![]() ![]() Keeping text close to an eye-catching image, and possibly having the image’s shape act as a pointer to the text, help keep the audience engaged with the story you are telling.Īs discussed in the Writing Visuals section earlier, comics storytelling is a great example of how visual layouts help the reader navigate the verbal/visual information being presented. ![]() Using the elements of visual hierarchy above, you can create dynamic visual stories that guide the audience’s eye from one key point to the next. This careful coordination is how the page comes to life!Įvery aspect of the layout, from the images you chose, to the way you arrange your text is part of your content design. Ouch! To dance in step together, each element is crafted to enhance, but not repeat, what the other element is saying. However, it’s crucial that these two elements of visual storytelling don’t step on each other’s toes. When the text and visual work hand-in-hand, they reinforce the visual story in nuanced ways. While monks often spent the majority of their working lives illuminating texts, their work of visual storytelling was also part of the physical work of being a monk. Their brevity was only partly due to their slow and expensive process, using precious materials like rare color pigments and gold leaf. They often tried to communicate the crux of the story in just one or two illustrations. Monks, some of the few literate people of the era, served the illiterate population (including royal and rich classes) by making elaborate pictures to highlight key stories in religious texts. If you zip ahead several tens of thousands of years from the prehistoric cave painters we discussed earlier, to the medieval and renaissance monks (around 1100-1600), you’ll find illuminated manuscripts. Visual signifiers work hand-in-hand with consistency in capturing and keeping peoples’ attention.ĭid you know that what we might mistakenly call “painters” of religious icons are actually called “writers”? This isn’t a new concept, either. However, if the overall aesthetic is inconsistently applied, your audience loses interest and fades away, almost as quickly as they arrived on the scene. This allows the people who engage with your material to buy into the overall aesthetic before they are even fully conscious of it. This part often comes fairly easily because most of the time we initially describe aesthetics in general terms, such as : 1) slow pacing, minimal text with light backgrounds, subtle neutral earth-tones, low-contrast, and soft-filter images, 2) clean and fast with angular lines and tiny pops of neon colors, oversized text that shouts, 3) lots of texture, multiple layers, rich jewel tones, and soft curved shapes, relaxed pacing.Ī consistent aesthetic serves the story you want to tell by creating the visual world you have built to draw in your intended audience. The first aspect of this element is designing a clear overall aesthetic. So how are elements of visual storytelling used today? Their uses and aspects have become more elaborate and complex than those prehistoric examples, but the purpose is essentially the same: to convey information in a non-verbal way that enhances the overall message and brings a greater emotional connection. Aboriginal Australian elders he has interviewed explain that their stencils are intended to express connection to a particular place, to say: “I was here. “Maybe the prehistoric man thought like that too.”…Paul Taçon, an expert in rock art at Griffith University, notes that the hand stencils are similar to designs created until recently in northern Australia. There’s still a tradition on Sulawesi of mixing rice powder with water to make a handprint on the central pillar of a new house, Ramli explains, to protect against evil spirits. Symbols that were repeated in stencil form are some of the earliest elements of visual storytelling, such as these examples from Asia and Australia: Early images include depictions of animals, the earth, and dwellings. Cave paintings were recorded possibly as far back as 35,000 years ago. ![]() That’s because depicting stories in a visual way has been part of our evolution as a species since well before language. Visual storytelling is something people understand on an instinctual level. ![]()
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