Here's how you can infuse storytelling into your graphic design projects.

We all love reading or hearing a good story. One thing I can say makes a great impact is SEEING a good story. An interesting story when read will instantly allow you to visualize the details. As a designer, having the ability to utilize imagery that tells a story is a great skill to have. By understanding the audience and the goal, you are able to carefully craft your "story." A tip I have is to take an overview of what the end product is trying to portray, and break it down as if it were a storyline. Then, you are able to take each piece and apply design theories, graphics, and messaging that reaches the intended goal.

Think about the order that elements in your design should be attended to. This can be established through a reading path, or through hierarchical structures that provide emphasis. In this way you can ensure that different visual cues in your design are engaged with sequentially in ways sympathetic to the narrative structure.

Infusing storytelling into your graphic design projects can elevate your work and deeply engage your audience. Start by understanding the core message and narrative you want to convey. Use visual elements like color, typography, and imagery to create a cohesive story that resonates emotionally. Incorporate a clear structure, with a beginning, middle, and end, to guide viewers through the narrative. Finally, ensure each design element supports the overall story, making it compelling and memorable.

A ‘character’ suggests to me something with a personality, that is sentient, and has agency. Yet inanimate objects too can participate in stories - imagine a leaf falling from a branch, floating down a river, before drifting out to sea. It is the forces that act on the leaf that drives the narrative rather than any motivation that the leaf has. Although we can of course think of the leaf metaphorically as a living creature beset by different overwhelming forces, perhaps physical and/or psychological.

Often before we even have a chance to identify all of the elements in a scene there is a kind of rush of experience. Is the image scary or tranquil? Dramatic or mundane? Whether we call this qualia or ambience this would seem to be an important aspect of scene setting which is, in turn, an important aspect of storytelling. Such evocation of atmosphere can be evoked through typography, and pictorial imagery as well as through colour, shape, and texture.

Force dynamics; where we attribute different weights and movements to visual elements, provides powerful ways to express tension between two or more entities. The opposing imaginary forces attached to visual elements can have numerous outcomes. A tendency toward motion can be blocked by the inertia of an immovable object, or by an equal and opposite force, for example.

If some new, relevant, emergent meaning is achieved through our engagement with a piece of graphic design then this will provide a sense of resolution. As designers we can provide the prompts that facilitate the production of such meaning, but ultimately this depends the imagination and reasoning of those people with whom we are trying to communicate.