♦♦♦[ART] STRIDE: Kill the Myth of Single-Image Storytelling Before It Kills Your Art

Think a single painting tells a story? Then try writing your screenplay on a single Post-it note. Hope lives—Visual Cues trick viewers into finishing your story themselves. They'll thank you, too.

The STRIDE System: Visual Storytelling for Artists Who Actually Want to Connect

Last spring, I walked through a Syd Mead gallery show. Stunning work—worlds of pure wonder, technically exquisite. And they left me visually stimulated and impressed. But emotionally? Cool as an arctic breeze. I didn't see myself anywhere in those gleaming futures. I didn't invest in a single soul partying in those scenes. And I love Syd Mead’s work.

But, deep down, that's the problem with most "visual storytelling.” It’s spectacle without substance.

Thinking in Images is our business. Cues drive imagination. Multiple (Sequential) Images drive story. Here’s Ian adding to my notes on “thinking in shots.” ©CMH

The Lie That's Killing Illustration (and ‘Design’)

Here's what every art instructor tells you: "Great art tells stories." Ellen Lupton even wrote an entire book called Design Is Storytelling. She's dead wrong. Maybe if she'd written a screenplay first, she'd understand that storytelling isn't slapping visual elements together and calling it narrative.

Real story is "somebody somewhere wants something so bad they're willing to charge into hell to get it, or die trying." Character, plot, worldbuilding, theme, style. All of it. And thinking you can nail that in a single painting without any story training? That's the pinnacle of arrogance.

I've watched countless artists pretend they’re cramming plot points into a single illustration like they're fulfilling each and every beat of Campbell’s “hero’s journey.” The result? Visual chaos that confuses everyone, including the artist who made it.

What Artists Don't Understand About Stories

Amazing illustrators don't know jack shit about storytelling. Some do. Most don’t. Most artists don't understand story structure, are unaware of the complexity of real storytelling, and mistakenly believe they can convey a full story in a single image. It's ignorant. It's ill-informed.

Stories require the passage of time. Beginning, middle, end. Character desire driving narrative momentum. A single illustration exists outside time—it's frozen. So why are we treating illustration like it works the same way as film or novels?

Here's what makes me angry:

artists with incredible technical skill who think they can freestyle the narrative.

They don't understand even the simplest forms of story structure. They've never studied character, plot, worldbuilding, theme, or style. But somehow they're confident they'll "get it right" in their painting.

Time for a little humility, folks.

What You're Actually Doing (When It Works)

When your illustration connects, when it makes someone stop scrolling and actually feel something, you're not telling a story. You're triggering inference.

You're providing visual cues that guide your viewer's imagination so they write their own story—the exact story you intended them to write. It's what Scott McCloud calls closure. The magic that happens in comic gutters. Your viewer completes the narrative in their head, and that creates satisfaction.

Get it right and your viewer is captivated. Get it wrong and they shrug and say, "I'm not sure I get what this artist was trying to say." That's failure.

The STRIDE System

STRIDE turns illustration into what it should be: a compelling puzzle. You're not documenting reality—you're engineering inference. Every mark, every color choice, every compositional decision is a puzzle piece designed to trigger the exact story you want blooming in your viewer's mind. The better your skills, the more your vision and your viewer’s will align.

Just like learning perspective requires systematic progression—see, organize, represent, enhance, invent—visual storytelling needs its own system.

S - SEED (Your Story Foundation)

Define your minimal narrative in one sentence: "A [character] [wants/faces] [specific thing] in [context]."

This isn't the whole story. It's the foundation your viewer's imagination will build on. You're not explaining everything—you're providing the starting point for their inference.

T - TARGET (What You Want Them to Feel)

Specify exactly what you want to trigger: "Feel [emotion], imagine [situation]."

My goal isn't pretty pictures. It's creating visual experiences that scratch the emotion itch, the intellectual itch, AND the aesthetic itch all at once. Be specific about both the emotional and narrative response you're engineering.

R - RANK (Your Primary Visual Cue)

Choose ONE element that will carry your core emotional and narrative weight. Maybe it's an expression, a gesture, a scale relationship, or a perfectly timed moment of tension.

Multiple primary cues fragment attention. Your viewer's brain can only process one dominant signal at a time. Choose wisely.

