Storytelling is all about telling a story to an audience, wherever it is through advertisement, movies or books. Storytelling has the power of making the audience act, feel and think in a certain way. When telling a story there are some key principles to follow,

Theme:

The theme is the main idea of a story, what the story is really about and what you want the reader to convey from the story. It can be a life lesson, moral or an opinion in general. The theme is why it is happening while the plot is what is happening in the story. Therefore it is important to determine the reason why the story should be told before writing the plot. 

A story may have both a major theme and minor themes.

Major Theme: An idea that is intertwined and repeated throughout the whole narrative.

Minor Theme: An idea that appears more subtly, and doesn’t necessarily repeat.

Some important questions, which was mentioned in the article The 7 Main Story Elements and Why They Matter (2020), to ask when creating the theme, 

• What message do you wish to convey? 
• What will it teach the reader about life? 

Setting:

Start with deciding when and where the story takes place. Set a location and time or era, however do not forget to consider aspects as our senses such as look, taste, feel, smell and sound which are powerful to create an emotional connection in a story. The setting must not be very specified, it can also be broad. The main purpose is to establish a setting for the reader which creates an indented mood.

“Show readers your setting, don’t tell them” (Jenkins, Jerry 2020).

Characters:

Time to define the characters in the story which all have a different role or purpose to play in the story. Decide on a hero or heroin, even called the central character, main character or protagonist. The protagonist will affect the reader emotionally through the story as that character has a clear goal to accomplish or a conflict to overcome. However, is it important to make characters who feel knowable and realistic.  

Some things to consider when creating the protagonist for the story which is mentioned in the article The 7 Main Story Elements and Why They Matter (2020),

• Redeemable human flaws
• Potentially heroic qualities that emerge in the climax
• A character arc (he must be a different, better, stronger person by the end)
• Resist the temptation to create a perfect lead character. Perfect is boring.

Despite the protagonist a story also needs antagonists or villains which serves the purpose to create tension and stand in the way of the protagonists goals. An antagonist can be represented as a person, situation, thing or a place. 

“Your villain should be every bit as formidable and compelling as your hero. Just don’t make the bad guy bad because he’s the bad guy. Make him a worthy foe by giving him motives for his actions. Villains don’t see themselves as bad. They think they’re right! A fully rounded bad guy is much more realistic and memorable” (Jenkins, Jerry 2020).

Plot:

The plot is a series of events which represents the content of the story and should have the structure of the Narrative arc. The main purpose with the plot is to connect and influence the audience emotionally to the protagonist and its ultimate goal. 

“Plot is the sequence of events that make up a story. It’s what compels your reader to either keep turning the pages, or set the book aside” (Jenkins, Jerry 2020).

Narrative Arc:

The narrative act is fundamental for creating a story. 

• Setup: The world in which the protagonist exists prior to the journey. The setup usually ends with the conflict being revealed.

• Conflict: something which raises the tension and drives the story. Challenges that the main character, the protagonist, must tackle through the story. This is what engages the reader and conflicts are a crucial element to make the story interesting. The conflict can be internal or external as long as it creates tension so that the reader wants to keep turning the pages to find out how it ends. 

• Climax: this is where the turning point occurs for the protagonist. This is where the peak of tension in the story takes place. 

• Resolution: The ending of the story where the protagonist, the lead character, overcomes and learns from the complications that have arisen during the story. To make a really powerful ending, try to reach for the audience’s heart and impact them emotionally. 

“Read through everything you’ve written. Take a long walk. Think on it. Sleep on it. Jot notes about it. Let your subconscious work on it. Play what-if games. Be outrageous if you must. But deliver a satisfying ending that resonates” (Jenkins, Jerry 2020).

Except the structure mentioned above it is important to determine which point of view the story will be told. Should the story be written in first, second or third person. 

“Readers experience everything in your story from this character’s perspective. (No hopping into the heads of other characters.) What your POV character sees, hears, touches, smells, tastes, and thinks is all you can convey” (Roe, Chris).

Sources:

Roe, Chris: Storytelling 101: The 6 Elements of Every Complete Narrative. In: Pond5blog, https://blog.pond5.com/6477-storytelling-101-the-6-elements-of-every-complete-narrative/ (zuletzt aufgerufen am 25. 11. 2022)

Jenkins, Jerry (28 Aug 2020): The 7 Main Story Elements and Why They Matter. In: Jerry Jenkins, https://jerryjenkins.com/story-elements/ (zuletzt aufgerufen am 25. 11. 2022)

Leighfield, Luke (11 August 2022): The 5 Key Story Elements. In: Boords, https://boords.com/storytelling/the-5-key-story-elements (zuletzt aufgerufen am 25. 11. 2022)

Hooper, Riley (April 17, 2013): Storytelling the stillmotion way: Part 1. In: Vimeo, https://vimeo.com/blog/post/storytelling-the-stillmotion-way-part-1/ (zuletzt aufgerufen am 25. 11. 2022)

In the past two weeks, I researched storytelling, especially visual storytelling focusing on illustration. In the first chapter of Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers, Marcos Mateu-Mestre gives a great first insight into how to start creating narrative art and which aspects are important to consider (cf. 2010: 13-16).

