Storyboards are a fast easy way to get across linear concepts.  You might find them more useful then Powerpoint or one of the other presentation type tools, because it allows you to take concepts and animate them to create a story format, which is easy for your viewers to understand.   Everyone likes a good bedtime story, oh wait, you’re not trying to put them to sleep… I take it all back.

1. Storyboarding Tools

Here is a quick list of some of the best and easiest to use storyboarding tools available.

Powerproduction

Powerporduction is a powerhouse of a tool.  You can create and integrate fully animated storyboards using text, images, video and audio; everything but color copies!  Of course, it also has a full animation tool as well, for creating your own personal imagery. Wink wink; PERSONAL imagery.

Atomic Learning StoryBoard Pro  

Atomic Learning’s Storyboarding Pro is a great tool, because it’s free. Who doesn’t like free?! It has a simplistic tutorial system that will get you up and running and demonstrate some of the ways you can start using storyboarding immediately.  Maybe you can teach your kindergartener to do it for you!

Toon Boom StoryBoard Pro

Toon Boom’s entry into the Storyboarding market is fun and easy to use.  Although not as powerful as some of the offerings out there,(“I’m givin’ her all she’s got Captain!”) it is a good middle of the road product that has a user-friendly interface.

Storyboard tools range in price from free to several hundred dollars.  If you want to try out Storyboarding before you invest heavily check out Atomic Learning StoryBoard Pro.  It is free and fairly simple to use.

2. Why Use Them

Storyboards should be used when you are trying to get your presentation to animate multiple images or when you are trying to demonstrate a complex idea that has multiple steps of pieces.

Great moments to use a storyboard versus a standard presentation

·         Instructional Design Templates

·         Web Layout Designs

·         Documenting a Business Process

·         Brainstorming Business Problems (Storyboard out how various solutions may play out.)

Use storyboarding to animate multiple images from a concept of process to make an easy to understand story, that your readers can follow.

Two Quick Things to Remember about Storyboarding

1. Storyboard tools range in price from free to several hundred dollars.  If you want to try out Storyboarding before you invest heavily check out Atomic Learning StoryBoard Pro.  It is free and fairly simple to use.

2. Use storyboarding to animate multiple images from a concept of process to make an easy to understand story, that your readers can follow.