Storytelling

Any good story starts with why. Why is this narrative worth telling? The Mission and Values are the central sun of an organization, and we always start with carefully evaluating these seemingly simple elements to ensure that all the other elements of our designs radiate out of them. And if needed, to realign them to the original inspiration that the organization was born from.

Once we understand the holy trinity of mission, values and audience, then we can begin designing and refining the overarching Narratives. What goals and initiatives need to be showcased? What kinds of media need to be created to land with an audience? What is the long term strategy of the brand as a whole? All of these questions fall into place easily once the preparatory work has been done right.

The final element of storytelling, the Language Architecture, is the part that is most visible. It is the choice of specific words and phrases, eloquent writing that conveys poetry and power behind an idea, the style of voice that speaks to people's hearts. It is where the beauty happens, but just like a lovely face, it is nothing without the bone structure and animating spirit behind it.​

Where the mission of an organization is like the sun, its Audience is like the moon that reflect's it's light. Just like the moon, an audience is always shifting and must be studied carefully to understand its movements. We utilize a simple but powerful process for analyzing an audience so that all of our creative work speaks to their struggles, hopes and desires.

The central narratives are a brand's DNA, and once they are in place we can construct the bone structure in the form of Storyboards and Outlines. These are the diagrams of the content, the through lines for video projects, the sequential strategies for marketing campaigns and the flow of curriculum for online courses. With these maps, filling in the details becomes a clear and straightforward path.

Beyond constructing the many layers of external narrative, there is also the internal story of the storytellers. Oftentimes what gets in the way of telling a compelling story is not a lack of words, but a limitation in our own personal story, our inner identity matrix. We use a powerful Personal Story Coaching method when this arises to help remove these blockages and get the stories flowing.