Text with Image

Throughout this project I have struggling with the best way to combine illustrations in text. I like to create illustrations that form an overall shape that guides the viewer towards import elements of the illustration, show depth and scale or simply form an appealing composition. Up to this point I have tried to plan for text being added to my illustrations but have in a way treated the text itself as an afterthought to the design process. This was a mistake, whenever I added text to an illustration that has been designed to function my itself the pages become muddled or cramped. I often work with a white background surrounding my illustrations so there is space left that lettering can be applied to but my illustrations use that white space to ground them. I try to add mass, space and depth the white background with my illustration and the addition of text breaks up this form. I decided to look at some very successful combinations of text and illustration to try and understand what makes them successful.

The first book I looked at was Dr Seus, There is a large amount of text in this book and it is clear that the text was at the heart of the design proves. The text is central to the pages and the illustrations revolve around it. It does not impact the effectiveness of the illustrations, they have been very well designed and thought out to work with the space available. This approach seems to be necessary for illustrated books with a large amount of text, especially a book like this where the pacing of the text in the main focal point of the narrative.
The next book I looked at was 'Shhh I have a plan' by Chris Haughton. This book has comparatively little text. There are very few long sentences, the text is linked to communication or actions of the characters. The text have been made part of the illustration and by doing this is it can be linked to the specific part of the illustration it applies to. The text and illustration combine and interact to tell the story making reading the book a more immersive experience. With simpler text it is possible to manipulate the text more without it becoming confusing, if this was attempted with a story like Dr Seus it could very easily look messy and hard to understand.
The next image is from a book by Oliver Jeffers, His illustrations sit in the middle of a white background which he uses to place the text. His illustrations and the hand drawn text are quite loose but the placement is more formatted, usually places centrally on the page centrally aligned. I have been trying to use this method but I usually scale my illustration to take up more of the page. I like his approach to these books but struggle when I work this way myself, It may be because I am judging my work in a different way or because I have spent time looking at the illustration without the text before it is added.
The final two pages are from Jon Klassen books. He separates the text and illustration entirely, placing them on separate pages. The illustrator is free to create a composition that is only confined by the dimensions of the page and the text is crisp and clear on a solid white background on the opposite page. This is a way of planning pages that I would like to try out, there is something very appealing about a small amount of text in a nice font in the middle of a white page. This technique doesn't allow for the same level of interaction of Chris Haughton's technique but that kind of merging of text and illustration is not practical for all books.

I think it would be possible to use a number of these techniques in the same book, changing from page to page as it suites the pacing of the story and the composition of the page. For my polar dog book I would like to try out combining these techniques to see if they can be effective together. This could help me achieve something that all the book illustration briefs I have looked at this year have asked for, "varied compositions"