Architecture, as a design discipline, relies heavily on visual communication. The advent of new technologies and the exploration of new digital graphic representation techniques reflect architects' growing interest in expressive fields. The need to convey a message and embody ideas, narrating the values and reflections that structure an architectural project, places graphic communication tools in a position of particular relevance.
If this intrinsic need to convey information exists within the architectural field, could comics, as a narrative medium, serve as a useful tool for design communication?
To study the potential of this narrative tool, we must first understand that while comics utilize two major communication instruments (word and image), they are more than the simple conjunction of both. Interaction and simultaneity are the keys to their expressive utility. Word merges with image, driving its message forward into a unified whole.
In a comic, it is possible to go back and forth continuously: the entire space as a whole is within reach all the time. Comics combine visual and textual documentation. -Santiago Miret
