Page 20 from Lynda Barry’s graphic novel, “What It Is”

Through the first fifty pages of her novel, What It Is, Lynda Barry discusses many questions she has about images. From “Where are images found?” to “What is and Where is your imagination?”.In the first few pages of her graphic novel, Barry shares about her childhood, in which she would patiently sit and stare at the images in her house. In her story she mentions that she remembers that these images would move, blink, and breath. However, as she got older these illusions in the images began to slowly go away and now as an adult she has all these question regarding images. Throughout these fifty pages each question is stated on a single page and under or around these questions are graphics that give the reader a sense of what maybe  going through Barry’s mind when she asks these questions. Each of these pages can be seen as a form of Formstorming. Which according Graphic Design: The New Basic written  by Ellen Lupton and Jennifer C. Phillips is a template that designer can create to visually think and solve design problems. There are many forms of Formstorming, however one that I was able to notice throughout the first fifty pages of Barry’s novel  was One Hundred Iterations. In this type of Formstorming the artist creates multiple ways (or images) in which a certain idea can be expressed. A specific page in Barry’s novel that represents this was page 20, in which Barry sates her question “What is and Where is your imagination?” and under this question are various images. Throughout these various images Barry expresses what a persons imagination may look like or where it may come from. These images are all scattered across the page and  vary from birds to a kitty to dark shadows with creepy eyes. At first glance none of these images have anything in common, however with the question that Barry ask in this page one can see the multiple ways a person imagination may be. All these images are connected through one idea, which is a persons imagination, that is why this is a form of Formstorming.