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The unicorn effect. I had never heard of the term until I read about it in an article. In fact, it is not really a term; it was just how a vlogger referred to how people perceived him as a foreigner traveling in Africa. Although it may have been a term, for some reason, I read my name. I was the unicorn. Yet it felt like “unicorn” could also be replaced by “ugly duckling.” I hadn’t experienced this phenomenon until I moved abroad from my home country, Colombia, into the great self-proclaimed “nation” of Texas.

An Ugly Duckling  Sometimes, a Unicorn Other Times

Meet your new favorite way to tell stories. With StoryMaps, the future of digital storytelling is here to bring together media, maps, and text in ways you never thought possible.

StoryMaps

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Add a button readers can use to change the appearance of the map in the media panel (you must add an express map first)

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Browse the full ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World, Esri’s curated collection of maps, scenes, apps, and datasets from around the globe. If you find a map you’d like to include in your story, add it to your favorites and it will appear under the "My Favorites" tab above.

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At the beginning of a text block, type the characters below to convert the block to a different type. You can use these shortcuts for empty text blocks and text blocks that already have text.

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Use this immersive block to create a sequence of presentation-like slides that your readers navigate laterally.

With slideshow, images, videos, or express maps fill the entire slide background. You can add concise bits of text to each slide to provide context, and reposition the narrative panel to ensure the key parts of your media remain visible.

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Build a better world—one story at a time. Enter the global competition by December 6.

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Transform your maps and geographic information system (GIS) work into interactive content that informs, inspires, and engages stakeholders

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Tell your story in minutes with frames. Drop your pictures into easy-to-use templates, then share these experiences with friends and social channels from anywhere. Frames creation is available now on the StoryMaps mobile app!

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This will create a copy of this story in your account as a draft. The copy will include any unpublished changes and retain all settings from the original story, including analytics configuration details.

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Save yourself time with these simple starting points. You can always add more blocks later if you want.

Readers explore a curated set of places in whatever order they choose

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Walk your audience through a list of locations sequentially

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Use this sample story to preview your custom theme. As you modify colors, typography, and more, those changes will be reflected here.

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This story includes several of the pieces you might use in your own story–like paragraphs, buttons, separators, and more. To get started, select a section of the styling panel and make some adjustments. As you adjust different elements, you’ll see this story adjust to demonstrate how they look. Try changing the paragraph font, and see what happens to this text.

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Next, try adjusting the button style and see how your selection affects the button below. You’ll also notice that it uses the paragraph font for its text.

You can style your paragraph text to use bold, italics, and bold italics, so you can emphasize important text accordingly. These come pre-packaged with the fonts you’ve chosen, so there’s nothing extra you need to configure.

Quotes use the theme’s title font, but you can also choose one of several different styling options.

Your theme’s accent color is used in both quotes (see above) and separators (below). If you add an express map to your story, your drawn features will use the accent color too.

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Welcome to a new era of digital storytelling

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The settings below will affect all stories, collections, and themes within your organization

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Every story has a place

Add context to your content easily with beautiful layouts and immersive experiences made in minutes. You can choose what to use from videos, images, audio clips and even embeds. StoryMaps comes equipped with everything you need to ensure your story looks great.

Interactive digital experiences

Transport your readers to any place at any time. With StoryMaps, you get access to the world’s leading mapping technology to guide your readers to your favorite places, illustrate trends or even take them on an interactive tour.

Whether you’re on the couch or at the beach, you can connect with other authors and explore new destinations through the StoryMaps mobile app

Great storytelling wherever you are

Add another dimension to your map tours for an extra storytelling punch

What it is, why you need it, and how to do it well

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Simple tips, tricks, and hacks to get the most out of the builder

Three different approaches to bundling related stories

What’s in a collection?

Connect with other storytellers

Make sure everyone can enjoy your content through smart design choices

Build a connection with your audience by making the personal universal

Maps are great, but interactive charts and tables can propel your story to new heights

Finding happiness with charts

Elevate your story with guidance from the experts

A designers guide to pairing Google Fonts for your next custom theme

Learn to create a cohesive visual narrative using StoryMaps’ built-in filters

Interviewing story subjects can help add authority to a story. These tips will help you prep to get all the info you need.

