Thoughts on Illustration and it's relevance in today's market...

Design is not art, and I wouln't treat is as such. But! I have always believed that illustration used in a design [which is, effectivelly art for a purpose] can be a powerful tool that can be used as well or better than a photograph, to visually communicate a story or idea in a design piece.

Being a designer that has 'dabbled' in Art, I have had the opportunity to incorporate some of my own artwork into design pieces - and the client always ended up with a wonderfullly unique piece of work that had no danger of 'popping' up somewhere else in somone else's work.

Unfortunately....sigh.... Illustration is quickly becoming a forgotten art in the cut-throat business world and a completely underutilized communication tool.

I would love to continue to use illustration in my design work, but this has proven to be quite a challenge. Clients prefer photography over illustration because they see it as somehow being “more realistic” or “more honest,” even though photography has become increasingly more unreal. [aka...the furore of photoshop retouching and so on and so forth].

Stock illustration houses are killing the demand for original illustration and the acceleration of the design process brought on by advances in technology has made clients impatient and unwilling to go through the sketch and idea development phase that has always been a part of commissioning original illustration.

I 'd love to see more designers encourage an illustration revival with clients but I fear that, just like other once popular, but now outmoded practices, this will not happen.