Audiences are overwhelmed. As info and messaging proliferate, folks can’t sustain they usually disengage. However visible storytelling can break via that psychological fog and assist folks digest and make sense of data, whatever the medium or message.
There are lots of methods to speak info: Infographics, movies, animated slide decks, occasion designs, wall prints, and interactive museum installations are all types of presentation design. Toptal designer Lucía Merlo has labored on presentation design tasks for famend cultural establishments just like the National Aquarium in Denmark and the Museum of the Future in Dubai, in addition to company shoppers like Lego and Ikea. On this Q&A, Merlo explains her method to storytelling and shares real-world examples that will help you make an even bigger affect in your viewers.
This dialog has been edited for readability and size.
How do you incorporate storytelling in design? What position does it play in your course of?
Storytelling is important in my work as visible designer. In essence, my job is to take all the data and content material I obtain from a consumer and switch it right into a compelling narrative that individuals need to cease and take note of. As for my method, it is determined by the format.
Storytelling in infographics
For an infographic that could possibly be distributed in quite a lot of contexts, together with as a social media graphic, I begin by creating a worldwide form that broadly conceptualizes the data and piques the viewer’s curiosity. As an illustration, when you’re creating an infographic about ocean life, the container for the graphic could possibly be a seabed or a wave. From there, you need to use scaled layers of textual content to offer info and inform a narrative. The visible type of the storytelling graphic needs to be a metaphor for what you need to convey at a extra granular stage. As inspiration, I typically assume again to an set up by Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh referred to as The Joyful Present, which makes use of gumball dispensers to replicate the viewers’s happiness. It’s an ideal instance of a visible metaphor.
Storytelling in movies
For movies, I pay shut consideration to the narrative arc, which regularly means presenting info in a linear method. I ask myself: How is the issue launched? How does stress construct? What are the plot twists? What’s the climax? What’s the decision? Whether or not it’s a 10-second video or a 60-minute documentary, the viewers’s understanding of the content material is a major focus when making a story. Viewers notion ought to information narrative choices like a lighthouse. I typically work with shoppers to declutter video content material as a result of viewers’ consideration capability retains shrinking and we shouldn’t assume they are going to discover the time and psychological power to soak up lengthy or advanced messages. I additionally warning in opposition to investing in video kinds or graphic methods that aren’t essential to convey the message however require vital assets to supply.
Storytelling in 3D
When designing exhibitions and bodily areas, I think about I’m strolling via a house. Very similar to a house implies a sure route—you enter via the entrance door and discover room by room and ground by ground—there’s a normal path to the visible sequence that unfolds in an exhibition. As an illustration, I introduce the theme at first of the immersive expertise, current a number of subthreads, after which progress to a decision. However the path will not be strictly decided. The customer ought to be at liberty to find it in their very own method, leaping from room to room. I additionally like opening small home windows into the completely different subthemes.
As an illustration, in Shadows, an interactive exhibition I helped design for the Edvard Munch museum in Oslo, among the info is discovered inside drawers. Hurried guests will skip that half, and that’s high quality, however the nerdy ones will spend time discovering these sublayers of data, making it a extra memorable expertise.
What are key components of visible storytelling that make presentation design partaking and efficient?
Simplicity is essential. For visible tales, it’s important to have a transparent hierarchy so folks know what to have a look at first and the place to go subsequent. We are able to be taught rather a lot about this method from the Swiss Style, also referred to as the Worldwide Typographic Fashion. The ideas of this model spotlight key components of an organized, hierarchical format, akin to establishing a restricted variety of font sizes for headings, subheadings, and physique textual content, embracing whitespace to present components room to breathe and to focus consideration on crucial components, and avoiding pointless elaborations that don’t improve which means.
Visible components ought to play a job within the story and serve a particular objective. For instance, I typically work with content material that’s written in enterprise language with quite a lot of acronyms and complicated terminology. Shoppers admire after I could make that language extra accessible via imagery—akin to together with cartoon characters who categorical advanced concepts plainly in thought bubbles. Visuals like these can help understanding and create an emotional response that’s essential for sparking engagement.
