The Groove Issue 24 - Five Enduring Pillars of Storytelling
Welcome to the 24th issue of The Groove.
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FIVE ENDURING PILLARS OF STORYTELLING
Visuals Have Always Worked and Always Will
A painting on the walls of the Maros-Pangkep cave in Indonesia that is estimated to be at least 43,900 years old.
We live in an era where almost everything communicated to us is done via visuals: internet, TV, streaming, film, billboards, social media, fine art. Heck, even Instagram named their Snapchat-copy “Stories” and now Google just launched their “Web Stories” too. Anthropologists affirm that 70% of everything we learn is through storytelling.
Simply put, good storytelling can make a business or an artist career flourish, while poor narrative can make them flounder. The interesting fact is that storytelling in marketing and advertising owes everything to artists. Storytelling and branding are both forms of art, and like every other excellent expression of art, the time spent thinking about it is just as important as the execution.
In its barest form, visual storytelling is the graphic representation of a moment or moments in time. Humans have always needed to make sense of their lives and surroundings and what better way to do this than through narratives?
In 2019, scientists and archeologists working on the Island of Sulawesi in Central Indonesia, reported the discovery of a painting on the walls of the Maros-Pangkep cave that is estimated to be at least 43,900 years old. They concluded that the finding was “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world.” There is a complex narrative in the scene where eight figures approach wild pigs and dwarf buffaloes, and they are surrounded by thin lines that may represent ropes or spears - the scene speaks of hunting, protection, and shamanic beliefs.
Ever since, visual storytelling has continued to evolve, first by artists, then with the advent of the photographic camera in 1814, and since the past 40 years when personal computers became mainstream, to designers who could create images using software.
Convey Your Real Message
Otto Dix, Großstadt (Metropolis), 1927-1928, distemper on wood.
There is a particularly stunning work by German artist Otto Dix that is not only remarkable in its execution but also in its narrative. It was 1927, and 37-year-old Dix was in the middle of two events: the post-war era and the Roaring Twenties. How to capture what life was like in Germany at that time? Dix conceived a triptych with three clear scenes, the three of them happening at night.
The first panel portrays a soldier, a crippled man, and several women with flamboyant clothes who resemble prostitutes - they are all somehow interacting in a dark cobblestone alley under a bridge and it’s a clear reminder that the aftermath of WWI isn’t over. The middle and wider panel is full of palpable energy: it reflects the arrival of Jazz music in Germany, which took off when Sam Wooding and Duke Ellington toured the country with their bands in 1925. The musicians are holding their saxophones, the men are wearing tuxes, the women are flappers wrapped in luxurious frocks and covered in jewelry head-to-toe. It’s as if Dix is telling us that there’s peace, but there’s also chaos, noise, and frivolity. The third panel shows a group of women who could be performers, their outfits are a mix of what the women in the first and second panel wear and the architecture around them looks sumptuous. If not for the crippled man on the floor, one might think this was party scene resembling the Venice Carnival.
These three contradictory panels are extremely cohesive in its imagery and tell the exact story of Germany at the end of the 1920s that Dix wanted to seize: war veterans on the street, homeless people, a disappearing middle class, the hectic pace of big cities and the crazy partying that came to compensate for the horrors of years prior.
Tell Your Story With a Beginning, Middle, and End
Stills from the 2011 Chipotle ad “Back to the Start”.
Storytelling is a tool that helps others see things the way you do. If you are passionate about your story and in what you want others to know, always keep that goal in mind. We tell stories all the time because we want to communicate our message and we want to be heard. That’s an easier and more impactful task when our stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.
In 2011, Chipotle’s first national TV ad followed the animated journey of a farmer going from industrialized farming to adopting more sustainable practices. Set to Willie Nelson’s cover of Coldplay’s “The Scientist,” the man has an epiphany: no more injecting the animals with hormones or keeping them in cages; no pesticides, and no massive trucks cramming them together.
Right at the two-thirds mark when Nelson’s voice sings “I’m going back to the start,” the farmer begins to turn it all around and at the end he is shown carrying a crate that he happily deposits on the back of the small Chipotle-branded truck. The storytelling in this commercial is nothing short of brilliant and helped catapult Chipotle into the multi-million-dollar chain it is today.
Use Metaphors
Fred Tomaselli, Gyre, 2014, photo-collage, leaves, acrylic and resin on wood panel.
Artists and businesses as storytellers are always at the mercy of their audiences and that’s a good thing because it gives people the flexibility to interpret the narrative without having to impose a precise view on them. “Metaphor” is derived from an Ancient Greek word that means “to transfer.” Think of a mini-story that comprises complex ideas in a visceral package.
Fred Tomaselli, an American contemporary artist with a long career trajectory, combines painting and other disparate materials like pharmaceutical drugs, cannabis leaves, and magazine cutouts to create artworks that represent either animals, humans, or religious mandalas reflecting his visionary and idiosyncratic worldview. For example, he has created work that explores the ways we escape from reality with recreational drugs and the Internet, but he won’t ever give a literal account of what he wants to express.
Tomaselli doesn’t want to choke the viewer with his ideas, he wants to invite people to have a different point of view, to deduce what he tried to capture and the connection to the materials he used. For him, art has psychotropic properties; it creates a pathway to altering and rearranging our perceptions of reality. In a painting like Gyre, a fish leaping from the frothing sea inhaling plastic household objects is a reference to the vast trash vortex in the North Pacific. Judging by the prices of his work and institutional support he’s had, his use of metaphor has worked wonders for his storytelling.
Empathize With Your Audience
Stills from IKEA’s “Make Home Count” video ad released in November 2020.
Whether you are an artist, a brand, or both, storytelling has the greatest impact when there’s empathy and relatability, which is why it’s always helpful to connect your examples to the real world.
Last November, Ikea launched an online campaign emphasizing how people enjoyed spending more time at home and connecting with family, rather than roaming the world. Hence, why not have a better home environment? Besides capturing everyday moments at home, the video called “Make Home Count” was also made entirely from footage shot at home by employees and highlights all the little moments we shouldn’t take for granted – cuddles, playtime, and work breaks.
Any new idea or innovative concept typically finds its way to the mainstream through storytelling. Identities, beliefs, and values are never better expressed than using this powerful form. It has always worked and will always be there for you when you need it.
Thank you for reading this far. Looking forward to hearing from you anytime.