Illustration and graphic design have a long history of competition, both with each other and with photography and image manipulation. To say any one – or several – are better than another is to over-simplify the problem. In marketing, it’s all about perception of the product: Image is not everything; it is the only thing.
A classic modern case where traditional illustration is the only medium that can convey an entire concept in less than 30 seconds is the brilliant advertising campaign of UPS using nothing more complex than a whiteboard, a dry marker and an eraser. For those unfamiliar with the campaign, an illustrator is standing in front of a very normal office accessory: the whiteboard. With a series of simple lines and a staccato rapid-fire delivery of marketing patter, the illustrator is constantly creating and altering a complementary rendering in the trademark brown of the corporation by selective addition and subtraction of lines. This message requires this medium for its speed, elegance and mass appeal to its intended audience: corporate management. This particular ad campaign is the perfect vehicle, combining familiarity in presentation, high-concept design and fast delivery of the concept competently presented. After all, UPS is all about delivery.
On the other side of the same coin, the current eSurance advertisements represent a subset of the graphics arts – animation. Today, more and more animation is Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). In this particular context, the images are deliberately cartoon-ish, reminiscent of comic book art. With more sophisticated tools like 3D Studio Max and Zbrush, CGI can be virtually indistinguishable from a live photograph. Granted, animation is not classical illustration in the Norman Rockwell or Howard Chandler Christy sense, however, it is a valid medium in today’s world of High Definition TV marketing.
There are two areas of illustration that will probably never convert to digital graphics any time soon. They are the niche disciplines of political cartooning – the marketing of politics by illustration – and the arcane world of storyboard illustration for film and conceptual advertisement production. Both require very rapid rendering and accommodation for instantaneous changes. The primary bottlenecks in both styles is technologically-based. Even with computers and computer-aided design, the amount of time required to render an illustration can vary from several minutes for a flat illustration to many hours or even days for precision lifelike 3D illustrations.
For the artists considering a career in graphics illustration, a strong grounding in technological sciences is virtually mandatory, as is a classic education in the elements of art, using traditional media to master the concepts of form and function. This is one of the gray areas in the pursuit of an academic degree where the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Science must live in peaceful co-existence. It is a prime candidate for a dual major baccalaureate.
The future of illustration is going to depend on the transition of current 3-D modeling and its ability to be translated into laser holography. The wrap-around multiple perspective possibilities promised by more powerful computers, faster rendering times, multiple pipeline graphics and prodigious amounts of memory are already apparent in many of the video games currently in production.
The purpose of illustration and graphics is to transcend reality without violating the viewer’s willful suspension of disbelief. The future of illustration is assured. Consider the only lasting impressions of the most primitive and ancient people on Earth are simple illustrations painted on the walls of caves several millennium ago is de facto proof of the endurance of the form. There is no reason or cause to think illustration is a dying art. If anything, it is a blank canvas, ripe with potential and the reasonable expectation of bearing fruit.