I - ISOLATE (Make It Impossible to Miss)

Engineer visual dominance for your primary cue through contrast, position, or clarity. If it's not the most prominent thing in your image, it's not doing its job.

This is where technique serves psychology. Every lighting choice, every color decision, every compositional element should amplify your primary cue.

D - DIRECT (Control the Journey)

Plan exactly where attention lands first and how it moves through your image. Where does the eye go next? What path guides it through supporting elements? Where does focus ultimately rest?

Uncontrolled viewing patterns lead to scattered inference and weakened emotional response. Guide the journey deliberately.

E - ELIMINATE (Cut the Noise)

Remove everything that doesn't serve your inference target. This includes visual distractions, competing focal points, and unnecessary detail complexity.

Elimination is often more powerful than addition. What's the minimum you need to maintain the intended response?

How to Use It

The framework functions as pre-execution planning, not reactive problem-solving. Each step requires specific commitment:

1. Can you state your story seed in one clear sentence?

2. Can you name the exact emotion and situation you want to trigger?

3. Can you identify your single primary cue?

4. Will your primary cue be the most visually prominent element?

5. Does your planned eye path follow your intended hierarchy?

6. What's the minimum you need to maintain the intended response?

These questions force you to think like both an artist AND a storyteller before you start making marks.

Testing Your Work

Show your finished piece to viewers without context. Ask what they feel and what they imagine is happening. Compare their responses to your target specifications.

Cover everything except your primary cue. Does the core emotional and narrative response remain intact? If yes, your hierarchy works. If no, your cue isn't strong enough.

Systematically remove elements until the intended response begins to weaken. This identifies your true minimum viable image.

The Ultimate Aim

This isn't about constraint—it's about intention. STRIDE reduces your cognitive load, helps you make decisions. Focusing your creative energy on guiding your viewer’s assumptions and interpretations. Guiding their inference chain.

When you stop forcing illustration to be something it isn’t, when you let go of the vague idea of "storytelling" and focus on visual cues instead, your work gets easier, simpler, and more powerful.

You create images that captivate people. Filling their heads with dreams and maybe even nightmares. Images built collaboratively. A common narrative experience. Images that connect.

At the end of it all, beautiful emptiness ain’t enough. Art should matter. Resonating far beyond its frame. Art must mean something. And engineering human experience, inpiring a flush of emotions, is the highest skill.

Powerful illustrations don’t tell us what to think. They trigger cascades of imagination in OUR heads. Great artists trick us into turning the final page ourselves. Stop dazzling, start mattering.

Charles Merritt Houghton

17 September 2025

I was deeply inspired by Mitchell K.

He’s on YouTube. He’s a photographer. He doesn’t lie to himself.

Find out more here:

Resource Guide: Mitchell Kanashkevich's Visual Cues Method

Why Mitchell Matters for Visual Artists

While this framework focuses on illustration and single-image storytelling, the foundational insights were inspired by photographer Mitchell Kanashkevich's work on visual cues. Like me, Mitchell also had a revelation: single images don't tell stories. Stories are triggered, in the viewer’s mind, by a series of visual cues. This sharpened my views on visual narrative.

Mitchell works in photography. I work in art, story, and education. But the psychological principles of how viewers process visual information remain the same across mediums. His insights about cue hierarchy, viewer inference, and emotional triggers apply whether you're capturing reality or creating it from imagination.

Essential Mitchell Kanashkevich Resources

Core Video: The Visual Cues Method

"The ONE Thing That Will Transform Your Photography (It's Not What You Think)"

• YouTube:

• Why it matters: This is where Mitchell demolishes the "photos tell stories" myth and introduces the visual cues framework that inspired STRIDE.

• Key insight: The difference between storytelling (sequential, time-based) and story evocation (single-image, inference-based).

Mitchell's Website & Learning Platform

Website:

https://www.mitchellk.com/

• Courses on visual cues methodology

• In-depth tutorials on inference engineering

• Case studies analyzing how specific images trigger narrative response

Follow Mitchell's Work

Instagram: @mitchellkphotography

• Real-time examples of visual cues in action

• Behind-the-scenes thinking on cue selection and hierarchy

YouTube Channel: Mitchell Kanashkevich

• Extended tutorials on the visual cues method

• Analysis of iconic photographs through the cues lens

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