Plotlines, poetry, and pixels: The art of crafting captivating narratives

A storytelling framework for presenting design work and ideas

Illustration by Patricia Doria

But how does one craft a good story?

My answer to the art of crafting captivating narratives for my design work is in a three-pillared framework: Plotlines, Poetry, and Pixels. What makes the framework useful as a foundation is that everyone can mold it to fit their own perspective and spin it to make stories that are personal and resonant. It’s especially useful for any designer who’s ever struggled to articulate their thoughts into a narrative that will captivate, impact, and influence an audience.

1. Compose a plotline

Every story has a plotline—the arrangement of content in a narrative structure with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Composing a plotline is laying the foundation for a story. It requires you to begin identifying and defining the core drivers for your narrative.

Audience

In design, it’s often necessary to present the same work to different audiences at different times. But even in the context of the same project, the nature and volume of information will vary depending on who you’re presenting to. Design peers, cross-functional stakeholders, executive leadership, users, customers, and clients should each hear a version of the story tailored to their needs.

To be efficacious in communicating with impact in a vibrant and collaboration-driven milieu like design, it’s important to learn that crafting a narrative is like crafting any other meaningful experience—it needs to be approached in a human-centered or, more specifically, audience-centered way. Understanding an audience in the context of their professional, social, and cultural background provides valuable insight into their needs, expectations, and biases. It allows you to assess what information will be most relevant and resonant.

Last year, I delivered a presentation on storytelling to three different audiences on three separate occasions. Although each was based on the same content, I adapted specific elements of the storyline to each of the audiences.

1. For human-computer interaction students at a university in the US, I focused primarily on how storytelling could help them document projects for their portfolios and distinguish themselves in job interviews. I included references to global pop culture, such as Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight and Drake’s Hotline Bling.
2. For my peers on the design team in India, I emphasized the relevance of storytelling in presentations and stakeholder management, while briefly touching upon its other applications. I included references that were contextually rooted in Indian culture, such as the popular Hindi song Agar Tum Saath Ho, from the film Tamasha.
3. For my global peers on the design team, although the content remained the same as my presentation in India, I added a callback reference to a presentation delivered previously by another designer.

Purpose

After identifying your audience, clearly determine the purpose of your presentation. Defining the intent behind sharing your story is pivotal. Consider the key information or message you want to convey and the emotional impact you want to have on your audience. Pinpointing the response you want to elicit allows you to craft a plotline that aligns with and achieves your goal: While the goal of presenting to design students at an educational institution may be to inspire, the objective of a presentation to cross-functional stakeholders or executive leadership will likely be to persuade.

Author Dan Roam, who helps businesses, teams, and professionals with clarity in communication, in his book Show and Tell: How Everybody Can Make Extraordinary Presentations, touches on the correlation between the purpose behind a story and the “story arc” most suitable for shaping its narrative. He defines four distinct story arcs for narratives—report, explanation, pitch, and drama—and declares that any series of events can be articulated in these four story structures. For people in design, those story structures might look something like this:

• Straightforward, factual, and devoid of personal beliefs, designers and researchers might use a report plotline to share observations from data analysis or user interviews
• The step-by-step approach of explanation can be especially useful when collaborating to explain the rationale behind a design decision or to help someone better understand a new concept or workflow
• There’s no better story structure for presenting to leadership than a pitch that clearly presents a business challenge and the design solution to it
• For most talks and presentations, a drama story arc (from distress to victory to life lesson) is ideal for design project journeys (a retrospective of the challenges, how they were overcome to fulfil project goals, and what was learned along the way)

Although Roam’s story arcs aren’t definitive, they provide valuable references to reflect on, especially in the early stages of composing a story’s narrative.

Context

While composing a plotline, don’t forget to consider the context of the presentation. Be mindful that external factors—such as the duration of your presentation, the setting (in-person or virtual), any format restrictions, and even the day and time—can significantly inform the development of your narrative. A clear understanding of these details from the outset will help you craft a plotline tailored to the specific contextual nuances of time, space, and format.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to present at Adobe Design Summit 2024, an internal event for our global design team. The theme centered around an "aha! moment” that changed the course of a design project.

