In arranging the elements on each page, including the printed type, the artist tries to obtain an effective balance between unity and variety and creates certain visual patterns that may be carried on from page to page. Illustrators try to ensure that the eye moves from one part of each double-page spread to another, both within the picture and between the picture any printed text. This in turn sets up a subtle rhythm that can be carried throughout the book. All of these choices can further express the visual meanings expressed by the elements and contribute to a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Although many artists choose to represent or echo the verbal text of a book, the aesthetic experience is enhanced when the artist brings something extra to the scene.
Illustrations perform various functions with reference to the text in which they are embedded.
At the simplest level they decorate the text and dramatize the action or mise en scene. Illustrations can also interpret the text by portraying characters as dismayed or joyful, weeping or brave, moods which in the psychological flatness of most fairy tale plots take on great importance. Illustrations may even reformulate the text by supplying information different or absent from the text. Illustrations give insight and new life to folktales that otherwise might have stopped evolving once they had been recorded. Likewise, a comparative illustration study of a single folktale reveals that there is not a single, preserved, visual interpretation.