Increasing digitisation of society has enabled the study of collective phenomena through the analysis of digital traces generated by human and non human interactions online. The growing number and pervasiveness of available images online prompt (digital) social and cultural researchers to integrate visual contents in their analysis. At the same time, the specificity of digital images, in terms of production, fruition and circulation, requires a novel approach to their study, one that shifts the focus from the individual image to the group of images. To observe, describe and interpret a collection of digital images, researchers make use of available tools, offering limited display options and functionalities. With direct observation being often the chosen means for the analysis of a collection of images, the ways in which images are presented, should not be limited by the few display modes offered by available tools. In this dissertation, I explore the combination of a collection of images into a single artifact, which I call composite image, as a strategy to support interpretative work in the context of digital social research. The design of composite images has been tested as a strategy for the analysis of various collections of images, in the context of an online mapping of the debate related to the (re)introduction of green spaces in the city of Paris. The designed composite images have been then collectively interpreted, annotated and discussed in the context of a collaborative workshop with various actors of Parisian urban nature issue. All in all, this dissertation illustrates the design of composite images, which is the result of the transformation and combination of multiple images, as a valuable tool for the analysis, interpretation and discussion of a collection of visual contents in the context of digital social research.