secrets of digital illustration secrets of digital illustration a master class in commercial image-making Lawrence Zeegen Contents 152 145 158 164 146 160 156 166 168 150 147 146 148 149
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172 Case Study: The Collective Tips for Negotiating Fees Insider tips for Illustrators Insider tips Tips for Generating Ideas 01: Getting to Work to Work 01: Getting 02: Getting the Work 03: Doing the Work it Out 04: Working 05: Career Development Tips for Winning Awards Tips for Winning Case Study: The Promo Publication Case Study: The Promo Tips for Surviving a Placement Clients Happy Tips for Keeping 5. 7. Section Two:Section Practice Professional 1. Contact Details Index Acknowledgments 3. 8. 2. 4. 6. 120 64 60 16 68 141 88 36 96 116 54 79 15 40 30 92 107 138 85 135 33 57 110 82 51 113 132 6
27 The Art of Character Design Commercial Art and Personal Projects Projects Personal and Art Commercial Ideas and Visual Problem-Solving Problem-Solving Ideas and Visual The Digit vs. The Digital Where Fashion and Music Collide Where Fashion Profile: Mr bingo Profile: Johnson Adrian Profile: Posti Pietari Profile: Seki 1: Natsko Workthrough Wales Holly Profile: Masunouchi Asako Profile: Hydes Oliver Profile: Case Study: The All-Service Studio Studio 2: Matt Wingfield Workthrough Sanna Annukka Profile: Sasha Barr Profile: Seidlitz Serge Profile: Case Study: Interactive Design 3: Marine Workthrough Jon Burgerman Profile: Simon Oxley Profile: Jeremyville Profile: 4: Jeremyville Workthrough Jim Stoten Profile: Emily Alston Profile: Atkinson Craig Profile: 5: Craig Atkinson Workthrough 4: 5: Introduction Introduction One: Section Process Working 1: 2: 3:
While every effort has been made to contact owners of of owners contact to made been has effort every While not have we book, this in produced material copyright query, copyright a of event the In successful. been always Publisher. the contact please 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 978-2-940361-56-4 ISBN: Seddon Tony Director: Art and Hrachovec Russell Design: compoundEye at Schmit Benoît by Singapore in Reprographics Ltd. Pte. ProVision 7720 6334 +65 Tel: 7721 6334 +65 Fax: by Singapore in Printed Ltd. (Pte) Industries Standard Star
Copyright © RotoVision SA 2007 SA RotoVision © Copyright be may publication this of part No reserved. rights All transmitted or system, retrieval a in stored reproduced, mechanical, electronic, means, any by or form any in permission without otherwise, or recording photocopying, holder. copyright the of A RotoVision Book Book RotoVision A Published and distributed by SA RotoVision 9 Suisse Route Mies CH-1295 Switzerland SA RotoVision Office Editorial and Sales Road Western 114 House, Sheridan UK 1DD, BN3 Hove 68 72 72 (0)1273 +44 Tel: 69 72 72 (0)1273 +44 Fax: www.rotovision.com Adapt or die This book takes up the story from the point in the digital revolution at which technology has given way to creativity, the balance of power having shifted in favor of the big idea. It wasn’t always this way. Before the digital revolution, life as an illustrator was fairly straightforward—or so it seemed. There was no Apple, no Photoshop, no Google—no Internet, no e-mail, no hassle. Looking back at life before the revolution, albeit through rose-tinted glasses, the working day for your lone illustrator was a fairly simple affair. In the precomputer age, a common-or- garden commission for a freelance illustrator would come about through a phone call made by an art director to an illustrator’s landline. Cell phones only came into every- day use in the 1990s. If you were out of the studio when the call came, chances were you would miss the job. Even in 1990, answer phones were not the norm, and the brief itself would have to be posted or collected: fax machines were huge, cumbersome, and expensive items. Without websites and e-mail, illustrators utilized the humble postcard as their calling card to the creative world, designing, printing, addressing, and posting hundreds of these mail shots on a regular 1 basis. With just that single postcard to judge an illustrator by, art directors took time out of their working day to view physical portfolios. Yes, they would actually look at real work, in real time, in the real world. In Introduction the early years of the twenty-first century, those who commission illustration can view work in seconds, make creative decisions in minutes, have an illustrator briefed within hours, and set deadlines of a few days. The means by which freelance illustrators maintain a professional profile, inform clients of new work, and show their portfolios have altered beyond recognition. 2
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1. Christian Montenegro, New Scientist magazine, “Mr Hawking’s Flexiverse,” editorial. 2. Holly Wales, Sellotape Pigeon, personal project. 3. Adrian Johnson, 2K By Gingham, Inspire T-shirt design.
