The Role of Design in Picturebooks: Meaning, Image-Making & Typography

This thesis investigates the role of design in producing unique experiences through the medium of contemporary picturebooks. The nature of the picturebooks format, in which text and image are combined, lends itself well to a design analysis. Furthermore, examining picturebooks through the lens of design adds a critical new perspective to current work in the field. Award-winning picturebooks were selected for a visual analysis, focusing on the formal elements, design principles, and compositions of the books and their affect on the meaning of the text and the readers experience of the visual narrative. Additionally, through a series of design experiments, the relationships between typography and imagery in picturebooks is explored. Through this research, this project investigates the designed form of the picturebook and the impact of design decisions on the overall visual narrative. This research demonstrates how the careful consideration of design principles can inform and benefit the process of creating picturebooks, and could lead to more practitioners in the field adopting a design-oriented approach to picturebooks.