Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

Formstorming is the aesthetics of visual intelligence. Its the strengths we use and the paths we must go through in order to generate, critique, reevaluate and finalize our pieces of art. When generating and designing a new piece of art its valued and suggested to first brainstorm within the mind before the computer to get the best authentic ideas.

Throughout most of the book, “What It Is” by Lynda Barry, Barry uses “go-to” like characters to help form her art such as small and big animal critters, aquatic creatures and ghost like monsters. She not only uses animal characters but also various miscellaneous items like stamps, food, clothing, etc. Barry expresses the use of formstorming many ways by implicating new and different elements and backgrounds in each an every page. Each page contains dialogue that is printed out in more than two different fonts giving the reader impressions of different tones or attitudes. It shows the value of expressing anything your own way, the way that talks to you but also speaks louder to others.

Page 41 of What It Is By Lynda Barry

Notice that on page 41, Barry draws a cat, monkey, octopus, fish and ghost-like character as the animals present. Throughout the page there is multiple boxes of dialogue with multiple font styles such as cursive, times new roman, bubble letters and more. See that there is no frame nor border equipped in the picture allowing the image to bleed on the page.

The benefits of engaging in formstorming are universal. When formstorming you can produce something that you never expected to develop and it might just stick to you in the long run. Formstorming is the gate way to conquering any barriers or doubts that we may have in our ability to draw or make “art” and can keep you open to trying something new.

Page 14 from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel, David Boring

In their book Graphic Design: The New Basics, Ellen Lupton and Jennifer Cole Phillips discuss the term scale, and how it can be considered either an objective or subjective term. When we’re thinking about a scale in objective terms, we’re referring to the actual dimensions of an object in relation to another surrounding object. A scale in subjective terms is when humans compare an object’s size to themselves. For example, in the middle left frame of the image above, you can see that there is a person standing next to a tree. That person is very small compared to the tree and if that person were to compare how big the tree is to himself, then he would look at the tree as this big object because that is how humans compare themselves to other objects subjectively. People can go inside small rooms and then think about the scale of one of those small rooms compared to another massive building that they have been in before. An example of an objective scale from the image above would be to look at the tree in relation to the size of the house. The house is a lot bigger in comparison to the tree and takes up a lot more space in the frame, but the tree is taller than the house, it is just very skinny. Page fourteen from Clowes’ David Boring shows how scale can be relative. In the top two frames on the left, the book that the man is holding looks a lot bigger than the book in the middle right frame because of the elements surrounding the book. In the top middle frame, the book is practically the only thing in the frame besides text and the book takes up a lot of the frame because it is zoomed in. Then when you look at the book in the middle right frame, it looks a lot smaller because we are comparing it to the objects around it like the bus, window, seat, and the man that is holding the book. You can have the same object in two different pictures but one object can appear a lot larger or smaller than the other object because of the elements surrounding the objects in each of the pictures. When you see larger objects in relation with surrounding smaller objects that could even be the same object, we call this a contrast in scale. A contrast in scale can add depth or movement to an object depending on the scale and placement of the object. All of these terms create meaning within an image and make the image more visually appealing. A good example of depth in the image above is when you look at the book all alone and up close in one image and then see the book farther away with objects around it that give the frame depth as a whole.

2-page spread from Craig Thompson‘s graphic novel Goodbye, Chunky Rice (pgs. 58-59, Top Shelf Productions, 1999)

This spread from the graphic novel “Goodbye, Chunky Rice” by Craig Thompson shows many of the powerful and complex design options offered by the concept of framing: The individual parts of the comic strip are each frames, and some of them are delineated by a thin black border. However, a frame can also be implied in more subtle ways. It is especially interesting how these pages draw attention to the idea of frames within frames: Some of the frames fill a whole page, reminding me that a page and its edges are a sort of invisible frame that I might take for granted. On the top left I see the setting for all the action depicted very clearly: A small boat is floating in a vast ocean and the sun is setting over the water. The smaller frames beneath this image are literally placed inside the larger frame, so I infer that the turtle looking in his bag and at his stopwatch is taking place on the deck of the ship. An even cleverer shift occurs on the right page, where the third small frame, showing the words “DING DING DING”, is also part of the larger frame below, which shows the deck of the ship. Finally, another small frame on the lower right introduces a new element, a bottle, which is presumably floating in the ocean. The frames with frames and the shifts in scale of the frame sizes makes this comic more visually interesting and adds to the potential complexity of the meaning it offers.

