The Four Principles Of Visual Storytelling (Part 2)

https://www.varsityscope.com/2022/05/the-joys-of-african-storytelling.html
The very fabric of our human lives is woven in stories. We are a moving, breathing, living story. Little wonder our ears tingle anytime we hear ‘I remember a time’, or “It began when…” or “One day…”. Something in us responds, wanting to know…and to follow what happened. That ‘something’ explains why, as we cited in the Part 1 of this article, 92% of consumers want brands to make their ads feel like stories (according to OneSpot).
That something is why you as a business owner, NGO-founder, faith-movement leader, entrepreneur, thought-leader etc., must employ the four principles of visual story telling that will help you unbundle the emotions, identity and core values that resonate with both your audience and your organization.

Authenticity
Your audience cry, they hurt, they have pains and pleasures, they have imperfections and desires, fantasies and fails. As a visual storyteller, the first rule is to keep it real to your audience. Use visual elements (images, videos, narratives etc.) that feel real.
Tell your story.
Tell your story of how; how the first product you made was in all sincerity awful but then you kept on and on until you saw what you were doing wrong and the rest became a beautiful history. The story of how you had to travel all the way to a remote village in Zimbabwe to get Buffalo skins because you were obsessed about giving your shoes a unique feel.
Tell your story of why; why you started the girl-child empowerment program after seeing this beautiful but broken little girl on the streets of Lagos at an odd hour. Why you decided to start an exquisite pro-elite wine chain store in all urban cities of Uganda. These are the stories that resonate, stories that touch the brain’s response centers and make your audience connect to your product or vision, even when you have not told them the features or benefits of that product or vision.

Simplicity:
Whether it’s a Vlog, a jingle or even a musical, a universal principle largely applies. KISS; Keep it Short and Simple. You most likely have heard that the current attention span of the average man is 8 seconds, shorter than that of the goldfish, which is 9secs.
Storytelling doesn’t mean telling us long stories. You’ve got 8 seconds to win or lose an audience, investor, buyer etc. Remember the words of Emma Hicks, Head of Information Design, FT Longitude, “Visual storytelling takes complex ideas and abstract concepts and makes them simple to understand’.
So keep it real, but don’t keep it long, or overloaded with information.

RELEVANCE

In the age of trends and memes, you’ve got to ask honest questions like ‘What is everyone talking or thinking about?’ What’s relevant to our audience? What can make a viewer share this story on his timeline?
Keeping it relevant means you speak the language of your time, capturing pop references without stripping your content of localized materials and elements. Some of the most popular product jingles have excellently employed this principle to tell stories that spark emotional connection with their viewers or audience.

ARCHETYPE

In an article by Squarespace.com, it is said that ‘Archetypes have been used as the main elements of storytelling since the beginning of civilization’. Employing ‘archetypes’ basically means we identify and understand the key individuals whose ‘stories shape our culture, our present, and our future’ (Mike Montalto, https://amplifinp.com/blog/4-principles-visual-storytelling/). Using powerful visual elements, we can project these archetypes as representatives and avatars of the goals and agenda of both our organization and audience thereby forging a deep-rooted connection between both parties-audience and organization

AS YOU TELL YOUR STORIES…
Remember that these four principles work beautifully together.
Keeping it real helps you keep it relevant. When it’s both real and relevant, it’s most likely going to be simple and with the ‘archetype’ icing on the cake, you’ve got a spell-binding visual feast that draws viewers, investors, partners, clients and so on in their numbers.
As you tell your stories, never forget these principles.