Ballpoint on napkin

How to use it

Sketch the idea on a café napkin through most of the clip, crossing out the wrong bit and circling the real one, cutting back to the speaker once or twice for the moment it clicks.

Where the speaker sits

Full sceneSuits itSmallWorksSplitSuits itSideAvoidDrawn overSuits it

Drawn over: marks and type drawn over the full speaker. Stock speaker from Pexels.

Palette

THIS IS A MOODBOARD, NOT A TEMPLATE. The style below is inspiration for the look and feel. Keep its materials, colours, textures and the way it moves, but invent your own scenes, characters and objects for this clip. You are not limited to anything shown in the preview, and nothing in it has to appear. Use illustration and animation to help tell the clip's story.

STORY FIRST. Read the whole clip before you design anything.
1. Write the clip's arc in one line: setup, tension, turn, pay-off. Name the one line that is the reveal.
2. Tag every sentence with its job: setup, context, tension, turn, reveal, example, number, contrast, list, quote, feeling, metaphor, callback, pay-off, aside.
3. The visuals carry the whole clip. If the clip shows the speaker's face, open on them (the first scene keeps them on screen) unless the person says otherwise. After that, never cut back to the speaker full-frame unless the person asks for it; if they do, only on the ending, never in the middle of an explanation. The speaker can still sit inside a scene (a corner, a split or drawn in) when the person wants to be seen.
4. Build one flowing visual story, not a new picture per sentence. Each scene covers a whole thought (one to three sentences), holds 3 to 8 seconds and turns into the next.
5. Start each scene on the first word of its sentence, or up to half a second before. Never cut mid-sentence.
6. Inside a scene, bring small details in on the words they show (an item, a tag, a tick). Earlier details stay.
7. Choose one or two recurring objects or characters in the first scene and bring them back changed. Callbacks beat new pictures.
8. Build up the same picture where you can (add to it, move the camera across it) instead of replacing it.
9. Energy: about 80 percent still, drifting or gentle. Allow one big move in the whole clip, on the reveal, for 1 to 2 seconds, then settle and hold.
10. Numbers sit on a scale (gauge, bar, table, timeline) and hold long enough to read. Contrasts are a still split or the same layout twice.
11. Feelings get a quiet image, or one of the cuts back to the speaker; never effects.
12. On-screen text names, labels or quotes; it never repeats the caption. Five words or fewer per label.
13. End every scene by settling or thinning out, or by turning into the next scene. No exit effects.
14. The style sets the look. These rules set when, how long and how calmly. If the style's own motion rules ask for more energy than this, use less.

VISUAL STYLE: Ballpoint on napkin
Slice style ref: sref-J90XKX
Blue ballpoint on a soft paper café napkin, shot from above on a dark walnut table. Ground: walnut wood #5A3923 with long grain and a warm pool of overhead light; the napkin is off-white #F6F3EA with an embossed quilted diamond pattern, an embossed border band of dots, a soft centre fold and visible paper fibre, slightly rotated with a soft shadow. Ink: blue biro #21398A, a thin line (about 0.5% of the short side) that blobs at the start of each stroke, skips a little where the tissue is rough and feathers faintly into the fibres; one red biro #C23B2A is kept for the mark that matters. Type: a fast scrawled hand (Reenie Beanie), lower case. Details: a faint coffee ring, a clear plastic biro whose tip sits exactly where the ink appears and lifts between strokes. Camera: locked, top-down. Motion: every mark is drawn at hand speed and nothing is erased; wrong ideas are crossed out and stay visible; one loose red loop is the peak; then the ink fades for the next napkin. The one rule: the pen is always where the ink is appearing. DON'T: fades without drawing, typed fonts, clean vector shapes, bright colours, emoji, perfect circles.
Accent: as in the palette.
Frame shape: ask me before you start (9:16 vertical, 4:5 portrait, 1:1 square or 16:9 wide).
Energy: normal.

TECH: one HTML file, one GSAP 3 timeline created paused as window.__timelines.main, duration = the scene's length, transforms and opacity only.

Look rules

• Blue ballpoint on a soft paper café napkin, shot from above on a dark walnut table.
• Ground: walnut wood #5A3923 with long grain and a warm pool of overhead light; the napkin is off-white #F6F3EA with an embossed quilted diamond pattern, an embossed border band of dots, a soft centre fold and visible paper fibre, slightly rotated with a soft shadow.
• Ink: blue biro #21398A, a thin line (about 0.5% of the short side) that blobs at the start of each stroke, skips a little where the tissue is rough and feathers faintly into the fibres; one red biro #C23B2A is kept for the mark that matters.
• Type: a fast scrawled hand (Reenie Beanie), lower case.
• Details: a faint coffee ring, a clear plastic biro whose tip sits exactly where the ink appears and lifts between strokes.
• Camera: locked, top-down.
• Motion: every mark is drawn at hand speed and nothing is erased; wrong ideas are crossed out and stay visible; one loose red loop is the peak; then the ink fades for the next napkin.
• The one rule: the pen is always where the ink is appearing.
• DON'T: fades without drawing, typed fonts, clean vector shapes, bright colours, emoji, perfect circles.

What it suits

Best for

the moment an idea gets simpler: a plan sketched fast, the wrong bit crossed out, the real one circled

Avoid for

faith, grief and luxury or polished brand content

Content

Money or business, Advice, How-to, Explainer, Personal story

Tone

Candid, Scrappy, Clever, Warm

Pace

Medium

Topics

ballpoint, biro, napkin sketch, cafe table, hand drawn, crossed out, back of the napkin

Colours

#5A3923 #F6F3EA #21398A #C23B2A

For AIs: this style as plain text.