Panel & Page Design
The space between panels where readers infer meaning and action.
What is the gutter?
Symbols like sweat drops, motion lines, or lightbulbs used to show emotion or action.
What is emanata?
Text that shows spoken dialogue between characters.
What are speech balloons?
A visual angle looking down on characters from above.
What is a bird’s-eye view?
This term refers to the overall arrangement of visual elements on a page.
What is layout?
A single framed image that shows one moment in the narrative.
What is a panel?
The level of realism in an image.
What is modality?
Text boxes that provide narration, commentary, or shifts in time.
What are captions?
A close framing of a character’s face used to emphasize emotion.
What is a close-up?
A highly detailed, realistic style has this type of modality.
What is high modality?
A full-page illustration, used to emphasize an important moment.
What is a splash page?
The visual element that attracts the reader’s attention first through contrast, placement, or size.
What is graphic weight?
Words like “BAM!” or “CRASH!” that imitate sounds.
What is onomatopoeia?
Lines, gazes, or movement that guide the reader’s eye across the page.
What are vectors?
A transition that shows small changes between nearly identical moments.
What is moment-to-moment transition?
A page where the artwork extends to the edge with no border or margin.
What is a full bleed?
Contrasting images or ideas placed beside one another for effect.
What is juxtaposition?
The shape, size, or style of lettering can help communicate this.
What is tone, mood, or emotion?
When a character looks directly at the reader, creating interaction or engagement.
What is a demand gaze?
A transition that jumps between different aspects of a scene to create atmosphere or mood.
What is aspect-to-aspect transition?
This term describes how readers mentally fill in missing action between panels.
What is closure?
Repeated visual elements or objects that develop deeper meaning across a text.
What is a motif?
When the words and images communicate different or conflicting ideas.
What is tension between text and image?
The arrangement of foreground, midground, and background elements in a panel or a page.
What is composition or layout?
Readers infer meaning from visual clues such as salience, framing, gaze, and vectors using this broader skill.
What is visual literacy?