Picture This: How Pictures Work

20 April 2025

This is unutterably cool.

This is a focused and explicit lesson on pictures, and a very practical guide to creating and evaluating pictures using the example of Little Red Riding Hood. Besides the natural audience of book creators, librarians, and teachers it is just very interesting to have someone show a picture and say "here's what you're seeing and how you're interpreting it." Most of us probably (maybe? I am always learning of things that I think of as being nearly universal among humans and which are not, such as visual snow; or that I didn't know were nearly universal because I don't have them, such as a visual imagination) don't think about pictures being culturally specific not only in the choice of media and show more subject, but in terms of what information we get from it. Plus I always appreciate when someone gives me the unspoken rules of things.

***

My apologies for doing a very bad job of describing why this book is so cool to me because I read it 7 months ago, and whatever sort of comments I wrote at the time were not preserved, because I had chosen the turtleback edition of the book, which for some reason was marked as not an actual book, rather than just another format, so whatever I wrote vanished, along with my rating.

Gratitous digression:
For some reason, scheduling probably, I chose music to meet my requirement for a survey of an art class for my degree rather than visual art. Such a pity, because I am functionally tone deaf, so music is hard for me. Visual arts are much more my thing. I have no idea what else was offered, probably not any of these, but a history of publishing (as the physical process of recording and sharing information), world literature, theater, dance, textiles, furniture, and architecture all come to mind as things I would have been more engaged in and more likely to derive lasting value from. Point is, I have over the years filled in some of my knowledge gaps and I always enjoy it. Cross-cultural topics are fascinating, and, as in this book, really good at showing some of the many options available for [every aspect of every thing] and considering why, or how, those options were selected. Living in the mainstream culture of a society that up until quite recently exported it's culture worldwide, one does get exposed to as much difference between cultures as is routinely seen in many other places.

Library copy, which doesn't prevent it from being a real book show less

In this deceptively simple book, Molly Bang uses basic geometric shapes to show how pictures work: how simple principles of design can shape emotions and tell a story. Using cutout shapes to explain abstract statements such as "smooth, flat, horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm" or "diagonal shapes are dynamic because they imply motion or tension," Ms. Bang walks the reader through the psychology of a picture. She shows how Little Red Riding Hood can be illustrated using these principles and simple shapes. She analyzes the emotional impacts of design elements such as composition, shapes, colors, contrast, and space. While much of this is intuitive, having it articulated in simple graphic form is invaluable to any show more visual artist. show less

While this book had some very interesting concepts, and provided some great insights into why certain presentations of shapes and images make us feel the way we do, I think it would have worked better as a lecture or TED talk, where the author could have shown us more explicitly the choices she made towards creating her final images. I also wish there had been more citation of her sources of information.

While this book had some very interesting concepts, and provided some great insights into why certain presentations of shapes and images make us feel the way we do, I think it would have worked better as a lecture or TED talk, where the author could have shown us more explicitly the choices she made towards creating her final images. I also wish there had been more citation of her sources of information.

This short treatise by famed children's book author/illustrator Molly Bang was a fascinating explanation, detailed but not didactic, of how and why the simple illustrations she devises work--how simple shapes and a limited color palette can produce powerful images, as well as how the illustrations enhance the story line and evoke reactions in readers.

Praised by the likes of David MacAulay, and used for students at the Rhode Island School of Design, this is an excellent book for anyone interested in art and illustration, and I highly recommend it.

4 stars

Fascinating and illustrative (yeah I said it), useful for anything from photography to work graphics to general thoughts about story-telling. Definitely something I'd keep on the reference shelf in my imaginary grown-up house with a library large enough to curate a reference shelf.

This is a very quick read, not just because it's interesting but also because it's pretty short. A significant part of the book is taken up by example pictures. Bang's writing is simple and to the point, and lets her enthusiasm for the material speak for itself.