(See step 2 below)

There are a lot of things that go into making an effective animated story that explains your product.

One of my tried and true techniques is to bounce between order and chaos until I have something that communicates effectively.

An example:

1) (Order) Once I have talked with you about your product, your audience, and your goals for the video, I create a rough storyboard.
2) (Chaos) Then I cut the storyboard into individual frames, and mix them all up.
3) (Order) Next I rebuild the story board by selecting frames out of the mix, leaving out superfluous frames, and making notes about where I need to add content.

By bouncing back between order and chaos, I end up with something good. I think this actually works with all kinds of communicative media—books, comics, music, movies, etc.

The photo above shows cut up panels for an animation I’m doing for a company in the Seattle area.

Bonus: Austin Kleon shows how he goes from chaos to order in this post.