It’s fascinating to watch visual culture evolving in the digital age. Every day we are bombarded by colour, info graphics and images. Our desire for visual stimulus appears insatiable. Look at Pinterest for example, it’s a bizarre social medium platform where you share images you have found and ‘pin’ them for others to see and it’s the fastest growing social media ever! I spend ages perusing the boards that appear to have unleashed an addiction I didn’t even know I had!
So, in this age of complex imagery have you noticed how many books are no longer illustrated; interesting isn’t it? Anyone who collects rare books will know and love the engravings that accompanied the most austere of volumes. In fact, in the past books for adult readers would have been illustrated as a matter of course. Yet towards the end of the twentieth century that wasn’t the case and the trend was to drop illustration however popular it might have been. Even with children’s books there began to be a dearth of images. Look at Rowling’s Potter books; there are no illustrations and one might have thought these were ripe opportunities.
Yet it was not to be; much effort is still lavished on covers; although sometimes you do wonder if there is any point with the number of promotional stickers that now adorn books like a rash of spots. Whatever goes on outside the book; if it’s adolescent or adult, illustration is unlikely to feature between the covers.
But if you truly believed this was a fait accomplis you would be oh so very wrong. There is an underground force at work reclaiming the page for illustration and there are some truly exciting yet fairly traditional developments such as graphic novels. These have taken the publishing world by storm and can no longer be dismissed as hobbies for enthusiasts. Graphic novels have entered the mainstream bringing all kind of opportunities for artists with them.
Yet there is so much more; we are skilled at reading images and certainly seem to crave more risks to be taken with our illustration and as the digital revolution continues we see bastions of our culture beginning to understand their days are numbered. Magazines are already becoming digital with no equivalent hard copy. In fact, traditional purveyors of print are being forced to re-invent themselves and keep up.
Therefore you might say this is the time for illustrators to shine and in fact there seems to be a groundswell of talent emerging who are appealing to all ages once again. After all there are brilliant platforms for their work on the new generation of hand held devices that are eminently portable, accessible and brilliant. At last, high resolution and increasingly improved screens mean work can be seen in a vibrant and exciting way that could not have even been imagined ten years ago.
With the sense that time’s winged chariot is always close behind everyone wants to soak up the sense and as we know a picture is worth a thousand words and everyone is looking. With computer games and the development of CGI animation we see as a matter of course what we once understood as publishing has changed. Post modernism blurred boundaries but this new movement combining mash up, hi-jack and kaleidoscopic and jittery change is probably the most amazing time for everyone passionate about visual annotations.
The Illustration Machine understands the need for this transformation and embraces the fantastic opportunities this epoch is creating. Conventional border controls are no longer in operation; if you can think it then it’s likely you can realise any idea and that’s the tenet upon which our cooperative is based.
So if you want to keep up with what’s happening in the world of illustration, then bookmark this blog and if you have something to say, then say it. We would love to hear your experiences and ideas.
The Illustration Machine 