My topic was one I'd shared many times before, but this time I needed to distill it into a five-minute prerecorded video for both in-person and virtual audiences. The time constraint demanded that I streamline the project experience and pinpoint key learnings in a concise yet powerful narrative. While the requirement to deliver the presentation as a prerecorded video initially appeared to be a constraint, it became an invitation to step beyond my usual boundaries and experiment with an approach that I might not have felt confident with for a live presentation.

After several rounds of brainstorming, I decided to introduce the presentation playing the role of a news anchor. The performative element injected humor into the storyline and allowed me to push my creative limits. The flexibility of prerecording gave me the confidence to experiment with unconventional ideas because I knew I'd be able to refine the presentation ahead of time.

That experience reinforced my belief that a clear understanding of the context and constraints of a presentation enables you to be more mindful about optimizing the plotline. When boundaries are more narrowly defined, we’re often compelled to innovate and find unique ways to create content that resonates.

Content

After identifying and defining the core drivers of your narrative, it’s time to begin curating content. Even when you have a specific audience, a clear purpose, and a defined context, the possibilities for potential subjects are nearly endless. Much like the ideation phase in the design process, it’s crucial to unleash your creativity, explore diverse ideas, and refine them into cohesive groups of relevant and insightful information.

To maximize a narrative's potential, make the content creation and curation process iterative. A technique I use involves sticky notes—writing on each one, a key point I want to address. Once I feel confident in the breadth and depth of my ideas, I combine and intertwine them into related clusters, each a potential section of the plotline. This grouping also helps in revealing overlaps and shedding light on duplicate information. The final step is to experiment with different arrangements of the groups and their constituent points to create a story structure and flow that feels cohesive, creative, and exciting.

Two final words about content: Pursue novelty. It’s essential for an audience, particularly in a specific context, to experience something they haven’t experienced before. Get in the habit of conducting a “novelty check.” That means doing research to ensure your content is either topically distinct or explores an aspect that hasn't been addressed yet in a particular context. Engage with previous attendees or review archives to learn about past presentations given to a particular audience or on a particular platform. A straightforward, albeit meta example, is how I approached the story you’re reading. To make sure that it would touch on a topic that was new to the audience, before pitching my idea I first made a point to check whether there were any existing stories on the site related to “storytelling in design.” Embracing originality in your content is key to making your plotline resonate.

2. Infuse with poetry

Plotlines give stories their shape, structure, and volume. Poetry is the magic that brings them to life. People are saturated with content, and for any story to be engaging and memorable, it must stand out. Poetry injects narratives with a unique voice—a soul if you will. Although a designer’s pursuits center around imagination, creativity, and innovation, for their stories to break through the noise, they must also be imbued with poetic tenets.

Personal perspective

The power to captivate an audience lies not in the simple retelling of an event, but in the story of its impact on the storyteller. People connect more deeply with anecdotes, insights, challenges, and lessons learned than they do with project timelines, information architecture, or market positioning.

Injecting a story with a personal perspective breathes life and authenticity into it—it transforms a narrative into a unique and original interpretation rather than a straightforward recounting of facts. It gives the storyteller an opportunity to forge a deeper connection with the audience through the sharing of their personal truth and broadens the story’s impact by inviting discussion, debate, and the exchange of ideas.

