Customer Reviews

Exploring Illustration (Design Exploration)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Honestly, after reading a few reviews and ratings I thought this would be pretty good. I was really wrong.

I have to give credit in that I have never seen any author fill so many pages with so little information. That must take skill.

Unfortunately I believed the cover when it said "An In-depth Guide To The Art and Techniques of Contemporary Illustration" and expected to find, well...techniques, like how to compose a page. Here is a brief yet quite thorough summary of chapter 2, which 'covers' (sic) the building blocks (allegedly including composition):
you need to plan a picture understanding that people will see it (novel!); the concept dictates the composition (no information on how to do this); it needs to be reproducible and tecnically fit (no information on how to do this); lines have character (none shown); value is important (none shown); colour is important (and here's a random list of everything I think of when someone says the word 'colour', done in black and white); different objects give different textures (wow!); pattern comes from repeating shapes (you think?); shape is important and form tricky (no information on how to do this); positive and negative space can help (no information on how to do this)(especially no examples); work with geometric shapes; and here are some principles, generally given 2 or 3 lines each with no examples, that might be useful in any sort of context but here just seem obvious and floating.

For 'important technical building blocks' a quick discussion about how useful they are with no examples, no context, no diagrams, no explanation of different levels or how to achieve effects etc is pretty darn useless. I hardly think this should be considered a guide to illustration techniques. I was hoping to learn aspects of illustration that differed from other forms of art, like composition, and am lucky I have a good art foundation already as a 'gallery artist' because if I was trying to actually learn any sort of basics from this chapter on basics I would be completely lost and ignorant and never even know what I was missing out on.

It also said there were exercises- I was expecting interesting projects, like create a cover for a cd for a particular band in a certain style or illustrate this brief story, more related to working in the field and receiving commissions rather than exploring different media or subject matter. In this sense I don't think it caters to cross-over artists who have come from other areas in art, or, in a lot of cases, people over twelve who have ever done anything remotely interesting with different media (like spill a milkshake or doodle while you're on the phone). In other words, I found the tone very child-like, as if written for very young teens or people who want to be illustrators but never thought of doing so much as holding a pen differently.

The discussion of different fields of art is brief and obvious and misses the opportunity to explain how to create some of the different styles. Unless you've been living in a cave for a long time there is very little information here.

The descriptions of materials is good in terms of telling you what's in them, but again, missing information about techniques- how do you go about applying some of these media? What do you use them with/ apply them to? What do you need to know before you start? Why choose one and not another? Sections like the one on airbrushing pose a lot of questions themselves as a means of showing options but don't give any answers on why to choose anything, and again, lack examples.

This book is history- and theory- heavy and a lot seems pretty obvious or irrelevant. If this was it's strongest suit it should have advertised itself as that, not as a guide to 'Art and Techniques'. It gets a star in that there are some good examples of works, but most of these are thrown into the book randomly instead of being used an instructional examples relating to the text. The artist profiles are a good idea but it would be good to see more than one work for each artist when talking about their philosophy- a quote about life and an illustration I'd best describe as clip-art isn't generally helpful.

There is one colour section but the rest is black and white, even the section on colour theory. The step-by-step guides are very light on the how to's, even not telling what program or media is used on one of the two I could find. These are one of the better ideas of the book, even if not very realised, and even they are not in colour even though one specifically mentions which colours are used along the way. I realise that printing cost is the big issue but only having one big slab of colour prints in the middle is a pretty random and lazy way to go about it.

I realise that I sound harsh but I think this text is a perfect example of how so many people want to write about and 'teach' art and not actually tell anyone the techniques involved in doing it. This culture has gone on so long I think that a lot of authors and teachers honestly don't know anymore and students don't know what's missing. If you want to find out or expand your knowledge in illustration get Writing With Pictures and leave this book alone.

I first saw this book at the library and thought it was so great I decided to buy myself a copy. It covers everything from the concept to how to make it happen. It also gives detailed info on different materials which I found very helpful. The books includes essays from various successful illustrators which not only provide info on how they proceed but encouragement for the aspiring illustrator as well. This book also covers digital art as well as more classic media. I really like the fact that the author includes exercises through out the book to fine tune skills or learn new ones.

It was required book for college class. Lots of good illustrations, there is a section of 32 color pages, the rest are grayscale! If you need it for school, buy it.

Great book for anyone who wants to know aliitle bit more about illustration. It comes fast to! Great service here!

I received this book in a timely fashion and the book was in excellent condition!