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Look and style
Choosing a look
The five format cards on the create screen, what each one makes, and how to pick before you draft.
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You choose the look of a video by picking one of five format cards on the create screen: Whiteboard, Drawn, Painted, Poster or Cartoon skit. You pick it before you draft, and Whiteboard is selected by default.
Each card plays a short muted sample clip, so you can see the look before you choose it.
The five formats
| Card | What you get | Good for |
| Whiteboard | "Diagrams and lists, written on a board as you watch" | Processes, systems and step-by-step ideas that suit diagrams and lists |
| Drawn | "Every scene one hand-drawn picture, inked on as you watch" | Concepts and stories told one picture at a time |
| Painted | "Painted places with a cast moving through them" | Stories where a cast of people moves through places |
| Poster | "One finished picture a scene, uncovered as the camera drifts" | Dense, labelled sheets, like a sketchnote or a hand-drawn diagram |
| Cartoon skit | "Characters act it out with voices: a story, or an idea explained" | A topic, story or script acted out by two or three characters |
The Style row under the cards
Once you pick a card, the Style row below it changes to match:
- Whiteboard asks which Board to write on. See Whiteboard options.
- Drawn and Painted ask for a Drawing style and how the Characters are drawn. See Drawn and Painted.
- Poster asks for a Sheet style. See Poster.
More options sit in the Fine-tune drawer, and each format only shows the answers it can use. See Fine-tuning the style.
A Brand kit row also appears for every format, so you can put your logo, colours and font on the video.
Cartoon skit is different
A Cartoon skit does not use a plan. You type a topic, or paste a story or a script, and press Make the skit, which goes straight to building. Two or three characters act it out, each with their own voice, for one to four minutes. Skit text is limited to 6,000 characters.
Skits have their own editing tools for the script, costumes and places. See Editing a cartoon skit.
Format and story shape are separate
The format decides how the video looks. How the story is organized is a separate choice, Story shape, in the Fine-tune drawer: Explainer, Walkthrough, Versus or Evolution. Any shape works with the Whiteboard, Drawn, Painted and Poster formats. See Length, shape and aspect ratio.
Can I change the format later?
Pick the format with care, because you cannot switch a finished video to a different format. To try another look, start a new video from the same topic or text and choose a different card. Drafting a plan is free, so you can compare plans before you build.
A few smaller style changes are still possible after drafting:
- On the plan step, a Whiteboard video has a theme menu that changes the board when the video is generated.
- In the editor, the Canvas style panel changes the background, size and a few drawing options. See Fine-tuning the style.
- Skits have Change look for costumes, animals and places.
Not sure which to pick?
Start with Whiteboard for anything technical or step by step, and Drawn or Painted when people and places carry the story. The You will get panel sums up your choices before you draft.