Let’s go over copyright 101, public domain, Creative Commons, and more

Sharpen your storytelling skills with tips and tricks from the StoryMaps team

Telling a compelling story often starts with great writing, but it doesn’t stop there.

The StoryMaps builder has everything you need to help stage an event, large or small

Easily add polished, data-driven cartography to any story

Find answers to questions like "what’s a story?" and "how do you tell one?"

Sound can add an effective and memorable dimension to your narrative

Maps add depth and context to multimedia storytelling

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Help is right up here

Continue storytelling with ArcGIS StoryMaps and keep your content. Request that Esri migrate your account to ArcGIS Online by May 31, 2025, and complete migration by June 30, 2025.

If you requested to migrate your account to ArcGIS Online, complete the migration process before June 30, 2025.

Learn more about the retirement and migration

StoryMaps.com is retiring. Request migration to ArcGIS Online by May 31, 2025.

StoryMaps.com is retiring on June 30, 2025. Complete migration to ArcGIS Online before the retirement date.

To complete the migration of your StoryMaps.com account to ArcGIS Online, review and accept the Esri Master Agreement and Privacy Policy before June 30, 2025. For more information on migrating to ArcGIS Online, visit the <link>StoryMaps.com retirement page</link>.

StoryMaps.com Retirement and Migration to ArcGIS Online

After one year, you will need to purchase an ArcGIS Online subscription to continue using ArcGIS StoryMaps. Check out the StoryMaps <link>retirement page</link> for more information on the ArcGIS Online subscription options.

ArcGIS <link>StoryMaps</link> is the professional version of StoryMaps and is available as part of <link2>ArcGIS Online</link2>. Both products share similar storytelling capabilities, so if you are familiar with StoryMaps, you'll feel right at home with ArcGIS StoryMaps. Visit the <link3>retirement page</link3> for a detailed comparison between StoryMaps and ArcGIS StoryMaps.

If you do not migrate your account to ArcGIS Online, you can save any content you would like to keep before the June 30, 2025, retirement date. The options for saving content include saving stories as a PDF and saving frames using a screen recording. 

Esri is retiring StoryMaps. On June 30, 2025, StoryMaps will go offline, and StoryMaps content will not be available to edit or view. For more information, please visit the <link>StoryMaps retirement page.</link>

Introducing ArcGIS StoryMaps and ArcGIS Online: <link>AGSM Introduction video</link>

You are invited to migrate your account and content to ArcGIS Online where you can continue storytelling with maps. With ArcGIS Online, you’ll get access to ArcGIS StoryMaps and the easy-to-use story builder you are familiar with, plus so much more!

If you migrate your account to ArcGIS Online, you will have access to your existing stories, collections, and themes via ArcGIS StoryMaps, as well as an array of additional ArcGIS capabilities. (Your frames will be migrated and accessible when support for frames is added to ArcGIS StoryMaps.)

For more details about migrating your account and content to ArcGIS Online, please visit the StoryMaps <link>retirement page.</link>

Click next to proceed with the migration or click cancel to close.

Esri will give you one year of access to ArcGIS Online at no extra cost and will migrate your account and content for you.

Please review the following points before you proceed with migrating your account to ArcGIS Online:

I accept and agree to be legally bound by

This means that you are deciding to use ArcGIS StoryMaps by converting your StoryMaps account to an ArcGIS Online account. After you accept these terms and conditions, select Migrate to ArcGIS Online, and you will be redirected to ArcGIS StoryMaps.

Review the Esri <link>Master Agreement</link> and <link2>Privacy Policy</link2>

To complete the migration of your StoryMaps account to ArcGIS Online, review and accept the Esri Master Agreement and Privacy Policy by June 30, 2025. 

Reminder of the retirement message, and reminder of the migration considerations. Hit the high points and link to the retirement page.

StoryMaps Retirement and Migration to ArcGIS Online

Both of these options include access to ArcGIS StoryMaps and the other ArcGIS Online apps and capabilities. Please note that there is a price difference between the two options that you will need to pay if you want to keep your account active when your free subscription expires. See the FAQs on the <link>StoryMaps.com retirement page</link> for more information about these subscription options.

Selecting Request migration below means that you are deciding to change your StoryMaps.com account to an ArcGIS Online subscription. During the free subscription, you will have access to your existing stories and collections via ArcGIS StoryMaps, as well as an array of additional capabilities offered by ArcGIS Online.

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