Visual storytelling is the art of using images to communicate information. Visuals make that information easier to understand, while visual metaphors make it more memorable.
Our brains are wired for visual processing. More than 50% of the cortex is dedicated to processing visual information. Visual storytelling, meanwhile, is perfectly placed to make the most of our brain’s talent for visual thinking. In a 2019 study by Chinese University of Hong Kong, 92.7% students said the animations were helpful in understanding texts and clarifying concepts.
The famous adage “A picture is worth a thousand words” is undeniably true.
Buster Keaton, one of the most famous movie stars of the 1920s, was a pioneering visual storyteller. He deliberately and skilfully let his visuals do the talking in the age of silent movies. Back then, movies used word cards (known as intertitles) to explain story elements to the audience. A typical silent movie used, on average, 240 intertitles. By comparison, Keaton’s movies used, on average, 23.
At SiyonaTech, we put visual storytelling at the heart of our course design. We use graphics, images, animations, and videos to drive emotions, engage intercommunication, and motivate our audience to action.
Visuals are a universal language that have an immediate and long-lasting impact. And visuals can help make content more memorable by depicting characters and situations that we recognise and relate to.
As Keaton himself said, “Only things that one could imagine happening to real people remain in a person’s memory.”