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Gazing into the future back in 1992, John “People kept telling me I could achieve what Entry into the digital world came at Warwicker, Creative Director of design I was doing with paint so much more easily a price. “My first Mac cost nearly £3,000 collective Tomato, said, without even a trace and quickly using a computer, but of course [c. US $5,700]. Crazy when you think about of irony, “I can envisage a time when we’ll all I resisted this as long as possible,” he recalls. it now. And it was so very slow,” says Burgess. need our own individual Macs.” The digital “For me, back then, the digital world was Buying and setting up a Mac was at the revolution took no prisoners. It was clear— a void of incomprehensible gibberish!” bottom of a new and radically steep learning adapt or die! Accordingly, the working life, Also leaving college at the end of the curve. Getting to grips with software, even lifestyles, and life skills needed by today’s 1980s was textile designer turned collage if you could master the hardware, would be “creatives” have altered, and accelerated. artist, turned illustrator/designer Paul Burgess, a challenge to those who had always worked best known at the time for his seminal book manually. “I’m self-taught,” admits Burgess, jackets for Vintage. “When computers came “with loads of help from mates who have along in the mid-1990s,” recalls Burgess, begrudgingly shown me tricks along the way.” From analogue to digital “we all hated them. We thought they were Jason Ford concurs with Burgess. “I’ve Jason Ford, Association of Illustrators award rubbish. We were all proved so wrong!” always had loads of help from studio buddies winner, entered the industry with a purely Recognizing that technology was in flux, a lot further down the digital path than me. traditional skill set. Ford recalls his own that everything was poised to change, Burgess It helps to share studio space with designers transition into the digital realm. “My work embraced digital technology, but in his own, who understand all the technical stuff and had always been about trying to achieve punk-inspired fashion. “I bought my first can help out when an image disappears from a flat graphic/silk-screen feel,” he explains. Mac and slowly started to grasp Photoshop, 8 your screen for no reason at all!” “I was trying to hide the brush mark as much but trying to misuse it as much as possible,” as I could.” Moving from brush and paint to he admits. It is clear that some entered the screen and mouse wasn’t seamless though. digital domain on their own terms. 12
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4. Jason Ford, exhibition invitation, 11 personal project. 5. Sanna Annukka, Island Records, Skull Balloons music packaging. 6. Chris Dent, Notting Hill Arts Club, Big Hair, exhibition poster. 7. Serge Seidlitz, Skulls, personal project. 8. Adam Hayes, When I Smile I Feel Better, personal project. 9. Melvin Galapon, Get Lost, submission for If you could. 10. Paul Burgess, Loves to Scratch, personal project. 11. Ian Stevenson, Concrete Hermit, Save the Tape T-shirt design. 12. Paul Blow, Radio Times, “Broken English,” editorial.
Introduction Introduction 13. Joe McLaren, The Lodge, Piece of Cake, album cover. 14. Kerry Roper, Nike, Air Jordan T-Shirt design. 15. Brett Ryder, the Telegraph, “Woman In A Man’s World,” editorial. 16. McFaul, Mustplay deck designs, personal project. 13 17. Yuko Kondo, Wieden+Kennedy, Lucha Libre, window display.
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An education in illustration recalls. “At the time most of the people using John McFaul graduated in 1996. Today, no the computer at college were graphic design stranger to the pages of Computer Arts, he For a younger generation of illustrators and students, so I didn’t get the help I needed.” can visit his past with humor and a touch of image-makers, the digital revolution kicked As well as getting the right kind of teaching, nostalgia. “I’m mainly self-taught,” he explains. in during their time at art school, not that getting in front of the kit was problematic. “Graduating in the dark ages meant that 17 institutions were quick to respond, or face At the time, Ryder’s work, now a unique computers were the tools ‘of the designers,’ the challenges ahead. Lucy Vigrass (original blend of collage with hand- and digitally but because I’ve always been influenced by Peepshow crew) graduated in 1998. “I think rendered drawing and painting, wasn’t going design, far more so than illustration, they we had a one-day session in Photoshop,” anywhere. “I was unhappy with the direction always held some intrigue,” he adds. she recalls. “We made pictures of ourselves my work was taking, so I turned to the Knowing just how far he has come, looking like we had clingfilm [plastic wrap] computer. I thought it could help solve McFaul muses on an early job. “I remember over our faces!” Keen to embrace new the aesthetic problems I was experiencing.” the first job I did using Photoshop. It was working methods and techniques, Vigrass Ryder now works regularly for clients across terrible! I barely knew how to use any of the learnt the hard way. “Most of my learning the globe, recently for the New York Times, tools and I was ringing my ‘designer’ friends came from people around me and working the Daily Telegraph, GQ magazine, and O, every five minutes with questions.” things out myself. You pick things up out of the Oprah Magazine. “The degree in which necessity and shortcut one-upmanship.” I draw or collage, and my use of the digital Brett Ryder, emerging in the mid-1990s, know-how, fluctuates as I progress my work,” wasn’t equipped any more ably than Vigrass. Ryder explains, but his working methods “I learnt to use the computer at home,” he have changed little.
