Icons, Patterns and Textures
Approaching comics as a designer and treating images like type
Icons, Patterns and Textures
I have been in the somewhat unique position of teaching design students how to make comics for the last six years. Some of them like to draw, but not many. For most, the word “comics” becomes a problem. They get hung up trying to draw stick people rather than trying to create visuals they are genuinely interested in.
This exercise is my attempt to help students avoid making “comics”, and use their own visual interests and aesthetics, giving them a way to approach sequential visual storytelling like they might approach type or collage. My examples are still very much “comics”, but my students have made all sorts of interesting stuff. If you want to lean into a new way of making comics, try this exercise with a new material approach (like collage or photography) or try limiting yourself to certian kinds of marks, or event just type!
You will need:
Paper
Drawing materials
A willingness to try something a little different
Instructions:
Pick a short story you want to tell. Perhaps a childhood memory, a fear? Write the whole thing out.
Go through your writing and highlight anything you think you might want to depict visually.
Next, create an icon, pattern, or texture for each word you highlighted. Rules might help, like objects and people are icons, and places become patterns or textures?
Images do not need to be abstract, but be as non-literal as you want!
Make images you are interested in and work with materials you like to work with! The goal here is to make the kind of work you WANT to make, or go somewhere new.
Write a script if you want to. I did.
Create panels using your icons, patterns and textures. Zoom in and out, combine them, isolate them, create transitions and let things change and morph. The images and marks are a starting point, but let things evolve as you go.
Example 2:
One other quick thing! I ran acompressed version of this exercise for one of the Friday Night Comics sessions for the Sequential Artists Workshop.
You can check that out here if you want.
Thanks so much as always for your encouragement and support!
xo
fionn
I will definitely try this out! Such an interesting approach!
I attended your SAW workshop on this, and had a blast creating a comic - I wrote about it in my newsletter that week. One of my favorite exercises to date!