Our profession revolves around the core principle of empathy, so the ability to draw out and convey the human-centered aspects of an event can help a designer craft a more engaging and meaningful narrative. In applicable context, a portfolio presentation for a job interview that transcends convention can offer insights into your perspective as a designer that will help you stand out against more traditional and formulaic narratives. Some tips for documenting portfolio projects:

• Express your design philosophy by showcasing the core values and inspirations that shaped your work. Share how your beliefs, influences (design movements, cultural elements, inspiring figures), and frameworks impacted your design choices during the project. Use personal notes, quotes, or mantras to highlight the deeper motivations behind your decisions and offer the audience a window into your mindset.
• Embody your unique style and brand by letting your personality break through in the project’s tone, visual language (color palette, typography, graphics), and the structure of the presentation. While each project may call for a different style or execution, a distinctive touch could serve as a unifying thread across projects to create a cohesive and memorable experience that exhibits who you are as a designer.
• Reflect on your personal journey by illustrating your growth alongside the project’s progression by highlighting the “core moments” that shaped your experience. Share your decisions, challenges, and collaborative breakthroughs. Share the lessons you learned, the personal milestones you achieved, and how working with others influenced the project. Offer a glimpse into your future aspirations, your goals for the project, and the passion that drove you from concept to completion. Allow the audience to witness not just the design's evolution, but also your personal growth throughout the process.

Passions

Leverage personal interests—hobbies and passions like illustration, doodling, video editing, animation, painting, or performative arts like dance, music, mimicry, and puppetry—as innovative mediums for narration. They will make any narrative more personalized, intriguing, and resonant.

During one of my undergraduate interaction design courses we were given a creative brief to visit a nearby flea market, document the sensory experience, and present it to the class the following day. Although the assignment sounded fun, we were all puzzled about how to present what would likely be identical experiences in a unique way.

With limited time to brainstorm and create, I drew on my interest in rap music and put together a rap performance describing my experience. After staying up all night to write and compose it, I was both nervous and tired when it was my turn to present. My performance was met with cheers, hoots, and applause. I felt a rush of joy, fulfillment, and a sense of wonder. It didn’t take long to realize that the audience reaction wasn't because my rap was technically great, but because it was a true expression of my love for the art form.

As design professionals, we often overlook the potential of innovative mediums in creative storytelling. With tight project deadlines and the fast pace of work, it's easy to default to straightforward, efficient “corporate” presentation methods. But incorporating diverse art forms can transform presentations, make messages more engaging and memorable, and increase clarity.

Feedback

A crucial aspect of storytelling is ensuring that a story will be clearly understood by the audience. While a storyteller’s unique voice should be distinct and personal, the delivery must be inclusive and broadly accessible. Never let a message become obscured by personal abstractions or lack of context-setting. An effective way to ensure you’ve covered your bases is by testing and rehearsing the story with various audiences ahead of the final presentation.

Some key points to keep in mind during that process:

• Connect with people whose work inspires or intrigues you, whose opinions you value and respect, and who you can trust to provide honest feedback. This network might include leadership and managers, immediate and extended team members, cross-functional stakeholders, and, unless there’s an NDA, even friends and family members. The greater the diversity of feedback sources, the more likely it is that a story will resonate with a wide audience.
• Gather constructive feedback on your story’s effectiveness and accessibility. It will expose you to fresh perspectives, new ideas, and unbiased opinions—along with encouragement when you’re on the right track. It will also allow you to reflect on your story from various viewpoints and assess its impact across audiences and contexts.
• Use insights to refine your story and address any gaps. While the core of the story can remain, adapt it to incorporate elements that resonate with a broader audience. By integrating a diverse range of perspectives, stories become more effective and well-rounded.

Whether a story is for a work showcase, a design conference talk, or a portfolio review, asking for feedback can help test content, refine timing and pacing, and boost confidence, while also improving clarity. In short, it helps a storyteller deliver a more polished, impactful, and audience-centric presentation.

3. Weave in pixels

With the structure defined, and personal expression and passions injected into the story, it’s time to grab the audience’s attention and hold onto it. In an age of continuous content exposure and consumption, there’s one specific storytelling medium that trumps all others in its ability to capture attention: pixels.

