Exploring Storyboarding Tools and Techniques

Exploring Storyboarding Tools and Techniques

There are many different tools and techniques, to use whilst creating a storyboard. The main tool we use for creating storyboards is PowerPoint; this can coincide with tools such as the Wacom tablet or the SurfacePro. When used together you can draw your storyboard with precision and ease.

We use these so that you can draw an image of an idea that you are visualizing your head to your exact details. This makes showing your ideas to your client very easy as they can see exactly what you have in mind for their eLearning material. A traditional way you could do this is by getting a piece of paper and drawing with a pencil the ideas you have in your head, you could do it there and then in the meeting with the client, this would be a rough sketch that is a very basic showing of what your idea is, this is to give the client a feel for where their project is heading towards. You could create a storyboard using this method of pencil and paper and then scan the paper in to the computer and work from that, or redraw it on the computer once you have completed it.

We like to use PowerPoint, PowerPoint has been the number one use for presentations for many years now and is very user friendly, it is part of the Microsoft Office package and a standard in many companies. You can easily add notes and comments to your presentation/storyboard in this case, you can also print handouts, save as pdf and many more. All of this makes PowerPoint the perfect software to make our storyboards on.

The Wacom tablet is a graphic tablet that you can use to draw straight in to Photoshop/illustrator/PowerPoint. There are many different nib ends for the pens that come with it which means you can draw with pinpoint precision. I would recommend anyone who designs or has to plan/create storyboards to use one as it combines the traditional method of pen and paper and brings that to the computer, cutting out the middle man of re drawing it or scanning it meaning you can efficient with your time whilst working on a project or whilst you are in meetings.

The SurfacePro combines the two, you can draw on to it as it is a tablet computer, along with PowerPoint built in to it which means you’d only need one device. This is an excellent tool to use when going to discuss a project with a client, because it’s portable you can take it to any meeting anywhere, draw your design and input project ideas without the need to transfer, use a graphic tablet.

The way we set out our storyboards is by having the plan in the beginning as in it’s text saying the themes, aims and objectives the information that is needed for the project. We then move on to drawing and sketching what will be on each page, we do this so that when it comes to designing the page on the software, you aren’t stuck for ideas or what to do as you have already pre planned what is going to go where. At the end of the storyboard we have review dates so we can discuss with the client how they are finding the project so far and if they require any additional pages/info or if they want any changes. Showing the engaging elements is also something we do, we can look back on this and evaluate how the project went, what ideas were used and if they were a good addition to use in future projects too.