The first post about story maps that caught my eye gives an insight into how the templates come about. They often start with a custom template that Esri create for a project, which is carried through into the template library if it has a wider application. The article includes a sneak preview of a new story map layout used for a presentation of stunning bee photographs (sorry, couldn’t resist the blog title). I thought the ability to flip the main view between the map and the image is a great way to let the audience choose which gets dominance.
The second post was about using presentations in story maps. Presentations allow you to define a sequence of map views and add some contextual information. It gives us another way to create narrative within a story map and present the geographical setting in a focused way.
Story maps keep showing themselves to be a really effective communication tool and there are lots of examples in the map gallery on the Esri UK website. And why stop at one, a resident of Ilkley has used several in the library of maps about the town they have created. If you have a favourite example you’d like to share please add it in a comment.
If you are planning a story map there is a really useful summary of the different templates here.