Platforms for visual multimedia stories
Intro
This is a list of platforms that you might consider using, I suggest you browse them all and try a few out. No ‘template’ platform is going to be perfect and allow you to do everything you really want — so it’s about finding the one that you can customize closest to your vision.
Another thing to do is to look through all the examples or featured projects on each platform as this will give you a good idea about which kind of stories each platform is more suited to. Plus, this exercise itself will really give lots of ideas and inspiration about how to tell your story.
If you are opting for a more conventional continuous linear multimedia package, you’ll probably want to stick to one of the more simple platforms and can look through a few to see which design style you prefer and would best showcase your story. If you are going for this approach, I suggest you spend plenty of time going through the articles in the Craft blog. Many of the tips they suggest are also adaptable to other platforms. https://shorthand.com/the-craft/
For those wanting to try a more comprehensive or immersive approach, it’s worth exploring and testing your idea on a few different platforms. Students have had good results with ReadyMag and Wix.
Unless you have someone who can code and really tailor your story design to your vision you will have to compromise a little, but usually, there will be a platform that allows you to execute the bulk of your vision.
Before or after you explore the platforms, this is a ‘must-read’ it collates some great and contemporary digital journalism and also gives you advice on how to build similar projects with accessible tools.
Template-based platforms for non-coders
- Wix — Free and very flexible, we’ve had some students use it really creatively for both single-page scrolling stories and more project-based websites.
- Student examples: https://dayanyan1224.wixsite.com/projecta | https://945053644.wixsite.com/onlineeducation
- Shorthand — We have the University account — a great platform.
- Student examples: https://social.shorthand.com/hilary_pan/uyKoRpU0q6/ghost-cities-in-a-sm | https://preview.shorthand.com/xw41A03rw0YlXBYP | https://preview.shorthand.com/JBHY1YQx8rD906OP
- Readymag — We’ve had plenty of students use this very successfully (the free version is limited to 10 pages — We purchased a year pro version last year and I can pay to extend if people will use it!
- More Student Examples: Wavering Shadows https://readymag.com/IMMJ/2262026/ | https://readymag.com/u894321801/2178442/ | https://readymag.com/IMMJ/2174117/
- Sway Very easy to use for building a one-pager. Upload video, text, audio, tweets, etc. It’s easy to embed. Check out this example — which is a little unusual for its horizontal design and could be nice for certain stories.
- Pageflow — Looks nice, but not free and probably over budget for students — no real advantages over Shorthand.
- WordPress — There are stacks of themes for websites or single page stories
- StoryMap — Plenty of stories evolve around geographical locations. Knight Lab made Storymap. This tool helps telling stories with photos, text, and video on maps. For example, The Washington Post made a story about Islamic State with this tool. It can be a little confusing to navigate unless the audience is familiar.
- Storyform — Free (with limited templates) for one story per month.
- Stellar — a free storytelling app, which lets you create photo, video, and text stories with an emphasis on design. It creates a visual and virtual storybook similar to insta stories — that can be shared across many social media networks. Not a suitable tool for an entire story in most cases but possible as an additional tool — or one for building social sharing content? I embedded a stellar on this page as a demo: https://immj.shorthandstories.com/steller-embed-trial/index.html. Read more here https://medium.com/@Katie_Hill/what-is-steller-all-about-f47424a2d77b
- Thinglink — More of a tool than a platform. We have a University account for those interested.
- Adobe Spark — Limited in terms of customization flexibility, but nice for simple stories. Very easy to use. I made a test here
- Verse — Make an interactive video. This is a rea very different approach — one student that used it said it can be tricky with China's internet speeds. Still, it’s worth taking a look, you may need some patience but could be perfect for some stories. Let me know if you try or find a Chinese alternative.
- Student examples: https://www.verse.com/stories/1491-at-the-gates-of-an-island/
- Moovley — Mostly for making graphic explainer videos
- Klynt — perfect for non-linear visual stories — this is a software that will take a little time investment to learn (that would be included in your 200 study hours so your reporting may be more simple). It’s expensive — but we may be able to negotiate an education edition in case anyone is interested.
- Exposure — free version is limited but it’s not too costly (no longer recommended as you need to pay to embed video content)
- Medium — Simple but could be very effective
- Maptia — Beautiful for text and photo but so far no option for video content.
Others I haven’t checked in detail:
- https://webflow.com/
- https://carrd.co/ — free and worth exploring for a simple project
- Weebly — seems similar to WIX
- https://www.moovly.com/
Platforms for students with some level of coding skills
If you can code you might want to code your own platform or look at some more customizable platforms/templates for multimedia storytelling
Coming soon — keep an eye on
