September 6, 2022

Show your workings

No matter how experienced I become at communicating my ideas, I often find myself falling into the same trap – submitting some storyboards or roughs that, in my mind, nail a brief, but inevitably, are misread by the audience (publisher and/or editor). I forget that visual communication is a strength of mine, so what may be obvious to me is not always obvious to others.

If I want my pitch to land with the gravity with which I intend, I need to do everything I can to help bridge the gap between my deep understanding of visual storytelling and the audience (most often, a publisher or editor) and that often means educating folks along the way.

I don’t know if this is the same as others, but with my work I often have a reason/s for every choice I make. The reasons behind my choice of framing, or the sequence of some drawings within a book are more akin to a scientific process, rather than a ‘creative’ one. The rules of effective visual storytelling have been around for as long as we’ve been able to draw on cave walls and I apply them, rigourously, to ensure that the goals of the work are achieved.

Uninformed audiences feel these things when they experience them, even if they aren’t consciously aware of what’s happening. The most common experience is when we watch films. So, when I’m doing storyboard or rough sketches, what I’m imagining is the final result – I can see the final art, coloured, in my brain. But, I forget that the image formed in my brain from a few rough squiggles is far more complete than what’s on the page – the thing that others will consume early on in the picture book process.

What helps with this is being explicit about the reasons behind the choices I’m making. Adding detailed explanations of why a certain perspective is important for a particular type of image, or why one particular image followed by another is the most appropriate way to communicate what we’re trying to communicate. It feels boring and obvious and I often catch myself thinking, “Really, you need this to understand what I’ve drawn?” But it’s almost always true.

Sometimes I use other visual references, sometimes words and explanations are enough. It’s often based in the language and principles of film, sequential art, or graphic design. Things like hierarchy, gestalt principles, camera angle language, colour psychology, typography etc form the basis of the what I use to explain the work well.

If I don’t provide this background and language, the feedback I get tends to be less useful in making what I’ve presented better; it tends to produce feedback that isn’t mindful of the goals I set out to achieve which ends up being frustraing and confusing for everyone. It’s a bit like producing a maths solution without showing the working. The working provides the context for the final result – it provides a way for another brain to follow my logic to understand the conclusion I’ve come to; even if it’s not quite the answer they were looking for.

So, the challenge we have as visual storytellers is to present something that describes and explains a clear and compelling intent, but sets up the next conversation for success – the one about how to amplify the work and why.

By educating our viewers on some of the principles and language behind visual storytelling, not only do we help our storyboards and roughs become more understandable, but we transfer some of the power we hold to others, and the world becomes better for it.

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