Select Image to Launch Demo
This week’s E-Learning Heroes Challenge is to come up with a “Top 10” list of things you’d tell someone about Storyline. You can collect your favorite resource links and curate them any way you’d like.
I basically took everything that I normally say to someone who asks me about Storyline, put it all together with appropriate links, and tied a bow on it. (Not unlike last week’s challenge where I did the same for what I tell future freelancers.)
Main Menu
The Design
One advantage of the gallery layout on my blog is that I can instantly see what sort of design I should do to contrast with my recent work. Since my last two entries haven’t had vibrant color palettes, and since spring is officially here, I went for bright and springy with a little bit of silliness and a little bit of elegance.
I also didn’t want a main menu with squares or buttons that linked to the 10 points. I wanted the menu to be a creative, vibrant, graphic embodiment of the theme. Once I made that decision, the idea for the springing-up flowers came easily.
Content Page #2
Main Menu Flowers: I wanted flower shapes that I could fill with photo captures from their related content pages. So I took out my trusty Wacom tablet and started drawing the basic outlines of the flowers, stems, and leaves. I did it in Storyline by going to Insert > Shape > Lines > Scribble and drew them right on the slide.
Then I adjusted the outline weight and color and did a picture background fill for each shape using a tight capture from each of the larger flower photos.
To make the flowers pop in their hover states, I increased the weight of the flower’s outline by a pixel or two, and increased the size of each flower by about 4 pixels in width and height.
Content Page #5
Audio: The sound effects for the flowers are two different sounds on top of each other. One’s a pop and one’s a spring. The singing birds are a piece of audio that I looped. I knew it was possible, but had never done it before. A quick Google search took me to this simple how-to. (Thanks, David!)
Content Page Colors: To get colors for my text, fills, and outlines that went perfectly with the flower images, I used the heck out of the eyedropper tool.
Photos: They’re all from Microsoft Clipart. I wanted big, clean, bold, colorful images.
Fonts: I’ve used the title font, Blue Chucks, a couple of times lately. Same with the paragraph font Copse. When you’re a cute font, you’re gonna get used.
Content Page #9
The Content
It is what it is! This is what I tell people who ask, and these are the resources I direct them to.
That was beautiful, and very informative, I love it!
Thank you, Dan! It was a lot of fun to create, too. :)
Love it! Thanks for the shout out to Ron and Yukon Learning!
Thanks so much, Brooke! I’m glad you like it. The shout out is well-deserved for you and Ron and Yukon. I had a full-day pre-conference workshop with you guys at Learning Solutions two years ago, then another one last year, and I heard nothing but rave reviews from those who attended your workshops this year, too. What can you do? You guys are just good. :)
This is great Jackie, as always. I learn so much from your blog posts about how you create the final product. I’m not sure how I would survive without the eyedropper – don’t you just love it!
Thank you, Dianne! Whenever I’m in a program that doesn’t have the eyedropper tool I just end up entering endless RGB or hex codes to get the custom colors I want. The eyedropper rules! :)
Hi Jackie! I found your work on the eLearning Heroes site and started following your blog. I love the projects you post! I just recently switched to eLearning development from a career in newspaper page design and am trying to improve my skills. I am really enjoying the projects you’re creating for the challenges. I’m hoping to post some of my own responses to the challenges in the coming months!
Hi Lindsey! I’m so glad you found me and my blog. (And congrats on getting your own blog going!) I’m really happy you like my projects and I hope you’ll jump in with your own entries soon. When I put in my first challenge entry, which was just a couple of months ago, I didn’t think I had any time. But I made the decision to do it once, and now I’m completely addicted to the fun of it. You can do it! I’m looking forward to seeing you in the challenges – and thank you so much for getting in touch!