LAYOUT PROCEDURE and purpose

The function of LAYOUT is:

* Make the scene easy for the animator to understand and use.

That means COMPOSING THE SCENE so that there is enough space for the animator to move the characters - and to clearly see what the characters are doing.

*Preserve the GUTS of the storyboard poses - AND HOPEFULLY TO PUSH THEM FURTHER.

Here is more detail on how to plan a scene for layout:

John K Stuff: Scene Planning For TV - Setups for storyboard and layout 5: Roughing The Widest Staging

***Ideally, a layout artist should be an animator with a sense of design and composition. The most skillful artists that combine great draftsmanship with a personal style are the artists best suited to layout.

That's a hard combination to find these days.