The 5 R’s of Storytelling:
How might a visually strong story help organizations achieve their goals?
Crafting a visual approach for donor engagement for Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)
Editor: Melissa Lara Clissold
As a visual designer who has been working for over 6 years on a vast array of projects, I have noticed that I am often able to design a visual world — and tell a story — a lot better when I am involved in projects from the beginning to end. It is for this reason that when I learned that I would be working on a project with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in April 2020 as a project member, as opposed to just a visual designer, I was thrilled. This is the approach that we are trying to adapt at ATÖLYE; where storytellers are involved throughout. A good story, and better yet, a good visual story can go a long way.
Being able to explore MAPS’ work surrounding the use of psychedelics as a form of therapy, sparked my interest: I was to help them share their story through the form of a presentation so that they could gain the financial support they needed to carry on their work.
We were to create a visual world with the help of Funda Çevik Dinsdale, another visual designer on our team, and use storytelling as a method to help MAPS achieve their goals. This article will focus on exactly that: how a visually strong story can help organizations achieve their goals. I will share a brief background to the project, details on the scope, our approach to the project in general, the steps we took towards creating the visual world/story of MAPS through 5 key takeaways, and finally the outcomes of the project. Firstly though, let’s briefly return to 2020 in order to understand this project from a broader perspective.
A brief background
The digitalization of the business landscape that occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic throughout 2020 has not only changed the way we work but has also changed the industries that we work with compared to previous years. One of the new industries that we tapped into is the pharmaceutical industry. Pharma, like all other industries, is also changing as a result of the pandemic: people are now able to attend virtual doctor visits, barriers in the supply change are being removed, new workforce strategies are being created, and different consumer behaviors are evolving.
It was during this time that MAPS reached out to us. It was to be the first project we were to carry out with a pharmaceutical company. Since we had no previous healthcare industry experience, we were going to have to learn a lot along the way: this was indeed to be a journey.
The Project Scope
It was in March of 2020 (the month that Turkey entered lockdown and we all began to work remotely) that Federico Menapace, the Director of Strategy at MAPS contacted ATÖLYE. MAPS wanted us to design a pitch deck (a presentation) to help share their story of how they were working on developing MDMA-Assisted therapy into a prescription treatment. The deck was going to be used for raising funds for the last (third) phase of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clinical trials. Since the US government had criminalized all uses of psychedelics and shut down all psychedelic research in the 1970s, and since the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had criminalized all uses of MDMA, it is novel that MAPS is now in the last stage of its approval. As ATÖLYE, we were to undertake the task of designing the fundraising deck to be used for fundraising purposes and to help MAPS raise the last $9M they needed to complete the FDA trials.
Rick Doblin founded MAPS in 1986 as a “non-profit research and educational organization that develops medical, legal, and cultural contexts for people to benefit from the careful uses of psychedelics and marijuana.” Doblin aimed to bring MDMA-Assisted therapy back through science, medicine, and the FDA drug development process. As it states on the MAPS website itself:
“We are studying whether MDMA-assisted therapy can help heal the psychological and emotional damage caused by sexual assault, war, violent crime, and other traumas. We are also studying MDMA-assisted therapy for autistic adults with social anxiety and MDMA-assisted therapy for people with anxiety related to life-threatening illnesses.”
For the scope of our project, we were going to focus specifically on MDMA-assisted therapy for people who have PTSD. These people have survived some of the most difficult experiences a human being can endure; we were to help tell their story of recovery and pave the way, hopefully, to more people being able to benefit from MAPS’ work and research.
Our Approach
First, we came together as a team before the project started in order to be aligned on the vision of the project. The initial team consisted of a project manager, a communication designer, and two visual communication designers. After our first meeting with Federico Menapece, whom we worked with throughout the project, we came up with three steps about how to approach their ask:
- Assess and utilize the information that is out there: Digest the presentations (700-page-long) that the MAPS teams had presented to us from 1986 and decide what content could be implemented into the new deck.
- Come up with new approaches: Synthesize the information gathered from the people we were to interview.
- Create a fresh visual world and craft content: Design a comprehensible visual world with our own twist, since MAPS did not have a branding guideline.
