What Is Storytelling in Design?

Storytelling in design involves using visual elements to create a narrative for your audience. Audiences want to form connections with brands and products. They want to feel that brands understand their motivations, struggles, hopes, and desires. Brands do this by creating designs that fulfill desires or overcome struggles. 

Designers of all disciplines should think of the brand as a story and use each communication as a chapter to further that story. Each visual element you use illustrates a core truth about your narrative and its point of view. Through design, you show your audience that more is possible and connect them to their deeper values.

What Is Storytelling?

Storytelling is an ancient form of human expression that creates an interaction between the teller and listener. When designers tell stories, they try to learn more about users and form emotional connections. Often, designers create personas to represent their audiences and learn more about the conflicts they face. 

Designers gain knowledge as they create this backstory for their audience. They learn what their audience wants and create designs that solve the problems their users have. 

How Storytelling Works in Design

Some designers use storytelling to define their creative process. They consider users' goals and the user journey to achieve those objectives. User experience (UX) design focuses on developing every design element to respond to user goals and give the individual a valuable result. 

In design, you learn to understand your users' needs and who they are. Then, you tell a story that responds to their needs with a valuable solution. Having a story to guide your design process helps you make every decision with the final user in mind.

You think of the end user as the main character in a story, acting as their guide. Everything you do helps them achieve their goals. You develop an emotional connection with your users and strive to improve their lives with every design element you include.

What Makes Good Stories?

A good story draws in readers or viewers and shares a tale that has importance for those who enter the story. Good storytelling requires expertise and extensive research to develop a believable world. The same principles apply to storytelling through design. 

You must first consider the character—the people who use your product or service. You must learn their demographic information and inner motivations and desires to tell a good story. When learning about your characters, consider what users want to achieve or overcome. Maybe they want better sleep or a more convenient online shopping experience. Your design should show users how your product or service achieves these outcomes.

You can use design elements to speak to users, like dialogue in a story. Design elements can create a formal or informal tone. You can also choose how much text to include. Good stories also have a compelling setting. When telling a story through design, use a layout that mimics the environment that users sense when interacting with your piece. This design might look classic or more stylized. At its core, good storytelling in design creates a beautiful and compelling world through elements like setting and characters.

How to Reach Your Target Audience

You reach your target audience by starting from a firm understanding of who they are. Then, you can use storytelling principles to draw in your audience and get them to interact with your brand. 

To learn about your target audience, do direct, primary user research. This technique lets you collaborate with your users and see which ideas and design concepts they enjoy using. When meeting with primary users, utilize demographic information and users' experiences to form insights. Think about the personal struggles your target audience faces, plus their goals. Ideally, your design will show the target audience that your product can help them overcome those struggles.

When conducting user research, consider how users start interacting with your designs and how that interaction changes over time. As you develop a plot, use your drafts to support it. With every conflict a user faces, use design to overcome it. Here's one storytelling design example: if a user wants an easy-to-use product that works with a busy life, draft with that in mind. 

For example, if you're designing an item that can cover a drink to prevent people from being drugged, consider how quickly the user can add it to their cup. Does it change size for large and small drinks? Is it easy to carry in their purse or pocket? Can it easily be removed and added to a new drink? 

Then, work with the setting. Where do users interact with your design? Maybe it's at home or during their commute. Once you determine the location, consider how this setting should change your methods. 

The last step you can take to reach your target audience is to tailor the look and feel. Think about colors and fonts and how these might change a user's interaction. Bright colors might encourage energy and fun—more muted hues might lead to relaxation and calm.

Learn to Tell Stories in Your Design

Connect with users by uniting design and empathy. Storytelling in design involves showing users that you understand them and can provide a solution to their problems. If you want to learn more about this concept, consider MFA Product Design at the School of Visual Arts. Our faculty specializes in design storytelling, and our curriculum teaches students how to use storytelling in product design from start to finish.

This product design program gives graduates the tools to succeed in many design fields and introduces them to real-life designers who share their experience with designing projects and storytelling for design. Looking to incorporate storytelling into your design? Apply for our program online or contact us with questions about how our program can lead you into a life of design.