Minimalism is a helpful idea in visible storytelling: What’s the most economical method I can clarify a sense or idea with out superfluous language? I might need a personality sitting down or slumped over in a chair to convey the frustration of ready. When you choose and organize photos, you’ll be able to typically use fewer phrases and nonetheless obtain readability.
After all, phrases are instrumental in visible tales as nicely. In most of my tasks, I write the copy along with creating the drawings (although generally I collaborate with a author). Often, I discover that writing the copy permits me to be sooner and extra fluid in my course of—I perceive the story, and I understand how to inform it in a structured method.
In presentation design, what’s your method to understanding the model’s voice and viewers?
To get to know the model, I ask the consumer quite a lot of questions. I discover it’s finest to get artistic, as a result of if I ask merely, “What’s your model’s persona? or “Who is that this undertaking for?” they might give a flat reply. It’s far more attention-grabbing and fruitful to ask out-of-the-box questions, akin to, “If this viewers was an animal, what wouldn’t it be?” or “Should you had to decide on three attributes to explain your viewer or reader, what would they be?” You have to ask sufficient questions to make sure you perceive the tone of voice, audience, and person persona the consumer has in thoughts—they know their content material higher than anybody else, however they might want some probing to articulate it.
After I labored with a waste administration firm to create an infographic that might make clear the environmental advantages of its new sustainability mannequin to policymakers and public officers, I prompted the consumer to present the viewers a face. The important thing decision-maker thought of this and selected a outstanding political chief. With that clear reference in thoughts, the design technique got here into focus—we may then start to ascertain what sort of language would resonate and what would hold this viewers all through the person journey. I like these sorts of questions as a result of they assist crystallize a imaginative and prescient for the design course of.
Are you able to describe your course of for choosing shade schemes, typography, and visible components for a undertaking?
Generally these components are preestablished by the consumer’s visible id. At different occasions, growing them is an exploratory course of that entails session with the consumer.
A superb instance of the latter is a collection of slides I created for a meals weblog about how tempeh is made. I drew inspiration from numerous examples of Asian vernacular graphic design, notably specializing in the Indonesian model, as tempeh originated in Indonesia. By vernacular graphic design, I imply the native design kinds that emerge from conventional and on a regular basis life. To visualise the model for the slide photos, I created a temper board that included previous food and drinks labels.
The labels characteristic symmetry, decorative components, vibrant colours, and a mixture of iconography and textual content, which impressed the carousel of illustrations that complement the article about tempeh.
When choosing visible components, it’s vital to be systematic. If I determine round containers are going to seem flat on the person interface, I’m going to present each single circle within the presentation the identical format. Consistency is a important visible storytelling precept that saves quite a lot of time. It additionally makes it simpler for the viewers to grasp the relationships among the many numerous components and their relative significance.
How have you ever used storytelling to make advanced or technical info extra accessible?
I just lately designed an infographic for a web-based automobile rental and leasing firm. The objective was to win a service contract from an electrical automobile firm by exhibiting executives and decision-makers the limitations that individuals encounter when shopping for electrical automobiles, and the way the automobile rental and leasing platform is uniquely positioned to dismantle these limitations.
I divided the limitations into 4 important classes: excessive buy worth, charging prices and availability, depreciation, and vary nervousness. The visible design illustrates an individual climbing a hill and confronting these points, with the individual’s emotional state—from confusion to frustration—revealed of their physique language.
On this case, the slope of the hill communicates the challenges shoppers face and the reward that awaits them: the power financial savings and environmental affect of an electrical automobile with out the hassles of buying, sustaining, and reselling it.
One other instance is an infographic I created for the waste administration firm I discussed. The objective was for instance how the corporate was shifting from a waste administration mannequin that relied largely on outdated, ecologically damaging landfills to a sustainable course of pushed by synthetic intelligence (AI). Put merely, the corporate’s management needed to distill a fancy course of right into a coherent and aesthetically pleasing presentation. The staff had compiled a set of nice insights on the environmental benefits of the corporate’s resolution. Nonetheless, the insights wanted to be organized and stylized in a method that might resonate with key stakeholders and alleviate any lingering issues.
