I hope my son finds this story

Holding the book in my hands allows me to relive the journey and the emotions associated with it. The picture book of memories seems to be more tangible compared to digital formats. Like a family photo album. The uniqueness of it, the curled page edges, the broken spine, the feel of the pages, and the parts of it that give it character have become part of what makes it a memento that can be shared when I am with friends and family. The book is called “The Traveling with Roberta Goole Picture Book” and it lives on my bookshelf waiting for someone looking for an adventure story, to discover.

I hope my son finds this story…

Sandwiched between a book about altered states of consciousness and Hindu worship practices, is “The Traveling With Roberta Gooole Picture Book”

The book was named after a car. That year, we spent half of the summer driving across Canada and the United States. The Pontiac 6000LE is a mid-size sedan known for its reliability, comfortable ride, and spacious interior. It seated three friends in the front (driver included), and three friends in the back. The limited space between the characters and the font used to make the model logo accidentally made the six in “6000LE look more like a “G”. So the car was often referred to as the Pontiac Gooole (pronounced Gooli). They said it was the poor man’s BMW; my first car and it was sky blue.

The pages are in cronological order; from the day we start the trip across Canada and back through the US.

We were recent art and design graduates and thought it would be a good time to drive across the country. We worked for a year and took whatever money we had saved to buy fuel, food, and camping equipment. We travelled simply to go across and back.

Each picture is little story; something that happened, someone we met along the way, or something extraordinary that we saw.

Roberta took us 4,429km across the land, through forests, along freshwater lakes, and cornfields; the towns we stopped in, and the roads we took. Between cities, there were long stretches of vast open land. As we travelled, farmland turned into forests, prairies into big mountains, rivers into great lakes, and small town roads to the trans-Canada highway; we learned the country.

It's nostalgic and comforting to see yourself in the past, in that special moment.

Had I uploaded this story to the internet somewhere first I don’t think I would have made this book. Make your stories analog first, then capsule them out into bite-size pieces on the internet. Let people find your stories this way; bring them closer, to the point where you can tell them stories in person. The book becomes a fire around which a community shares together.

Where does the story live?

Picture this: a person cuts across the grass, avoiding the neatly paved corner of a sidewalk. Over time, others follow, and a natural trail emerges—simple, direct, human. These are desire paths, the unplanned trails created by how people truly want to move through a space. They reveal human intention and preference.

This is a concept I often revisit when thinking about how stories are told and experienced in different places. Because I’ve often found that we (the audiences) find and follow our own "desire paths" through narratives.

Where will the story live for the audience?

Does the story start on a webpage, maybe as a shared link? Or does it start as they walk down the street, and notice the sign hanging above the business? Perhaps it’s a magazine article that catches their interest? A smell when you walk into a room, or a printed T-shirt hidden within the folds of a friend’s closet? Maybe it appears in the opening credits of a film, or wrapped around a product at a farmers market?

The story location shapes not only how the story is told, but also how it is experienced.

When done well, the storytelling creates an immersive phenomenon. The different touchpoints of the story become an ecosystem, a world unto itself. There are several components to these kinds of stories—colors, typography, décor, sounds, smells, or lighting—each is selected, curated, or crafted to enhance or supplement the narrative.

It could be a mural that tells the history of a business, or a particular lighting that creates a stunning show. There are always opportunities to entertain, set a mood, or make your opinion clear, while still serving a functional purpose.

So, like I asked the visual communication students in my last seminar: where will the story live, and what can its setting reveal about the audience's journey? How we design that story—the trail they will follow—defines how they experience and remember it.

Food for thought.

If you’re interested in ideas about storytelling and design, feel free to get in touch with us to learn more about my workshops and seminars, or WhatsApp us at +94 77 764 7096

Who is telling the story?

The first slide was a question; my entire seminar revolved around it. I looked up at their faces and watched them start to think. I wanted to see if these young, would-be designers knew the answer. They thought about it for a while…

If your client’s business were a person, who would it be?

Who's telling the story?

When a business tells a story, it adopts a particular narrative. They (the business) act, speak, and portray the world from their perspective; this is their persona and way of doing things. The attributes of that persona, combined with the story facts, make a framework that tells me a lot about a business; from there, we where to start.

I use a framework to illustrate what’s at the heart of a business persona.

From the audience’s perspective, knowing who’s telling the story contextualizes the meaning. It legitimizes the story. When you look at posts on social media or read an article, do you ever consider who’s posting the story? When you search, does the platform matter to you? Do you check to see who the author of the article is?

Take, for example, these two memes (above and below), one has been used to sell fonts, the other to convey and share a feeling amongst like-minded people. Memes are inherently polyvocal—meaning the storyteller could shift depending on how the meme is consumed, shared, or repurposed.

I would say, that memes operate more like a co-authored story, where the creator and audience collectively shape its significance. In this case, the PangramPangram meme (the former) was made to promote a business. PangramPangram designs and sells fonts. A pangram is a sentence with all the letters in the alphabet. Font designers use pangrams to display samples of what all letters look like.

Now you know.

So what happens when there's no context?

I found this picture online one day (as you do); it immediately caught my interest. It’s from a 1960s book called Shindai: The Art of Japanese Bed-Fighting.

What beautiful photography; is this true? I wondered, so I went down the rabbit hole.

With a curious enough audience, narratives can thrive on ambiguity and absurdity. The lack of explicit context can lead to inspiration, entertainment, and even thought-provoking at times.

“But what happens if they don’t like the story?” Someone asked during the seminar.

Take, for example, satire stories; they are more engaging, but they require an understanding between the storyteller and the audience. When two people understand each other, there is room for ambiguity and absurdity.

Humour works especially well, but it’s risky.

For better or for worse, the story may get attention, but it doesn’t necessarily always lead to understanding; or guarantee fidelity. If the audience doesn’t get it, the story is ignored. Or it gets labelled as a lie, disinformation, and more of the Internet’s flimflam.

From my experience, who the storyteller is, shapes the outcome of a story. Regardless of the size or reach, a reputation influences the meaningfulness of the story.

Attention and understanding are not the same thing.

A new teacher asked me for advice after the seminar. They had a good industry reputation, and plenty of knowledge to share, but the students weren’t taking her recommendations.

“In the beginning, I think that’s to be expected; it’s difficult to take advice from someone you don’t know or understand yet,” I suggested.

Being good at something doesn’t necessarily make it a good lesson. In the same way, having a good business story doesn’t guarantee a sale.

Food for thought…

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This story was based on questions and insights uncovered at our last story design workshop. Get in touch to find out more about our workshops or with questions.