Illustration
An illustration is a visualization or a depiction made by an artist, such as a drawing, sketch, painting, photograph, or other kind of image of things seen, remembered or imagined, using a graphical representation. The word comes from the latin word illustra'tio, illu'stro meaning enlighten, irradiate. The Nowadays printing is the process for reproducing illustrations, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. Illustrations can be artistic images illustrating for example a text, poem, fashion, magazines, stamps or a book and very often illustrations were made for for childrens books. The aim of an illustration is to elucidate or decorate a story, poem or piece of textual information by providing a visual representation of something described in the text. Illustrations can also represent scientific images of flora, medicine or different processes, a biological or chemical processes or technical illustrations to give information on how to use something. Illustrations can be executed in different techniques, like watercolor, gouache, ink, oil, charcoal chalk or woodcut.
I particularly find illustration of interest as I love exploring different processes and experimenting mixing medias to achieve an exciting result. Illustration is usually my first turning point when involving image and over the past year at Leeds College of Art, I have toggled between my usual hand rendered style and digital illustration. I like the organic aesthetic that hand rendered design creates, especially when using inks and watercolours combined with fine liners. However, over the past year have gained an interest in combining this with digital illustration and trying to find a balance between them.
The image below gives an even balance between photography and illustration, the simple use of colour along with the greyscale photo helps to focus the eye of the audience. The contrast between photo and hand drawn image gives an almost surreal aesthetic.
'Urban Warrior' by Jon Caplin also explores the use of photographic imagery however combines this with paints and digital elements. This creates a strong, bold image that intrigues audiences as the colours used that are expressive and exciting lead the eye of the audience into the center of the image and make up parts of the photo of the woman.
The rustic aesthetic of the water colour studies below explore light and colour. The image isn't contained to a specific area and explores the page which is something that, in my opinion, should be explored further to investigate surrounding spaces when illustrating.
Hand rendered type combined with illustration also interests me. The greyscale theme here works well but the surrounding illustration overwhelms the type so perhaps slight colour may be used to depict the letters out more? The fineliner markings are cleanly executed which shows great attention to detail throughout the piece.
Branding
Branding is interesting when talking in terms of illustration as concept and ideologies can be decide the identity of a brand purely by image and layout.
For example, the digital illustrations for ginsters packaging below is a light hearted, fun and friendly design for sandwich boxes. This gives the impression of the brand to be student friendly and aims towards a young, trend following audience.
In contrast with the above, the branding below for a french restaurant explores a more traditional take on style of illustration. The simple layout and type eludes sophistication and simplicity.
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