Design hierarchy, visible alignment, and shade alternative had been important. Every graphic element is linked to a short rationalization with a line, making it simpler to digest the data in small chunks, and a three-tone shade scheme—grey, turquoise, and inexperienced—highlights the sustainability of the brand new resolution. I grouped and separated components as a type of hierarchy: black textual content above, and inexperienced drawings of the mannequin beneath. I additionally included a drawing of a standard landfill in grey because the decrease layer to spotlight how soiled and primitive these are in comparison with what the consumer was proposing. Battle is vital in storytelling as a result of it establishes an issue to be overcome that piques the viewers’s curiosity. On this case, the distinction between the previous mannequin and new mannequin was designed to take away any doubt about which is one of the best ways ahead.
Do you’ve gotten recommendation for enhancing visible storytelling with information or information visualizations?
My recommendation: Don’t neglect that persons are folks, not machines. They’ve restricted consideration spans and it’s important to join with their emotional aspect.
A graph is rarely only a graph. Even the form of a graph can talk info. Relying on the content material you’re sharing, it could possibly be structured like a meals label or like a constructing. When storytelling with information, the correct container can assist you categorical the idea behind the data and provides it which means. In any other case, you’re simply sharing numbers. Persons are extra prone to bear in mind the story than a particular statistic or consequence.
I like to recommend making information as interactive as potential since interactive components enable customers to discover information at their very own tempo. Separating it into chunks can be a method of simplifying info. Individuals are typically extra engaged when they’re following their very own curiosity and studying in an lively method. On a web site, this method would possibly imply creating clickable components or filters. In an exhibition, it could possibly be a knowledge show that’s triggered when somebody enters a room or opens a wall-mounted field that accommodates textual content.
Animating information visualizations is one other efficient tactic that may deepen the reference to the information. The best way a graphic factor unfolds brings one other layer of expression: Is it quick? Is it gradual? Is it humorous as a result of it bounces like a ball? Animation infuses content material with which means and permits designers for instance modifications in information over time.
I additionally advocate simplifying and distilling info as a lot as potential. There’s a temptation to overcomplicate presentation design. These days you’ll be able to produce content material so simply, cheaply, and rapidly that individuals attempt to clarify the world for the reason that starting of time. However that’s a mistake; it’s important to choose and synthesize.
What developments or rising applied sciences do you discover notably thrilling or impactful on this house?
One thrilling functionality is personalization. For instance, you may make an infographic particular to the reader of a newspaper. Generally I get an electronic mail e-newsletter with a really detailed report on what’s happening in a sure political space. The truth that it has my identify on it and is directed on the audience I belong to makes it actually cool—I’m studying one thing that’s made for me. Know-how has made it extremely quick and simple to personalize content material, which has opened up all types of potentialities for visible storytelling in design.
As well as, I discover generative AI to be a terrific studying device as a result of I can analysis and perceive a subject in a short time. Say I begin a brand new design undertaking through which I must create a visible about regenerative agriculture, and I don’t know something about that matter—I can ask ChatGPT to clarify it to me. After all, I’ll cross-check the whole lot in opposition to authoritative references, however AI is a useful studying device that has made me a lot much less depending on shoppers at early undertaking phases.
What steerage do you’ve gotten for designers trying to enhance their storytelling expertise and stand out within the trade?
I like to recommend studying rather a lot and discovering inspiration outdoors the digital design world. I very a lot admire comedian writers and cartoonists, folks like Moebius (Jean Giraud), Hergé (Georges Prosper Remi), and Chris Ware. They perceive the right way to construction a narrative from starting to finish, from chapters to vignettes. Chris Ware, specifically, modified my pondering. He helped me notice that the whole lot must be actually systematic and made into modular blocks that may be configured into bigger tales.
Step away from Pinterest and go to exhibitions and museums, locations the place you get visible enter that may spark new concepts or instructions in your work. That is particularly vital when designing bodily areas. artwork from various locations and throughout mediums is an effective strategy to train your mind the right way to use visible language in numerous codecs.
