Dreaming of Composition

A small peek into layout insight

This week I had some interesting times with critiques in graphic design. Currently working on a poster that conveys several meanings of one word has given me some challenges. I've always thought composition is every intuitive, and it is, until you have to think about a specific message you want to convey and then you get into the very technical aspect of composition, where the very placement of a visual element means something, or can be used to drive forward an idea you are trying to get across. In Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in the Palace of Ice, I saw a narrative of dream-like proportions which was greatly aided by compositional elements. It tells a story of a boy in a land of dreams and adventure, quite literally the adventures of his dreams. 

Maybe composition is not as obvious a component in comic books as it is in graphic design, but the simple size, placement and shape of the comic strip squares, play a big role in moving the story forward, and the direction of the narrative. Instead of panning and zooming, like what would happen in a movie, and using size, and placement, much like in graphic design, the panels of the comic strip serve to accentuate certain scenes and points in the narrative.

Within each panel itself, the style of drawing is very dream-like. The foreground and background seem to blend together in a harmonious fashion as it would in the haze of a dream, yet the line-work sets apart the action from the setting. In this same way, when working on my current design project I had to think about every single definition of that word and make sure it stood out on its own, as well as make everything look like one coherent and complete image.