What Is a Storyboard? Types, Examples, and How to Create One

So, what is a storyboard? It is a sequence of images that maps out a video before anyone animates or films a frame of it. Each panel shows one moment on screen, paired with a note about the action, the dialogue, or the timing. Put together, the panels are a visual plan for the finished piece.

Your audience never sees it. It may still be the most important step in your production.

A storyboard sits between your script and your visuals. The script tells you what gets said. The storyboard decides what gets shown, in what order, and for how long. Skip it and you find out during animation, which is the most expensive place to discover a structural problem.

We have produced storyboards for hundreds of animation projects since 2015, from six-panel sketches to 32-slide frame-by-frame sequences. This guide covers what they are, the five types, real examples from finished projects, and a process you can follow yourself.

A six-panel storyboard from a healthcare careers animation.

Storyboarding was pioneered at Disney in the 1930s and 40s. Walt and his team realized that short animations could be pulled off on instinct, but anything longer needed scene-by-scene planning and a shared visual reference the whole team could argue over before the expensive work started.

Disney's own account of the process still describes it the same way.

The logic has not changed. Making a video without a storyboard is a cross-country drive with no route planned. You might enjoy the first hour.

Here is how to create a storyboard the way we do it on client work. It scales down for a two-minute explainer and up for a 30-module eLearning series.

1. Finish your script first. Do not storyboard a script you are still rewriting. Every structural change to the script invalidates panels you have already drawn. Lock the script, then board it. If you have not written it yet, start with our guide to writing a video script.

2. Break the script into scenes. Read it aloud and mark every place the visual needs to change. That is your panel count. Most 90-second explainers land somewhere between 12 and 25 panels.

3. Choose your storyboard type. Text-based, simple illustrated, complex illustrated, or frame by frame. The right choice depends on your budget, how settled the concept is, and how much detail your illustrator needs. The next section covers all five.

4. Draft the panels. One moment per panel. Do not try to show motion inside a single frame. If a scene has three beats, it needs three panels.

5. Write the accompanying notes. Every panel needs the action described in words, even when the sketch is clear. Notes are what the illustrator and animator actually work from.

6. Review with the right expectations set. Tell reviewers what stage they are looking at and what you want feedback on. More on this below, because getting this wrong wastes more time than any other step.

7. Revise, then build an animatic if the project needs one. An animatic is the storyboard cut to timing with audio. It is where you find pacing problems while they are still cheap to fix.

There are five types of storyboards, roughly in order of effort. Each one builds on the last.

A written description of what appears on screen, scene by scene. No drawing involved.

These give an illustrator loose but clear direction, and they are the fastest way to get a plan on paper. We often pair the text with reference images pulled from around the web, not to copy but to establish tone.

The easiest build is a vertical table in Word or Google Docs. Label your scenes, describe the action, add reference images where they help.

If you are managing a production but not doing the art yourself, a well-written text storyboard handed to your illustrator is worth more than a bad sketch.

A text-based storyboard for a patient education animation, produced for Hackensack Meridian Health.

Rough sketches. Loose enough to draw quickly, clear enough to show scene structure.

These work best early in a project or when you expect big changes. If your sketches are loose enough, you may be able to draw them yourself. Even doodles benefit from someone who understands pacing, though, so if you are not confident shaping rhythm and tone, bring in a professional.

Simple illustrated panels from an organ donation awareness animation.

Describe what is happening in each panel even here. Sketches this loose will not carry nuance or emotion, but they lay out the plot, and that is the job at this stage.

Detailed, close to final composition, and only worth building when you are confident the project will not shift.

These usually follow a text or sketch pass. They give the clearest possible picture of what is coming, which matters when every detail needs locking before illustration and animation begin.

Complex illustrated panels from an industrial engineering brand film, covering material handling, industrial weighing, and controls.

Panel counts get large fast. Frame by frame boards break motion into individual beats so the illustrator and animator know exactly how movement plays out.

The example below took roughly 32 slides to convey 14 seconds of animation. The finished piece ran about two and a half minutes.

Frame-by-frame panels from a university financial aid explainer.

Frame by frame is not a beginner format and it is not cheap. If you need it, find a skilled storyboard artist rather than attempting it yourself.

An animatic is a storyboard cut to timing, usually with a voiceover and music track. Not the animation itself, but the closest thing to it before animation starts.

Two reasons to build one:

Left, the animatic. Right, the finished animation. Notice how little the composition changes and how much the pacing decisions carry.

Every storyboard example on this page comes from a finished client production. Below is what each set demonstrates, so you can find the one closest to your own project.

• Six-panel healthcare careers board. A short-form explainer boarded at panel level, showing how a 60-second piece breaks into six visual beats.

• Text-based patient education board. Script and visual direction side by side in a table, no illustration. The fastest and cheapest format, used on a cancer prevention animation.

• Organ donation sketch board. Nine rough panels covering a multi-scene narrative. This is what a simple illustrated board actually looks like in a working production, not a polished portfolio piece.

• Industrial engineering board. Nine complex illustrated panels covering machinery, process flow, and a company timeline. This is the level of detail technical subject matter requires.

• Financial aid frame-by-frame board. Nine panels from a 32-slide sequence covering 14 seconds of screen time. Shows how motion-heavy explanation gets planned.

• Animatic and final side by side. The same project shown as a timed storyboard and as the finished animation.

If you want more finished work, browse our animation portfolio.

How many storyboard panels you need is driven by how often the visual changes, not by how long the video is.

• A 6 panel storyboard works for short pieces with a small number of distinct scenes. Six panels is also the standard printable template layout, which is why the 6 panel storyboard is the most common starting point for people boarding their first video. You can download that template free, along with animation, film and blank versions.

• 12 to 25 panels covers most 60 to 120 second explainers.

• One panel per beat of motion, which can run into the hundreds, applies to frame-by-frame work on motion-heavy pieces.

If you are unsure, board the script first and let the panel count come out of it. Deciding the count in advance forces you to compress or pad.

Most storyboarding advice online is written for film and television, where the board is about camera angle, shot size, and blocking.

Video and animation work differently. In an explainer, an eLearning module, or a product demo there is often no camera. The storyboard is deciding what appears on screen and in what order, not where to put a lens.

That changes what a good panel contains. For video and animation, prioritize:

• What the viewer sees at this moment, described precisely

• What the voiceover is saying underneath it

• How the frame transitions into the next one

• Any on-screen text, data, or interface being shown

Camera direction, if you use it at all, is a note rather than the point of the panel.

• Boarding an unfinished script. The most expensive mistake, and the most common.

• Trying to show motion in one panel. If a scene has three beats it needs three panels. Arrows are not a substitute.

• Over-detailing too early. Complex illustrated panels drawn before the concept is settled get thrown away.

• Skipping the written notes. A sketch without a description is ambiguous to everyone except the person who drew it.

• Not setting review expectations. Covered above, and worth repeating.

Knowing what a storyboard is turns out to be the easy part. Storyboards are not one size fits all. Before you plan a single scene, think about your budget, who needs to review the board, and how much detail your illustrator needs to work from.

Get that right and the storyboard saves you money. Get it wrong and you are drawing panels nobody uses, or animating scenes nobody planned.