In Lynda Barry’s graphic novel, “What It Is” Lynda discusses how formstorming is basically brainstorming but in a visual and design-oriented way. The practice is more garnered towards producing variety over quality, at first, and then after a concept is picked from the wide array of variations, then the selected product can be polished in to the best possible finished product.

A good example of this would be the eggs shown in “Graphic Design, the New Basics” where the word, “egg” was showcased and put in to many different examples. Some more ways this could relate to real life is when an artist (I’ve definitely used this technique for digital art) will draw a sketch, and have several different pictures of the same sketch but with variations of colors to figure out which color scheme looks the best. I actually had to do this for a Fine Art class, and here is one of my drawings below.

I utilized the formstorming technique in more of a controlled way to find my desired result, and then the students were instructed to pick their favorite color scheme.