During the first phases of the build. We used concept imagery to imagine where our key narrative elements would live in the space.
I led narrative/story design for Meow Wolf’s Las Vegas exhibition Omega Mart. Have you been? The story is deep, complicated, and, arguably, a key reason the exhibition has been so successful!
A story doesn’t have to mean characters and a beginning, middle, and end. Story is the why for the audience: why am I here and why should I care? When I work as a creative director for a brand activation or interactive experience, I always start with story.
Are you asking the right story questions in order to make your experience stand out AND stick?
Here are some of the most important things I learned about story from designing Omega Mart.
When the audience is IN the story, as opposed to passively viewing/reading, then good storytelling is really good experience design. Before you do anything else, define your audience experience goals: what do you want them to feel, do, see, hear, and leave with?
Onboarding is everything. How are you quickly and effectively introducing the audience to the story and the stakes and teaching them how to consume the experience?
Who is the audience in the experience? Do they need to pretend to be someone they’re not in the outside world? Do they need to have any special information to enjoy the experience? Make sure they understand how to “play.”
Your visuals and environment are your most powerful storytelling clues. Don’t expect to layer a story onto the built environment after the fact– bake it in.
Mystery and intrigue are your friend. Human brains are wired to look for cues and want to solve a puzzle.
Design for all levels of interest and attention. Some people just want to take a good selfie, others want to engage deeply with your content and world. Give a variety of entrance points to go deeper while not shutting anyone out.
If you’re using characters, make them bold, with strong wants and needs that are easy for audiences to hook into. It’s much harder to follow a character arc in a physical environment, especially if the experience is non-linear. Check out this incredible video for one of our characters, Marin, done in collaboration with Beach House.
If your experience IS non-linear but you do want the audience to walk away with some understanding of a story arc, map out how and where story beats show up so you make sure they can be pieced together. Consider the emotional arc of your experience and how you’d like visitors to feel by the end.
Blurring fact and fiction can be fun and create lots of good buzz, as long as there is a wink and a nod to the fact that we’re playing. We’re living in a world of endless conspiracy theories. Tread lightly!
Did I miss anything here? Let me know how you thinking about story when you’re designing an experience.