The founder and creative director at OneWildCard, Kayode Olowu recently took the IDA team on an absolutely lit session titled ‘Effective Storytelling With Visual Design’.
Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a visual content creator, you’ll definitely find the knowledge gained from the class useful in one way or the other.
Here’s what we learned about effective storytelling from Kayode Olowu:
Build a junkyard
Come on, we don’t mean an actual junkyard. Kayode advised us to keep a folder of random ideas, designs, ads, and various kinds of interesting content. Having a junkyard might not seem important right now, but it is a priceless treasure for those times you’re out of ideas and desperately need inspiration.
Just like the contents of a real junkyard, Kayode confesses that he finds materials for his creative junkyard in the oddest places – like the comments section of popular Instagram accounts and the end credits of animated movies.
Dig deep
To tell the best stories, you’ll have to dig deep to find what everyone else hasn’t found yet. Most people consume the same kind of content, and therefore create the same kind of stories. So what will distinguish your work and help you tell effective stories is in the content you consume and the places you draw inspiration from.
Remember, there are no diamonds on the surface level. Dig deep.
Tap into consumer habits
Some of the best stories are the ones that tap into the existing habits and cultural nuances of the people you’re talking to. Let your stories be a nod to an inside joke your target audience can relate with. This makes them feel seen and more likely to pay attention to the story you’re telling.
Follow the consumer journey
In creating stories about a brand or product, ask questions about how the consumer interacts with it. Do they use the product at a particular time of the day? Where do they use it? How do they use it? What do they think about the brand?
Answering questions like these as you create your stories will help you get into the consumer’s head and create stories they won’t be forgetting in a hurry.
Use analogies
Again, ask questions. What is the product or essential brand message similar to? What does it remind people of? How would you communicate it if it was a meme? In using analogies, we learn to find the connection between things that seem pretty different and even cross ideas from one industry to another.
Reverse engineer the process
This was my best tip from the session. Most times, we consume great content passively, and just say things like ‘hey, this is great!’, ‘big ups to the team’, etc. Kayode Olowu challenged us to think deeper.
So when you see content that resonates, ask yourself how the team that worked on the project arrived at that idea. What questions did they ask? How did they successfully sell the idea to the client? Analysing the idea that blew your mind helps you learn the process of creating something equally amazing.
Finally, Kayode Olowu told us not to just do good work, but to go out there and do great work.