Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers

100 Key Concepts for Bringing Good Ideas to Life

Lyle Sandler, George Bokhua, George Bokhua, Lyle H. Sandler

• Publisher: Rockport Publishers
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9780760392461
• eBook ISBN: 9780760392478
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Advertising

Unlock the power of storytelling in design with Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers.

This essential reference offers a comprehensive exploration of storytelling techniques tailored specifically for designers. By integrating classic narrative elements—such as character, conflict, and resolution—into visual work, you can create more engaging and impactful projects.

In Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers, interdisciplinary designer, innovator, and anthropologist Lyle Sandler covers:

• Character Development: How to craft relatable and memorable personas in visual narratives.
• Plot Structure: Techniques for creating compelling arcs and engaging storylines.
• Emotional Resonance: Leveraging emotions to connect with the audience on a deeper level.
• Visual Storytelling: Utilizing design elements like color, typography, and composition to convey meaning and enhance the narrative.

The book is rich with examples from various design disciplines, including graphic design, UX/UI, and illustration. Sandler’s expertise and accessible writing style make complex concepts easy to understand and apply.

Universal Principles of Storytelling for Designers is not just another design book; it’s The Science of Storytelling for designers, a guide to transforming your design work into unforgettable stories. By mastering these storytelling principles, you can create designs that not only look good but also resonate deeply with your audience.