Page 196 of Lynda Barry’s graphic novel “What it is”

According to Ellen Lupton and Jennifer C. Phillips, in their book Graphic Design:The New Basic, the term scale can be used both objectively or subjectively. When a scale is  objective, this is referring to the physical dimensions of an object compared to its surroundings. However,  when a scale is subjective, this is referring to a persons impression of what the size of the object is. In Lynda Barry’s, graphic novel What It Is there are a variety of scales being used, to emphasis certain details in the story. On page 196, of Barry’s graphic novel, one can see the various scale proportions being used throughout the page in the text, as well as in the two images. Throughout this page some text is bigger and bolder while others are smaller and smoother, this can be seen as an example of how scale can be relative.The contrast between the different types of text on the page creates a contrast of scale throughout the page making the design more visually interesting. By looking at the image we can assume that maybe this is the handwriting of different people, since each text looks different both in its features and in its scale. On this page some text is made bold, the design makes it seems as if the person writing this pressed down harder on their pen to emphasis these words. For example the text on this page that says “Today is Monday May 8 2006” seems to be made thicker and more emphasized then most of the text on the page. The difference in the proportions in this text adds depth to the meaning behind it.

First page of ctrl by Richard McGuire, from Chris Ware’s compilation McSweeney’s quarterly concern. No. 13 page 186.

Scale is subjective when it refers to one’s impression of an object’s size. Scale is objective when it refers to the physical size of any object or the relationship of size between something and its depiction.

This first page of ctrl by Richard McGuire is an excellent example of the concept of scale being used effectively. At first sight, it might not seem that the equally size panels in a 4×4 would make good use of the concept, it is a pretty standard layout in terms of framing and such. Focusing on the last four panels, one can see each sequential panel depicts the subject smaller and smaller. This is done to give the effect of zooming out. It is almost cinematic in nature.

Up until panel 12, leaves are easily discernable. But in panel 13 the leaves blend into a single yellow shape. A change of scale is immediately noticed.

This effective use of scale adds movement and depth to rather flat and simple shapes.

The vessel that encapsulates artistic treasures, or the window into a universe unlike our own, frames are anything you can make of them, and they all communicate a meaning of some form from their creator to their audience. “A frame can mark off a space with just a few points,” according to our reading in Lupton and Cole Phillips’ Graphic Design: The New Basics (125). And it’s true. Our computer screen is a frame; our eyebrows are often considered the “frame” of our eyes; there are, of course, the classic frames for paintings and photographs made from wood or metal, and so on.

Pages 12 and 13 of Goodbye, Chunky Rice by Craig Thompson

There’s also the nuance given to us by implied frames, which we can easily detect  just as w,ell as deliberate frames. One such example is clearly seen in page 13 from the graphic novel by Craig Thompson Goodbye, Chunky Rice. Here we see an innovative use of framing by the series of framed images ended with the omission of an image, implying that the candle in the preceding graphic is blown out and there is nothing but darkness.

This is a great use of implied framing, because of the mere fact you decipher that the filled-in space is almost another image, even though it appears to be piece of the framing in the rest of the graphic novel sequence.Within the same layout we see from the first image shown a shell, subsequently followed by another image of Dandele holding the same shell. In the first image it appears to be large, until it is compared with her hand holding it. We know that this shell in fact is not that large due to cropping of the image for emphasis. This nuance is employed further throughout the graphic novel effectively and is just one of the innovative ways Thompson utilizes frames and scaling in formstorming ways.