Thanks very much. To be honest I never really considered myself to be an illustrator until people started asking me to do it. So I’m not sure I’m overly qualified to answer this, and I’m sure some people will think my answer is bullshit. But oh well. Here goes. The hand drawn vs digital thing is something I’ve struggled with a lot in the last year. Quoteskine was never meant to be “work” (and it still isn’t really). It wasn’t there to make money or sell my illustration skills to clients or anything, it was just something I did because I liked drawing. But because of it, people started to ask me to do illustration work for them, and in turn I’ve become more confident that I AM an illustrator. So that’s the path I’m stumbling down at the minute.  I think that if I’d started Quoteskine as a daily digital illustration project, where everything was clean and vectorised, I’d have probably got more work out of it, and made more money from selling Quoteskine related things. I think the industry is very digital/clean focused at the moment. Even all those “vintage” looking quote illustrations that are trendy are super clean, and there are SO many crazy-cute vector character illustrations too that I can’t cope. But I personally think that’s more about the style that’s “in” at the moment rather than the tools the illustrators are using. Just like fashion I think art and design goes in cycles, and I’m sure there will come a point when everyone starts to want things to look all hand drawn and a bit more fucked up than they do now. There was a great piece that was (kind of) about this topic over on The Fox is Black called Fuck design, let’s set the world on fire:   http://thefoxisblack.com/2012/01/09/fuck-design-lets-set-the-world-on-fire/ It talks about perfection versus fucked upness, as well as everything looking the same. I think that’s what kills me the most, if you spend a lot of time looking at inspiration blogs, as so many of us do, it can quickly feel like there are only 3 illustrators in the whole world. In that post it says - “When I think of art I think of expression. When I think of design, I think about perfection.” That’s exactly how I feel about illustration a lot of the time, it feels like there’s so often no “expression” it’s just there to look cool. That’s why I almost always call my work drawings rather than illustrations, because to me the word drawing feels far more expressive and less clinical. It’s easy to get down hearted and to think you’re doing everything “wrong”, especially in an age where the internet is so keen to show you what’s “right”. But it’s also nice to remember that even though it seems like everyone is illustrating in exactly the same style and that’s the only way you’ll ever make it, there are a lot of wonderful illustrators making a living from a more hand drawn style of illustration. People like Mr Bingo, Marc Johns, Gemma Correll, McBess, David Shrigley, and plenty more I can’t think of now, are all really successful illustrators. And I think the one thing they all have in common, whether you like their style or not, is that they’re expressing themselves even when they’re answering a brief. There’s a great (and short) interview with McBess about the state of the industry on his blog here…  http://blog.mcbess.com/post/14610024364/crane-tv-interview And yeah, he’s illustrating digitally in that clip, but it’s his own (and the 3,00,000 people who copy him daily’s) style, and it also mimics his hand drawn stuff. If you’ve ever seen his hand drawn work it looks exactly like his digital work. He says in that clip - “It’s my drawing, my rules.” I’m fairly new to being a professional illustrator, so I feel like I’m still finding my style or voice, and that’s what I’m going to be working really hard on in 2012. I want what McBess said there to be my new motto. Like I said, I got really hung up last year on whether I should be illustrating digitally or by hand. But I think a much more important thing to focus on is putting a little of myself into each drawing instead. That’s my aim for this year. I’m sure I’ll do some work digitally, and I’m sure I’ll do plenty by hand. I think the more I concentrate on expressing myself and my ideas about a brief more, the more my style will fall naturally into place, and the more successful my work will be. And when I say successful I mean successfully answered a brief or conveyed an idea. I’ll take that kind of success over vapid cashing in on the “in” thing anytime. So those are my thoughts from my perspective. I know a bunch of you are also illustrators or artists, so maybe you have some opinions to add?
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Thanks very much. To be honest I never really considered myself to be an illustrator until people started asking me to do it. So I’m not sure I’m overly qualified to answer this, and I’m sure some people will think my answer is bullshit. But oh well. Here goes.