The titles in the Rockport Universal series offer comprehensive and authoritative information and edifying and inspiring visual examples on multidisciplinary subjects for designers, architects, engineers, students, and anyone who is interested in expanding and enriching their design knowledge.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Contents by Category
• Introduction
• 1 Affect as Information Theory: Emotion provides an important source of information for decision-making.
• 2 Allegory: A narrative that expresses an alternative or hidden meaning.
• 3 Analogy (Design by Analogy, DbA): The comparison between two things for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
• 4 Anthropomorphism: The application of human characteristics to nonhuman entities.
• 5 Archetypes: Universal patterns recognizable to all human beings.
• 6 Aspiration: The desire or ambition to achieve something.
• 7 Calls to Action: An invitation for an audience to act.
• 8 Ceremonies and Rituals: The way humans practice and observe their customs, both formally and informally.
• 9 Character Relatability: An audience’s ability to relate and draw a connection to characters in a story.
• 10 Choreography: The movement and sequencing of events, people, products, services, and experiences.
• 11 Conflict: The friction between two opposing forces.
• 12 Contrast, Beginning to End: A distinct otherness must exist between the beginning and end of your story.
• 13. Core Values: Embedded principles and beliefs that guide actions and behaviors.
• 14 Creativity: Using one’s imagination to create original ideas.
• 15 Data Storytelling: Renders data into a consumable and actionable narrative.
• 16 Deceptive Cadence: An effective and dramatic way of adding surprise to your story.
• 17 Deductions: The human technology that enables decision-making.
• 18 Deus ex Machina: The resolution of a hopeless or unexpected situation by a divine or miraculous power.
• 19 Dieter Rams’ Principles of Design: Ten principles for good design and great storytelling.
• 20 Disney’s Twelve Basic Principles of Animation: Fundamental principles of animated storytelling and character design.
• 21 Dramaturgy: The theory and practice of dramatic composition.
• 22 Emotion: The instinctive responses to external stimuli.
• 23 Empathy: The ability to understand the feelings and needs of others.
• 24 Epigraph: A brief phrase, quotation, or poem that acts as a preface to a story.
• 25 Essence Model: The basic nature of a thing—the quality or qualities that make a thing what it is.
• 26 Ethics: The standards that express what is right and what is wrong.
• 27 Exposition: An introduction to a story’s critical background information.
• 28 Foreshadowing: A warning or indication that something is about to happen.
• 29 Form and Function: Appearance and utility must be in balance.
• 30 Freytag’s Pyramid: A multistage guide to dramatic structure.
• 31 Functions of Storytelling: The multiple functions and forms of storytelling.
• 32 Gestalt: The whole of something is greater than the sum of its parts.
• 33 Happily Ever After: The end of a story, assuming stories ever end.
• 34 Hitchcock’s Rules of Visual Storytelling: Three rules to live by when telling visual stories.
• 35 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory: A guide to cultural similarities and differences.
• 36 Human Technology: Our inborn abilities that allow us to function organically.
• 37 Hyperbole: Exaggerating the mundane.
• 38 In Medias Res: A story that begins in the middle or end, not the beginning.
• 39 Infrathin: A feeling that is so small it is barely perceptible.
• 40 Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome: Two distinctly different characteristics residing in the same organism.
• 41 Jobs to Be Done: A schema that offers a perspective on why people buy or hire products, services, and experiences.
• 42 Kano and Storytelling: Determines the correlation between product features and customer satisfaction.
• 43 Kill Your Darlings: The willing removal of content and features that do not support the value of your story or design.
• 44 Kishōtenketsu: A classical narrative structure originating from Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures.
• 45 Lexicon: An upscale way of saying a list of words.
• 46 Mary’s Room: An intriguing and important thought experiment.
• 47 Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Five fundamental levels of human need.
• 48 Master Planning: Every city is a story.
• 49 Meaning versus Value: Every story should include elements of meaning, value, or both.
• 50 Mentalese: Our innermost narratives.
• 51 Metaphors: A figure of speech or expression.
• 52 Mise en Scène: Putting onto the stage | Setting of the scene | Look of the scene
• 53 Mission/Vision/Value Statements: Short stories that explain what is, what will be, and the value you bring.
• 54 Music: A metaphor for harmonious storytelling.
• 55 Narrative Design: A text-based description of your design’s experience.
• 56 Narrative Intelligence: The ability to listen, understand, and analyze narratives.
• 57 Narrative Transportation: The experience of being fully immersed in a story.
• 58 Observing: Watching humans being.
• 59 Performance: The telling of a story.
• 60 Personas: The fictional representation of real humans.
• 61 Phenomenology: The exploration of phenomena and human experience.
• 62 Pixar’s Story Structure: Eight steps to exceptional storytelling.
• 63 Plot: The sequence of events that keeps a story in motion.
• 64 Presentations: The conveyance of information from one person to another or group.
• 65 Prototyping: The sample or model of something yet-to-be-developed.
• 66 Proximity: The relationship between characters, things, and places.
• 67 Resource-Based Theory (Marketing): The story of intangibles that are irreplaceable.
• 68 Rhythm and Silence: The pace and sequencing of a story.
• 69 Rule of Three: Items grouped in three are always more memorable.
• 70 Sensemaking: Making sense of things.
• 71 Seven Basic Plots: The seminal list of familiar plots.
• 72 Seven-Point Story Structure: An alternative use for this long-standing narrative structure.
• 73 Show, Don’t Tell: An immersive storytelling technique.
• 74 Star Trek: The influence of fiction on nonfiction and vice versa.
• 75 Stickiness: When something becomes contagious, memorable, and hard to forget.
• 76 Stimulus, Organism, Response Theory (S-O-R): Stimulus drives organisms (humans) to evaluate and respond.
• 77 Stream of Consciousness: The natural and continuous flow of ideas, thoughts, feelings, and reactions within a narrative.
• 78 Super Normal: Beauty often exists in what is not present.
• 79 Synaptic Pruning: The human brain has limited capacity.
• 80 Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.
• 81 The Fichtean Curve: A story structure that focuses on conflict and crisis.
• 82 The Five Ps: Product, Price, Promotion, Place, and People.
• 83 The Hero’s Journey: The archetypal narrative pattern that traverses time, culture, and religion.
• 84 The MacGuffin: An object or device that serves as a trigger for the plot but is otherwise useless.
• 85 The Paradox of Suspense: When a suspenseful story remains compelling despite its familiarity.
• 86 The Peak End Rule: Our memory is affected around the most intense moments and the end of an experience.
• 87 The Senses: How humans interact and perceive the world around us.
• 88 The Trigger or Wicked Problem: The reasons we tell stories and design things – the why behind the what.
• 89 The Wall: The imaginary wall that sits between the teller of a story and their audience.
• 90 The Willing Suspension of Disbelief and Poetic Faith: Suspending one’s capacity for critical and logical thinking to temporarily believe in something that appears too extraordinary to be real.
• 91 Theodore Levitt and the Quarter-Inch Hole: The quarter-inch hole is one of the greatest, yet simplest, marketing theories.
• 92 Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis: A point, followed by an alternative point, followed by a solution.
• 93 Three Act Structure: The simplest structure of a story.
• 94 Tone and Tenor: Describing the overall attitude, mood, and depth of a story or design.
• 95 Transformation: Stories have two jobs: to prompt transformation and to provoke action.
• 96 Verisimilitude: The appearance of being true.
• 97 Vonnegut’s Shapes of Stories: Kurt Vonnegut’s simple yet effective story structure.
• 98 Vulnerability: Exposing one’s emotions or weaknesses.
• 99 Work Backwards: Begin writing your story from the ending.
• 100 World-Building: The world your humans, designs, and environments live in.
• Acknowledgments
• About the Designers
• About the Author
• Index
• Copyright