5 Illustrators

From the first session, I was torn between looking at Editorial and Reportage and Product and Packaging. I tried to just focus in on Editorial and Reportage with my selection of illustrators but the ones I found inspiring had practices which sometimes extended into product and packaging anyway. There is clearly a strong crossover of categories within the five illustrators I have selected. Below I have included a short summary of each illustrator (there is more analysis for each in my sketchbook) and a summary of the task as a whole. 

Julia Rothman 

• She inspires me because she has a consistent and recognisable style which works across may platforms. Her work is appropriate for editorial purposes, book design, pattern and product. 
• Clients include Anthropologie, The New York Times, Urban Outfitters, Victoria's Secret, etc.
• She works for clients, does projects by herself and works as art of 'ALSO' collective. 

Susie Wright 

• She explores her surroundings through imagery, her subject matter includes architecture, nature, wildlife and travel. She draws on location and develops some of her drawings into more refined, print based imagery. 
• I admire her use of ink as a drawing medium, the tonal values and line quality work well to get information down in a simple way. 
• I am inspired by her continued varied range of products she produces, she has not settled into one specific style and this is clear in the range of her outcomes. 

Tim King

• He is a multidisciplinary designer working in numerous fields of creative design, I am focussing on his reportage illustration. He set himself the task of recording every day for a year through reportage illustration which gained him a lot of attention on design blogs. 
• He inspires me because his reportage illustration is a personal thing to him, he uses it to remember what he has been doing with his days but he also carries these skills over to record events and news stories. I admire his observation skills, although not perfectly lifelike, they capture the scene in front of him with enough accuracy for people to relate to them. 
• For promotion he has his own website but his Twitter feed highlighted to me how important it is to get topical drawings seen by people as soon as possible otherwise the moment will pass and people won't be interested anymore. 

Harriet Taylor Seed

• She uses a stencilling technique to keep a handmade feel and she specialises in illustration and surface pattern. She has had numerous editorial commissions for various newspapers and magazines. 
• She is inspired by folk art, tattooing, royal commemorative ware, flea markets and junk shops. 
• I feel her promotion methods aren't as open as some I have seen. She is represented by the Central Illustration Agency and has a website and twitter feed but these don't seem overly engaging. It probably didn't help that the shop on her website was under maintenance when I visited it. 

Leah Goren

• She is an illustrator and surface pattern designer who often does editorial work for various publications. Her clients include Vanity Fair, Penguin Random House, ALDO Shoes, Vogue, etc. 
• She inspires me because her work is adaptable and recognisable and works across numerous platforms. She maintains a personal presence on social media alongside a professional one which I feel is appropriate to her audience. 

Summary

In summary, I feel I maybe should have focussed more purely on reportage illustrators instead of being this broad with my selection of illustrators, but I suppose there is chance to narrow this down later on. I think this task has been helpful to me because it has given me the chance to research into some illustrators who I really admire and not just for the analysis of their work, its more about how they work as a business and the existence of their practice as a whole. I think this might have sparked a few ideas for my draft proposal, maybe looking at reportage illustration to begin with but maybe pushing the artwork forward into a range of physical products. I don't want to be thinking too far ahead and deciding on outcomes already but I am feeling really inspired by the actual products that these illustrators are creating. I think the next stage of decision making for me is thinking about what topics and themes I want to tackle with my work for this project.