“Pixels,” in this storytelling framework, is any medium with the potential to stimulate the eye. Whether a story is verbal or written, integrating visual expression will multiply its ability to capture people’s attention. With so much competing for our notice, the popular saying “what you see is what sells” couldn’t be more true. Visual media will strengthen, elevate, and augment almost any story across several facets:

Engagement

Visuals (dynamic or static) capture audience attention and keep people engaged throughout a story by creating a multi-sensory, immersive experience that draws them into the narrative. Moreover, the human brain is more captivated by images than text, and this cognitive inclination is something that storytellers can leverage to sustain audience engagement. That engagement can be especially useful for designers documenting projects for their portfolios.

Infusing a project narrative with visual elements—compelling thumbnails, metaphorical illustrations, demonstrative mock-ups, delightful micro-interactions, and animated videos or GIFs—can help keep an audience hooked. Since portfolios are often viewed without a narrator, well-placed visuals can keep an audience immersed in the stories behind the work.

Clarity

Visuals can also simplify complex concepts, ideas, processes, and data. They can break information-heavy narratives into comprehensible and digestible expressions, making them clearer, faster to ingest, and easier to understand. Designers can clarify and simplify information in their presentations by translating complex user flows into storyboards, UI concepts into wireframes and mock-ups, and quantitative and qualitative data into static, dynamic, or interactive visualizations such as charts, plots, and infographics.

Impact

Well-designed and curated visuals can move and delight audiences. Color, visual texture, expression, gesture, posture, placement, and movement can be used creatively in images, videos, illustrations, and animations to connect with audiences on an emotional level. Designers can harness the potential of visual elements to highlight key points in a narrative. The coupling of visually descriptive language with equally strong metaphoric visuals can elevate and highlight a challenge, a breakthrough, a solution, or a new kernel of knowledge.

One of my first presentations at Adobe was sharing insights from a competitive desk-research study, along with UX recommendations, to the leadership team. My first draft was text-heavy, with lengthy descriptions for each insight. But initial feedback from a dry run with my design mentors indicated that the content felt dense and monotonous. To address that concern I infused humor into the narrative by replacing the textual description for each of the key points with creative adaptations of different memes: I used the popular Drake Hotline Bling meme to contrast an inadequate feature users had at the time with the feature improvement they desired, illustrating how the change would boost their satisfaction. The visual approach not only introduced a playful element, it made the presentation more influential by clearly illustrating the potential user impact and benefits of the recommended enhancements.

Accessibility

Visuals can make content more inclusive and accessible. Ideas, concepts, and thoughts expressed through visuals can transcend language differences, cognitive challenges, and auditory impairments by supplementing stories with forms of communication that aren’t dependent on hearing or processing words. It’s a principle that designers can use in a variety of ways: using color to evoke emotions, incorporating symbolism and icons to convey meaning without language-dependent explanation, and using infographics to show complex concepts.

Retention

Research shows that the human brain tends to process and remember visual information more efficiently, increasing chances of absorption into long-term memory. So, images and videos can improve retention, instill a higher recall value, and create lasting impressions on audiences. From the colors of a brand to a company’s logo, mascot, ad campaigns, and commercials, visual storytelling is also used by designers to build and tell brand stories, to create positive cognitive associations with them, and to attract and retain loyalty.

Further, the medium can condense complex information into a single memorable image: I once used a humorous GIF of a cat and dog fighting to illustrate a stakeholder conflict. As the presentation unfolded, I concluded with an image of the same cat and dog embracing to symbolize how a tweak in the collaborative process resolved differing opinions and resurfaced the shared purpose of serving the best interests of the users and the product. Several audience members later remarked on the visual representation, noting that the endearing and relatable metaphor made the conflict’s resolution particularly memorable.

Plotlines, Poetry, and Pixels is my storytelling framework, but it’s not the only way to craft captivating narratives. The real magic of storytelling lies in the rich diversity of unique voices. Don’t wait for opportunities to present themselves. Create your own. Embrace and experiment with storytelling styles and mediums. Explore, observe, absorb, and put what you learn into practice. Then, step into the spotlight and tell your story.