Abstract Contemporary multilingual picturebooks combine languages with visual systems in ways that move beyond simple juxtaposition, yet research has largely approached these texts through reader-response theory or pedagogical utility rather than as artistic innovations. We introduce the Aesthetic Orchestration Framework (AOF), which operationalises multimodal semiotic orchestration through five analytical dimensions: artistic technique and visual design, typography and graphical elements, creative integration of linguistic resources, affective and sensory dimensions, and narrative structure and reading pathways. Applying the AOF through collaborative autoethnography, we examine how Ellen Heck, Sam Winston, and Shaun Tan create aesthetic experiences through deliberate compositional choices in three contemporary multilingual picturebooks. Our analysis reveals consistent orchestration principles across these works: refusing linguistic hierarchies through equal visual treatment, generating productive disorientation that activates metalinguistic awareness, creating affective fields through formal choices, and using aesthetic means to carry political arguments. We argue that these compositional choices are political acts reshaping how readers encounter linguistic diversity, with implications for research, education, and creative practice in multilingual worlds.
Choi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.