Design is Story
If you’ve ever studied film theory or talked to anyone involved in making movies, you will know that the most important element in any film is the story. Without story there is no conflict; without conflict there is no character development; without character development the acting becomes one-note dull… and there are very few films that can get away with having terrible acting.
To construct a great story, you really have to concentrate on stripping it down to the bare essentials; every line of dialogue, every shot must serve to move the story forward. Young screenwriters are told when they review their first draft, “if it doesn’t move the story on, take it out” – everything in a screenplay must have a purpose, and the purpose must always be the development of the story.
Sometimes only a few frames are needed to achieve this; an establishing shot of a boat at the head of a flotilla of ships tells us a lot about the responsibility, command and motivations of the captain of that ship; similarly, an establishing shot of the rusty old tug bringing up the rear of that flotilla involves us in the frustrated desires and entirely different motivations of its own captain. All that information can be contained in just a couple of seconds of film, without the need for any lengthy backstory – we don’t need to sit through ten minutes of flashback on the life of each captain to immediately grasp, understand and empathise with their character.
But what has this got to do with design, I hear you cry?
Well, if we consider a website to be a movie, then the story is the purpose of the site. It might be to get visitors to buy something, or read something, or interact in some other way, but all sites have a purpose – and it is the design that helps tell that story. So, in much the same way as screenwriters must rip out any lines that don’t help the story, we as designers should seek to exclude anything from our designs that don’t further the purpose of the website.
When writing a line of dialogue or adding a creative flourish to a site, we should stop and ask ourselves what that particular element brings to the party. Is it really moving things along, or do we like it because it shows how clever or talented we the writer/designer are? If we’re being honest and it is the latter, then take it out – you will be doing your visitors a great service.
Filed under: Design.
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Comments
- Matthew Pennell
- 1192 days ago
- Alex: Thanks for the recommendation, but Story already takes pride of place in my sizeable collection of film-making reference books!
I agree with you though, it is a fantastic book. - #2
It’s a really in depth but approachable to look at the craft of screen writing and I value as any of my books on CSS.