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Hello friends,

I hope you've had an amazing summer. Here in the Pacific Northwest, autumn has arrived a bit early and prompted me to think about the focus of my work for the rest of 2024. Below I'll explain where I've landed.

Designing Explanations

Over the last couple of years, my focus at the Explainer Academy was how to make animated explainer videos. I created a new course called Ideas in Motion that teaches every step of the process. I'm a little biased, but I think it's pretty great.

While explainer videos can be powerful, they aren't for everyone. But you know what is? Clear and understandable communication. Explanations help us earn respect and attention. They help us collaborate and iterate. The right explanation at the right time can move mountains.

Unlike videos that require tools, these explanations happen in conversations, meetings, and presentations. They solve a problem we all face: helping our audience understand an idea.

For a lot of people, an explanation is just something that...happens. We don't often step back and consider what makes an explanation work, or how to improve. In my 2012 book THE ART OF EXPLANATION, I used this analogy:

It's a little like dancing. Your grace on the dance floor may mean that you take dancing for granted: it just happens when there is a rhythm. But even the best dancer can only get so far without defining specific dances, such as what makes the samba the samba and the waltz the waltz. These definitions create a standard form and shape that can be honed and refined. Only by defining the standards of the dance can we hope to improve it.

I want the skill of explanation to have a form and shape in your mind. I want you to see that explanation is a creative act that can be planned and executed in almost any context.

How? By connecting the skill of explanation to the basics of design thinking. I will share a method for designing explanations that solve specific problems for specific audiences. You'll learn how designers approach their craft and how to use those lessons for your explanations.

More coming soon!

Lee LeFever, Common Craft and Explainer Academy​

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