Create a Cohesive Look with These 5 Storyline 360 Visual Design Pointers

Creating a cohesive visual design throughout your course is something e-learning pros spend a lot of time perfecting. Here are a few ways I ensure visual design consistency right from the start!

1. Create custom theme colors to ensure consistency

Before adding content to your slides, create a new theme color. Using theme colors ensures consistency across slides and makes it quick to change the colors throughout a project or template. 

1. Go to the Design tab 
2. Click the Colors drop-down arrow
3. Select Create New Theme Colors
4. Use the color selectors to assemble your palette
5. Enter a name for your custom theme colors
6. Click Save

Pro tip: Use the Eyedropper tool to select any color visible on your screen.

For more info, check out this article: Storyline 360: Working with Theme Colors.

2. Create new theme fonts to save design time

Avoid editing the fonts on every slide by creating a new theme font for each of your projects at the start. Theme fonts control headings, body text, questions, and answer choices. 

1. Go to the Design tab
2. Click the Fonts drop-down arrow
3. Select Create New Theme Fonts 
4. Choose a heading font and a body font
5. Enter a name for your custom theme fonts
6. Click Save

For more info, check out this article: Storyline 360: Working with Theme Fonts.

3. Use slide masters to create uniformity across slides

No need to copy and paste similar items from one slide to another. Apply the same look and feel across multiple slides easily using slide masters. 

1. Go to the View tab
2. Click Slide Master
3. Customize the slide master and layouts

Pro tip: If you have a quiz in your course, you can also customize the feedback masters to give your question feedback layers a consistent look and feel throughout your course.

For more info, check out this article: Storyline 360: Using Slide Masters.

4. Edit assets in third-party apps and save changes directly into your project

With the Media Library, you can edit project assets in a third-party app—like Photoshop—and save the updates to Storyline 360 without having to export and reimport the image. 

1. Right-click the image you want to edit
2. Scroll to Show in Media Library
3. Click the pencil icon to edit 
4. Choose an app from the list of image editors installed on your computer
5. Edit the image
6. Save your changes and close the app

For more info, check out: Editing Assets in Third-Party Apps.

5. See what the layout will look like by quickly adding placeholder text 

When you’re designing slide layouts, it can be helpful to add placeholder text to get a feel for what they’ll look like once you add your content. With Storyline 360, you don’t have to go to the web to search for lorem ipsum text to copy and paste. You can save time by using this shortcut right on your slide.

1. Insert a textbox on your slide
2. Type =lorem()
3. Hit Enter on your keyboard

Pro tip: If you want a certain number of placeholder paragraphs, enter that number in the parentheses. For example:

=lorem(3) displays 3 paragraphs.

More Ways to Save Time

These are just a few of my favorite visual design workflow tips. There is so much more you can do in Storyline 360. 

Want to save even more time? Then check out my other time-saving articles: 

• Set Yourself Up for Success with These 5 Storyline 360 Project Time-Savers 
• Crush Your To-Do List with These 6 Storyline 360 Slide-Building Tips

I’d love to hear all the different tips and tricks you use to save time. Please share your ideas below. 

 

Want to try something you learned here, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.