In Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips second edition Graphic Design the New Basics, the term “Formstorming” is described as a tool for visual thinking. This tool forces designers to think outside of their comfort zone by repeating the same subject over and over again, but just differently every time. The One Hundred Iterations example in their book is a classic example of Formstorming. In this exercise, designers took one subject and came up with 100  iterations of that subject.  Although this may have been an exhausting process, formstorming really makes you think about how things are composed/put together and allows you to expand ones thinking. Lynda Barry poses a bunch of thought provoking questions on  page 41 of her book What It Is, that I thought went hand and hand with the formstorming reading from Ellen and Jennifers novel such as: Why Do We Compose? How Do We Compose? What Do We Compose? lf you look closely, all three of these questions were formatted as one, and made to be the “title” of that page. This may not be the same subject repeated 3 different times, but just the title alone makes you think about how Barry composes things and whats going on in her head. I also noticed throughout the book she drew the same images and figures, but they just appear differently on each page. For example: The fish, the cat and monkey at the bottom of the page, and the octopus in the middle of the page. What It Is, is an excellent example of formstorming, and creative repetition. 

Page 41 from Lynda Barry’s graphic novel, “What It Is.”