Resources

As mentioned in the meeting, I think it will be important for the illustrations to explore different styles, on and off the computer, some more 'graphic' some more 'illustrative', colors, textures, flat, dimensional, collage, conceptual, realism, etc. As well has exploring the content (for example, a illustration of a car does not have to mimic a real car, but you can translate that image many ways using different techniques, cropping and details).

Here are some 'graphic design' based illustrators I have come across in the past and enjoy their work. Also, there are some links to various 'graphic' based illustrator resources.

Nicholas Blechman (Creator of Empire Nozone, I have a copy from the vcuq library)

Mc Sweeney's and specifically the Quarterly

Flashback (examples of 'graphic' illustrations in contemporary design, I have this if you want to look through it)

Secrets of Digital Illustration (good resource, I have it check out from the library)

Great Blog Resource (you can find 1000's of examples using the tags on the right side)

Another Resource of Illustrators on CargoCollective

Another great resource I found in our library is 'Will Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative'. I currently have it checked, but plan to return it after break. You can find more info about the book here. The book focuses on the 'visual narrative' of everything you put on the page, similar to the semiotics of image making. For example, when you illustrate something as simple as a knife, it could be viewed as good or bad, belong to the hero or villain, used for killing, protection or cutting fruit. And when you put the knife for cutting fruit in the hands of the hero who accidentally kills someone... then a narrative comes to life. A night sky could be serine and beautiful or scary, depending on how you draw it, colors, texture, etc. I think it would be good to consider these aspects on a subconscious level when developing visual ideas.