How to Tell Stories with Design: Graphic Artistry Made Easy

When you are reading a book, article, or blog, isn’t it boring when you only see words all the time? You want to be engaged when reading; you prefer content with pictures in various colors that captivate your eyes and connect you as you read. Visual storytelling helps audiences understand complex data while evoking emotions and enhancing knowledge retention.

The graphics you see in books or articles have a unique power because, when you see an image, you immediately know the subject matter of the text you’re about to read. Even if you only use graphics to tell your life story without the need for words, those who see it will immediately understand what it’s about. That’s how powerful the use of graphics is.

Research has shown that readers tend to stay on a webpage for longer periods, bounce less frequently, and are more likely to respond to calls to action when they are presented with visual stories. Infographics, which form the basis of visual storytelling, are typically shared three times more often than other types of content.

Elements to Consider When Designing Your Story

The fundamental parts of any visual design are the elements of design, which include shape, color, space, form, line, value, and texture. Graphic designers utilize design components to produce images that can convey a mood, attract attention in a specific direction, or elicit a variety of emotions.

When you’re telling a story, you don’t need to narrate everything you want to say in a single paragraph, like in films or novels. All you need to do is do it one by one, using the elements to tell a great story with compelling visuals. You can focus on these elements below.

Theme

The theme of your story is a pre-designed template that sets its overall look and feel. It includes a variety of aspects like color schemes, typography, layout structures, and visual elements.

The theme of a design is not something that is entirely obvious to the reader. It’s rather a concept that can be deduced from the story as a whole. It is essentially what the story is about.

Character

The character serves as your reader’s entry point into their favorite stories and worlds. Readers will not fall in love with your work until it has character. The character is the true prism through which your story comes to life.

Characters entertain, captivate, create memorability, and help audiences connect and relate. They are a way into your target audience.

Symbolism

The importance of symbolism may be seen in the earliest kinds of recorded human storytelling, cave paintings, and hieroglyphics, which consist of symbols signifying more complicated narratives or beliefs.

Symbolism allows you to explain difficult ideas to the readers while providing a visual, visceral experience for them. Using symbolism, you can convey difficult concepts while providing the reader with a bright, emotional experience.

Setting

A good setting gives the reader context. It establishes the setting for the story and sets the stage for the events to follow. The setting can be real or fictional; just make sure to explain it in enough detail so that your reader can see it.

It provides hints about the theme of the story, unveils characters and conflicts, and gives clues to a story’s theme.

Perspective

Perspective allows you to determine the reader’s level of involvement. Character development is the magic that brings the tale to life and allows your readers to fully understand why and how people behave and interact with one another.

Perspective is all about your unique viewpoint, the angle from which you decide to capture your subject.

The Plot

The plot describes the “what” of your story by describing the events or activities that drive it. The plot tells your readers about what is going on, outlines the difficulties your characters have to overcome, and provides specifics on how they are attempting to solve them. Any story requires a strong, captivating plot.

The plot makes sure that all of the story’s essential parts are present for the reader to understand and keeps the story going.

Ways to tell your story through design

To effectively tell a story, a design must create an environment, produce a need, and introduce the solution or product. The purpose of storytelling is to inspire empathy in the consumer. It is more than just choosing lovely colors and shapes. The design supports and elevates both the story and the experience.

As a writer, you want your readers to enjoy what they are reading. So, you thought about adding graphics to further enhance their interest in what they are reading. Using graphics or design in your story can help you better connect with and express emotions through art.

Know what you’re aiming for

The true importance of setting goals or knowing what you want to aim for is the focus it provides in a world that is otherwise filled with distractions.  Goals help you define what you want to do, how you will assess progress, and whether it is feasible and attainable.

Know what you’re aiming for and want to have a deeper connection with your readers; it’s not just about good storytelling. To execute it properly, you need to know what your goal is. Having a goal will help you make good decisions throughout the process and steer you in the right direction.

Select your media outlet

There are many channels and formats for self-expression in the large and varied subject of design. You need to choose your channels wisely so that they can be easily seen by others.

Social media platforms provide rapid access to news updates and other forms of content, which might influence our views in real time. In addition, these technologies enable you to connect with one another, which has been proven to reduce feelings of loneliness, despair, anxiety, and stress. As a result, selecting the right media outlet will undoubtedly have profound effects on mass media and communication.

Work on your style

Working on your style involves how you utilize visual elements, colors, shapes, and icons to create your design. Your style is based on you, on what you feel, and on your personality, which will distinguish you from others. Experimenting with the style you like is a way to achieve a design that suits you.

Everyone has their own working style or plan for achieving outstanding results at work. It’s important to recognize your work style so that you can make the most of your time at work, interact effectively with others, and be as productive as possible.

Use narrative strategies

You can use narrative strategies to make your design more captivating and memorable. Narrating is the art of creating and sharing engaging and meaningful stories.

By finding successful tactics for communicating information to readers, storytelling techniques can help you craft compelling stories. It is critical to learn several strategies so that you can determine which alternative will help your writing efforts.

Demonstrate step-by-step process

You may convey your experience in a more genuine and open manner and highlight your abilities and worth by outlining your process. Research, sketches, wireframes, prototypes, comments, iterations, and outcomes can all be used to demonstrate your approach.

Get feedbacks

It’s a crucial part of the design process because it lets you know what’s working, what’s not working, and how things can be improved.

It keeps your performance from deviating or getting misaligned, wasting a lot of time, energy, or resources. Appreciative feedback and acknowledgment increase a person’s sense of worth. It promotes positive habits and encourages more of them.

Fine-tuning

A very important step is finalizing and adjusting the details that you need to change to make it fit the preferences of people. This will help readers become loyal to you and encourage them to revisit the material. Fine-tuning is to improve overall performance in response to the reader’s needs.

Final Thoughts

Now that you’ve envisioned how to execute the story in a more interesting way, and it’s through art, If you know within yourself that you can create a better way to delight readers in reading, you do it right away!

Use the strategies presented here to create stories in your graphic design portfolio that show clients who you are and what it’s like to work with you. Remember that art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Because storytelling and visual storytelling were put in the hands of everybody, we have all now become storytellers.