Our guest author today – Jenni Chasteen – is a freelance blogger, web designer and self-described geek who spends as much of her time doodling as she does designing.
Long before I ever picked up a Wacom tablet or even heard the word kerning, I read comic books. I absorbed the artwork, page layouts and character designs like a nerdy little sponge. To this day I can’t figure out why comics are considered a low form of art. Pretentious designers pass it off as kid stuff, but they’re missing out on some valuable sources of inspiration.w
While I was working as the assistant graphic designer at a large ecommerce company, I’m pretty sure I was the reason the Senior Graphic Designer had ulcers. It’s not that I intentionally set out to irritate her; it’s just that we didn’t always see eye to eye on design choices. She came from a web graphics/marketing background and I came from more of a self-taught/animation-school drop-out/good-at-BSing-my-way-through-life background. When she designed things she designed them with a strict level of symmetry and order. When I designed things I tried to never do the same thing twice.
On one occasion I handed in a mock-up of two adjacent promos, one with a close-up of a product, and one that was zoomed out. When she reviewed it she told me to make them both the same size.
Thinking that my design philosophy was incredibly clever I began to explain, “Well, I learned in storyboard class that no two panels in a comic should look the same…”
“This isn’t a comic book. It’s a website.”
I’m not sure where I went wrong. Somewhere between challenging her opinion and bringing up what she thought was childish nonsense I lost her attention.
I must have sounded crazy to her. And I probably sound crazy to you now.
Dynamic Layout vs The Grid
If you’re not seeing how comic books could possibly relate to “real” design, consider this: A website is meant to convey a message, just as a comic book tells a story. While it’s not showing your audience frame by frame what happened in a fight between Wolverine and the Incredible Hulk, your design should be just as engaging.
Scan a “25 Great Examples of Web Design” list and you’ll find at least a dozen that look more or less the same or follow some kind of grid layout. Thumb through 32 pages of a comic book and you won’t find two pages that are exactly alike. Comic book pages don’t conform to any one standard layout and are designed to keep the reader’s eye moving while highlighting the most interesting action. Grid layouts are extremely useful in getting a lot of information across in a logical way. But when a grid defines your design it’s like a super hero with only one villain to fight—after a while the story gets old.
The most important elements should be big and easy to read, with everything else on the page pointing towards it. Comic book artists aren’t afraid to distinguish the difference between the most exciting part of the story and the filler. When web designers show that kind of audacity it’s like saying “click here, THIS is the good part.” Of course a website shouldn’t look like a comic book, but it’s okay to step outside your comfort zone and create something dynamic.