As designers or artists, it is first of all important to know what we want to and need to express with our designs, so we can choose what elements we can use to get our intended meaning across. For visual storytelling that uses a sequence of images or illustrations, Mateu-Mestre emphasizes that each image should visually convey the mood and emotions of what is happening in the story at that moment. Depending on whether the moment in the image is very quick and filled with action, slow and sad, or lively and happy, the composition and elements in the illustration will be very different. Furthermore, while creating we should not think of each image as a separate element, but it should be seen in relation to the whole story. This way, we can establish a rhythm in the story. (cf. Mateu-Mestre 2010: 11)

Making the Audience Feel the Story

Each image should also have a specific purpose in the story, no image should just be added for aesthetic reasons without a meaning. According to Mateu-Mestre, creating a storyboard or any kind of visual story is more of a storytelling-oriented thinking process and it is very different from just drawing art for people to look at. If an image is just beautiful but it has no purpose in the story, the audience will get distracted and get pulled out of the whole story. With visual stories, the audience should forget they are just looking at images, it should be an immersive experience. Every environment or scene we see in real life evokes an emotional response in us. Even if we don’t notice it consciously, everything we see makes us feel a certain mood. We are put in different moods when we see a sunny landscape, or a dark alleyway at night – every environment evokes feelings in us. As creators, we need to notice and observe these details so we can capture the moods we want to express and recreate them in an illustration or a visual story. It is important that we feel our story ourselves – otherwise, we can’t move our audience. (cf. Mateu-Mestre 2010: 14)

When we are creating a visual story, we are creating a world – everything in this world has to be coherent. Before we draw anything, we should be sure what the tone of our story is. Is it funny and light-hearted, is it dramatic and emotional? When we are sure what our story should make the audience feel, we can establish our drawing style and the way we choose to tell and depict the story based on what we want the story to be. This is how we can “build” our world. Mateu-Mestre also points out that it is often good to leave things to the audience’s imagination when telling a story, both on a visual and narrational level. We should not explain everything in detail, we should often insinuate and foreshadow details and parts of the story so the audience can fill these information gaps in their own minds. This makes the experience more immersive and makes the audience want to continue with the story. No matter what is shown, every person still has their own way of interpreting and thinking about things based on their personality and past experiences and as creators, we should encourage the audience’s imagination and play with people’s different ways of perceiving and interpreting things. (cf. Mateu-Mestre 2010: 15)

Bibliography:

Mateu-Mestre, Marcos (2010). Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers. Culver City, CA: Design Studio Press.

– Elena Waschl –

Image, Visuelle Stile & Unternehmensstruktur

Um zu verstehen wie ein Leitfaden für die Corporate Identity aufgebaut sein muss, gilt es zuerst die Prinzipien der CI zu verstehen. Wie bereits der vergangene Post die grundlegenden Absichten einer Corporate Identity erläutern versuchte, geht dieser, auf das Image, die visuellen Stile und die verschiedenen Unternehmensstrukturen ein.

IMAGE
Der Gesamteindruck eines Unternehmens auf seine
Zielgruppe(n) wird oft Image genannt.
> So kann es auch sein das in jeder Zielgruppe das Image ein anderes ist!

Wichtig ist nur dass sich das Unternehmen nicht vom Image steuern lässt sondern die eigenen Identität und das daraus folgende Image selbst steuert!

Am Markt:
Oft sind viele Produkte am Markt gleich – was den Unterschied macht ist ein gutes Image und loyale Kunden dies widerrum beruht auf gut koordinierte CI.

VISUELLE STILE

Wenn ein Unternehemen in einer Branche eine starke Persönlichkeit hat > und diese demonstrieren möcht = den Stil zu brechen der Branchen – typisch ist!
Fordert: Mut, Selbstvertrauen, Vorstellungskraft.

Oft beginnen Brachen den visuellen Stil des Branchenführers nachzuahmen = Nachahmung ist mehr oder weniger: Gefühl von Minderwertigkeit & Wertlosigkeit.

Originalität – Ortsansässigkeit & starke Regionale Wurzeln können ebenso erfolgsfaktoren sein!

Die Macht der Symbole sollte nicht unterschätzt werden! Sie können: Freude, Furcht, etc. hervorrufen außerdem können sie tlw. sogar die Sinne miteinbeziehen!

Zweck: negative Deutung verhindern / Idee hinter Organisation soll erkennbar sein aber darf nicht veraltern / flexibel und preiswerter Gebrauch / positive Emotionen schaffen

UNTERNEHMENSSTRUKTUR

CI ist Symbol, Logo, Farbe, Typo, Gebäude, Produkte, Möbel, visuelle Erscheinung ABER auch die UNTERNEHMENSORGANISATION!

Ein Unternehmen kann sich folgendermaßen aufstellen und strukturieren:

1. Monolithisch = überall einheitlichen Namen / visuelles Auftreten (eg. Shell)
2. Gestützt = Gruppe von Firmen die sich mit Haupt CI und Namen stützt
3. Marken = untereinander (oder zw. Gesellschaft) ohne Beziehung zueinander

Quelle:

– Olins, Wally. Corporate Identity : Strategie und Gestaltung. 2., durchges. Aufl.., 1990.