The hand drawn vs digital thing is something I’ve struggled with a lot in the last year. Quoteskine was never meant to be “work” (and it still isn’t really). It wasn’t there to make money or sell my illustration skills to clients or anything, it was just something I did because I liked drawing. But because of it, people started to ask me to do illustration work for them, and in turn I’ve become more confident that I AM an illustrator. So that’s the path I’m stumbling down at the minute. 

I think that if I’d started Quoteskine as a daily digital illustration project, where everything was clean and vectorised, I’d have probably got more work out of it, and made more money from selling Quoteskine related things.

I think the industry is very digital/clean focused at the moment. Even all those “vintage” looking quote illustrations that are trendy are super clean, and there are SO many crazy-cute vector character illustrations too that I can’t cope. But I personally think that’s more about the style that’s “in” at the moment rather than the tools the illustrators are using. Just like fashion I think art and design goes in cycles, and I’m sure there will come a point when everyone starts to want things to look all hand drawn and a bit more fucked up than they do now.

There was a great piece that was (kind of) about this topic over on The Fox is Black called Fuck design, let’s set the world on fire:  

http://thefoxisblack.com/2012/01/09/fuck-design-lets-set-the-world-on-fire/

It talks about perfection versus fucked upness, as well as everything looking the same. I think that’s what kills me the most, if you spend a lot of time looking at inspiration blogs, as so many of us do, it can quickly feel like there are only 3 illustrators in the whole world.

In that post it says - “When I think of art I think of expression. When I think of design, I think about perfection.” That’s exactly how I feel about illustration a lot of the time, it feels like there’s so often no “expression” it’s just there to look cool. That’s why I almost always call my work drawings rather than illustrations, because to me the word drawing feels far more expressive and less clinical.

It’s easy to get down hearted and to think you’re doing everything “wrong”, especially in an age where the internet is so keen to show you what’s “right”. But it’s also nice to remember that even though it seems like everyone is illustrating in exactly the same style and that’s the only way you’ll ever make it, there are a lot of wonderful illustrators making a living from a more hand drawn style of illustration.

People like Mr Bingo, Marc Johns, Gemma Correll, McBess, David Shrigley, and plenty more I can’t think of now, are all really successful illustrators. And I think the one thing they all have in common, whether you like their style or not, is that they’re expressing themselves even when they’re answering a brief.

There’s a great (and short) interview with McBess about the state of the industry on his blog here… 

http://blog.mcbess.com/post/14610024364/crane-tv-interview

And yeah, he’s illustrating digitally in that clip, but it’s his own (and the 3,00,000 people who copy him daily’s) style, and it also mimics his hand drawn stuff. If you’ve ever seen his hand drawn work it looks exactly like his digital work.

He says in that clip - “It’s my drawing, my rules.”

I’m fairly new to being a professional illustrator, so I feel like I’m still finding my style or voice, and that’s what I’m going to be working really hard on in 2012. I want what McBess said there to be my new motto. Like I said, I got really hung up last year on whether I should be illustrating digitally or by hand. But I think a much more important thing to focus on is putting a little of myself into each drawing instead.

That’s my aim for this year. I’m sure I’ll do some work digitally, and I’m sure I’ll do plenty by hand. I think the more I concentrate on expressing myself and my ideas about a brief more, the more my style will fall naturally into place, and the more successful my work will be.

And when I say successful I mean successfully answered a brief or conveyed an idea. I’ll take that kind of success over vapid cashing in on the “in” thing anytime.

So those are my thoughts from my perspective. I know a bunch of you are also illustrators or artists, so maybe you have some opinions to add?

30 Notes/ Hide

  1. sequinsonfire answered: “It’s easy to get down hearted.. etc.” For that section - THANK YOU !!!
  2. theoinglis answered: always what and why, not how!
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