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19 20 The digital generation Mr bingo considers himself “part of the digital generation. We started making For those who have entered the creative images using computers at art school,” he industries, and more specifically the world of explains from his studio. “I’ve always been illustration, since the turn of this century, it working digitally in a professional sense, but, would appear that everything has been digital of course, my induction was quite some time for some considerable time. Advances in before.” Not in the least reluctant to divulge hardware and software have been enormous, his first brush with digital image-making, and for a generation that has grown up with Mr bingo keenly recounts his proud past. a PC in their bedroom, a cell phone in their “I was using Deluxe Paint III on the pocket, and a playlist on their iPod, it is almost Commodore Amiga 500+ in the early ’90s. unthinkable that this technology wasn’t around I was making animations that simulated a earlier than the 1990s. few seconds of a scrolling shoot-’em-up, or Steve Wilson recalls his first foray into the occasional flying penis. You know the the digital world, fresh out of art school, in kind of thing.” We do? 2001. “I was commissioned to create eight Emily Alston, another fully paid-up thumbnail-sized illustrations for The Guide, member of the digital generation, having the mag given away with the Guardian on a graduated from university in 2004, explains Saturday, and they were reproduced over a that the culture of her degree course actively period of four weeks,” he remembers. “I then encouraged digital working methods. “We had didn’t get another commission for nine master classes at university, but as I had never months. I spent the money earned from the really bracketed myself as an illustrator, I would Guardian many times over during that leave my easel behind and follow the graphic period. But I’ve since worked for many designers into the IT suite,” she explains. clients, including Virgin, Coca-Cola, MTV, Wallpaper*, and the BBC.” Self-taught, Wilson admits to never fully engaging with the digital while a student, and 21 he is still learning. “I think I’m still only using a fraction of the software’s capabilities,” he explains. He gets what he needs from Illustrator “There are still plenty of tools and options that and Photoshop, “but there are still plenty of tools and options I barely use,” he admits. I barely use. Occasionally I’ll discover something “Occasionally I’ll discover something new new and within a few months I’m thinking, ‘how on and within a few months I’m thinking, ‘how 18. Sasha Barr, Memphis, Giant Bear music poster. on Earth did I live without that!’’’ earth did I live without that!’’’ 19. Emily Alston, Party, personal project. 20. Lucy Vigrass, TORO Magazine, “Body Brokers,” editorial. 21. Steve Wilson, Tank Theory, Ribbon Tiger T-shirt design. 22. Serge Seidlitz, MTV and Toonami, idents and logos. 22 12 Introduction Introduction 13 23. Neil McFarland, Enchanted Green Big Chill House, personal project. 24. Karin Hagen, Dougs, personal project. 25. Nathan Daniels, American Express, Spend ad campaign.
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Finding your own way the results. It’s the final image that counts, “The idea is king. Once regardless of how you got there.” But Burgess “It is important to find your own way of using demands the final word. “The idea is king. you have a strong idea, technology. Illustrators and designers all have Once you have a strong idea, everything else the same technology available to them. If just flows along behind it.” everything else just flows everyone used the tools in the same way, With fallout from the digital revolution along behind it.” nothing would ever stand out as different or now settled, interest has once again shifted original,” Alston advises. back to ideas, back to what it is that makes Paul Burgess, a generation apart from an image work, to how the image Alston, but in absolute agreement with her, communicates, and to what it has to say. states his case. “I think it’s very difficult now. Issues and debates are now more centered on Everyone has a computer, everyone has the an artist’s own personal visual language than same software, and everyone thinks they can on software tips and tricks. Discussion about stick a couple of butterflies onto a twiddly the illustration scene focuses on expressing background and they have an illustration. a point of view rather than decorating a They don’t have an illustration; they have page. Today’s top-notch digital illustrators decoration. There is a big difference! Digital maintain a balance of commercial and self- technology is exciting, but only as exciting as authored projects, motivated by the desire to the ideas you have inside your head.” communicate and to establish careers in an “As with most professions,” adds Jason industry constantly under pressure from the Ford, drawing on his extensive experience, whims of fashion. “75% of the illustration out there is a dog’s dinner, but the other 25% keeps the standards high.” Steve Wilson is a little more positive. “It is really all about trying to produce work that is distinctive and original, whatever that is. Work shouldn’t be judged on the levels of technology involved in making it. I never understand people who are anticomputers or procomputers. Who really cares how you get 25
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