My job was to focus on number three whilst using the outcomes of one and two as inspiration. I set off by conducting some more research — which is also the first “R” of storytelling.
- Research
In addition to the 700-page-long deck they had presented, and the interviews we were to conduct, I wanted to get a deeper understanding of the background behind MAPS. So, I started my desktop research by watching Rick Doblin’s TED Talk. I learned that psychedelics were just a tool used in the process of treatment and therapy. If they are used therapeutically, they may reduce the fear of accessing difficult emotions. Allowing people to access their emotions, helps treat the root cause, not the symptoms of psychological trauma. In the same way, if a person who has PTSD uses psychedelics unwisely (without assisted-therapy), past traumas might flood into the awareness of that person, and may intensify difficult emotions. It is for this reason that providing access to these psychedelics in a safe environment under the assistance of experts is vital: in this way, people can truly benefit from the positive and therapeutic effects of these drugs.
It was going to be vital to break the prejudice that most people, including potential future donors, had against psychedelics. Psychedelics were not being used for recreational purposes at home or otherwise. This was a very serious undertaking. MDMA was being used to treat PTSD in 3 x 8-hour therapy sessions with two facilitators in addition to 12 other preparatory and integration sessions. The only way we could break these prejudices was to share with the world real healing stories of those who had recovered from PTSD because of this method of therapy and MAPS’ holistic approach.
2. Remember: Come up with your “big idea”
Before setting off to create the visual world of MAPS and tell its story, I reminded myself of this question: “What is one thing we want people to remember after this presentation is finished?” In fact, this question is essential for any presentation; because the answer to this question is your “big idea.” This is also one of the most important methods used in storytelling. You can share your big idea with the world either by telling a personal story, or calling attention to it directly by stating: “We have an issue and this is important, let’s dive deep into it.”
To come up with our own “big idea”, as I mentioned before, we first started to read and extract content from the 700-page long deck that MAPS had given us (the one from 1986). We were overwhelmed with information since we were not familiar with the issue. However, after conducting several interviews with people from diverse backgrounds, we agreed that our big idea would be to show the donors that they would be “investing in the future.” They were going to be investing in the future because:
“All in all, violence creates trauma and trauma creates violence and MDMA-assisted therapy has a big potential to break the loop.”
We had to show the donors that their funds would help break that loop of violence — creating a healthier (and more peaceful) future for all. To do this, we decided that we needed to create a presentation that would not bombard the audience with information. MAPS did indeed have a rich background, had conducted important research full of scientific and technical terms; but we had to make the audience feel the difference that MAPS was creating, learn what they might — and could — potentially be contributing to.
3. Refine: Don’t overcomplicate things
We thus chose to balance technical knowledge and stories so that we could paint a clear picture of the future that the donors want to be a part of, as well as potentially shape themselves. We were careful to separate the important information from the unimportant. This mindset also helped direct us towards choosing to keep the detailed information that people may need in the appendix section.
We knew that important statistics, images, photos of real people, and a simple design would work best to get the message across. Defining where exactly we would use illustrative visuals and photographs (for the stories) vs. where we would use wireframes and tables (to make definitions and technical details clearer) was important. Illustrations would be used to showcase what MAPS was all about, photography to share real-life stories, and wireframes to depict structures in place.
4. Re-design: Use different colors and fonts to highlight important stats/details
Also, since MAPS had no up-to-date brand guideline, we created a typography set and color palette inspired by its logo and website; we did not want to lose time by coming up with a new color/font set. We used color codes for specific pages so that the presentation would not be lost in technical details but rather focus on compelling designs and illustrations that would be compatible with the brand.
For the typography, we decided to use Helvetica Bold (already present on their website) for the titles and numbers. We then chose to add Garamond as an additional font; Garamond has strong legibility in small font sizes and has a humane sense which is perfect for big messages and stories. Having a consistent brand theme would help with keeping the audience in a flow without being jarred too much by over-complicated and over-the-top colors/fonts. We chose green in addition to the gray and green to reflect that feeling of “healing and growth” in natural ways, through medicine. Also, instead of using a bold “red” color for important stats, we chose to use “coral” to soften the “critical stats”.
