSA, the BBC, the European Commission, Coca Cola and Deloitte.

If whiteboard videos feel like the right way to share your message, find more information on the whiteboard animation services we offer here. If you have a story or message you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you - book a discovery call today!