All of this was thought about carefully so that we could ensure that donors truly understand the reason that MAPS exist. MAPS states that “the current way to treat mental disorders is deeply insufficient.” We wanted people to understand that:
“6–10% of people develop PTSD in their whole life and only half of them respond adequately to the treatment, the majority do not receive help. Beyond that, despite U.S. psychiatric drugs spending has nearly quadrupled over the 15-yr period from 1999 to 2014, the suicide rates have steadily increased.”
The message was clear: If you help, then these people can and will receive help.
5. Relate: People want to hear real-life stories
The most important slides in our deck were the ones in which we tried to show the neurological effects of MDMA through the real-life healing stories experienced throughout the PTSD-treatment that veteran Sgt. Jonathan Lubecky, lead MAPS Therapist and Trainer Marcela Ot’alora, and police officer Nick Watchorn went through. Using up-close images of real-people (alongside quotes) is an incredibly effective way to grab the audience’s attention on an emotional level. It allows us to think “That could be me, my mother/father, friend, sister/brother” etc. We also chose to share stories of people from a diverse group of backgrounds in order to keep our audience as wide as possible. In addition to close-up photography, we used photos of individuals during their sessions (which we will not share here due to respecting the privacy of those individuals).
We wanted to show the donors that their financial support would truly go towards helping many more people. The real-life stories, balanced with technical information and stats, made MAPS’ case stronger than ever.
In this day and age, where people’s attention span is close to none, being able to grab people’s attention is difficult. But when emotion is combined with information; then you can truly reach someone’s heart. If we had presented only stats without visuals, some donors may have still had the image of the hippie in their heads. But seeing real-life people who have been suffering, truly heal because of MDMA-Assisted therapy: that’s when perspectives can change, as well as the future.
Outcomes
Before the project started, the word “psychedelic” had brought the concepts of hippies, ravers, mind expansion, acid graphics, and Timothy Leary to my mind. Obviously, we were not going to use the visuals that come up when you search for “psychedelic” on Google in our project. When the project was over, however, the concept of “psychedelics” had changed for me. We knew that changing these perspectives and breaking prejudices was vital.
At the end of the project, we handed over a comprehensive visually rich deck that MAPS could use for their future endeavors; not only to tell their story but also to garner support for their cause. After our initial presentation of the deck, we read the positive comments from the MAPS team shared with us by Fede. This made us incredibly happy as we knew that we had been able to help achieve their goal to tell their story and gain financial support.
From my perspective, as a designer who is not usually a fan of working on presentations/deck visualization, I actually realized that deciding on the purpose behind techniques used to tell a story can be quite rewarding. Especially if you are working towards a positive impact: in this case the recovery of individuals who have PTSD. In addition to the satisfaction of working towards a positive impact, carrying out a project that was focusing on public-health (mental health in particular) during the pandemic, made it even more relevant. It is evident that millions of people worldwide need mental health support more now than ever. I hope that we will continue to carry out more such projects in the upcoming years; seeing such projects gain traction gives me hope for the future.
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5 Key takeaways
- Research: Dive deep into the story of your client; in this way, you can come up with a more sincere form of communication.
- Remember: Come up with your “big idea”: What is the one thing you want the audience to leave with? Prototype your story with multiple groups and narrow it.
- Refine: Don’t overcomplicate things: Balance the use of text, quotations, quotes, wireframes, photos, videos, and illustrations throughout the presentation.
- Re-design: Use different colors and fonts to highlight important stats/details: Stick to a color palette and use certain typographies. Don’t go crazy with hundreds of different colors/fonts. Try and find typographies and colors that reflect your story and brand.
- Relate: People want to hear real-life stories: Share stories of real people with real problems; Being able to create an emotional reaction in your audience will help them see your cause.
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I’d like to thank Ali Özgür Arslan, Engin Ayaz, Federico Menapace, and Melissa Lara Clissold for their valuable contributions. I’d also like to hear different opinions — please feel free to leave questions and ideas in the comments section below.
