The Changed Face of Illustration

Yesterday our Professor took my class to my University's Graphic Arts Collection and we looked through piles of illustrations dating between the 30s and 50s. I'll admit that my classmates and I were perhaps a little to concerned with the out-dated culture (we were cracking up over every cheesy caption and blatantly racist notion that reared up--and there were plenty) but putting that aside it was still a pretty remarkable experience. As Doug (the professor) pointed out, the illustrators of that period had to do a lot of problem-solving in order to create the works that we saw. They were pretty much working in a relatively young and unappreciated form, that had to be produced under a wealth of limitations and restrictions.

Many were forced to work in limited color palettes while all had to view space in ways that "fine" artists did not. Their images were required to draw a reader to a story, but not stand in for it. They could not just create "art for art's sake" or produce images that were in anyway vague. The images served a purpose and that was to support the text, not dominate it. Art was suddenly married to and secondary to the text when before text and image had existed as separate entities.

It's amazing what the illustrators produced under these conditions. Incredibly beautiful works of art, that yes--made me want to read the stories just to find out their contexts--but alas I did not have the time. Luckily enough they are still stand alone pieces, and it's really easy to get lost staring at them.

Although, I don't have a copy of any of the pictures I saw firsthand yesterday, I did stumble upon Today's Inspiration, a blog that features illustrations from the 40's and 50's. It exposes a wider range of artists than I witnessed yesterday, although nothing beats seeing art firsthand.

What I want to take away from these images, however, is not just how beautiful they were or how much the artists had to overcome to produce them, but rather the changing face of illustration in the few decades that have come since. Once illustration could only be distributed through a "primitive" print system consisting of limited colors and limited space. It was viewed by a comparatively small and presumably literate audience who could afford those publications. Most people saw those works in context, and often illustrators' names were prominently featured next to their works. Now illustrations are reproduced on and often exclusively distributed through the web. People find them out of context more often than not or in context but in languages in which they may not be literate. Many times there is no artist attribution. The creators have limitless space, limitless color, and almost limitless ways to produce their illustrations.

I can't help but wonder what these changes ultimately mean to me as an artist. Have things become easier or harder because of new distribution and production methods? Is what is being produced and shown today as good as what audiences were seeing sixty years ago? How does one determine this? I guess my biggest question is in seeking out methodologies by which to approach and/or judge my work, where do I turn: to today, yesterday, or an as-of-yet undefined combination of the two?

"Exploding in Vinyl": Studying a Work of Niklas Lundberg

I came across the work of Niklaus Lundberg several months ago--presumably back when I was reading Computer Arts with a religious regularity, though I can't be completely sure. Either way, his work stands out to me and it's certainly inspirational in its own way.

This image is perhaps my favorite of the works I've seen thus far. I find that it's often hard to put into words why a piece of art works--and in fact I have been doing a lot of interesting reading on the subject. But my goal with this--and similar entries to come--is to begin to understand and communicate the strengths and weaknesses of a piece, that way I am better able to assess these ideas in my own work. If I've learned one thing from writing, it's always to surround yourself with the masters. You may not be one, but if you study them with open and curious eyes, it's easier to become one.

So, Niklas Lundberg--I'm not sure how many people would consider him a master. Truth be told he is a young illustrator/designer, and what he has now is probably nowhere near what he will create with more years under his belt. But this doesn't stop this piece "Exploding in Vinyl" from standing out.

What I love most about this piece are the many textures that grace it. From the ridges of the fragmented vinyl, to the tiny warped lights that touch here and there. Though the image makes direct reference to music through the fragmented pieces of records, it doesn't immediately call to mind music, but light and space. Perhaps it is the washed out yellow that bleeds from behind the fragmenting figure and disintegrating pieces of vinyl, reading almost like a sun floating in space. Or maybe it is the blackness that surrounds it, seeming like a black hole that has begun to swallow the nearby celestial bodies. Either way, it seems to reference astrology without directly calling it out.

The little touches of saturated color that define the records' labels draw the eye, reading like pleasant surprises among the sea of blackness. It is certainly a good idea on Lundberg's part to add them, else the fragments would get lost, reading less as hundreds--perhaps millions of little pieces, and more as a slightly disjointed mass. It calls attention to the fact that there are many records here, some more or less fragmented than others.

What is interesting is that the figure that is exploding in vinyl, as the title suggests, reads as merely as black and white, although a closer look reveals a tinge of purple on the sleeve. It is rather static compared to the rest of the piece, and in fact the body's forward lean reads as a little foreign compared to the rest of the image. It stands out--though not necessarily in a good way. More in the sense that it is disjointed, and not necessarily a part of the rest of the piece. It seems surrounded by a line that creates a division rather than an integration. But perhaps this is what Lundberg wanted, a body that doesn't belong, morphing into something that does.

The image tells the story of a young man who has surrounded himself by music and has allowed it to consume him. He is a serious music connoisseur--one who doesn't care about catchy hooks and pop melodies, but rather the taste and feel of noise. He obsesses over the quality and faithfulness of the sound, ventures into the world of obscure artists, geniuses, and revolutionaries and surrounds himself with multiple formats of the same song and/or album--but vinyl is his favorite.

This image doesn't read as something literal. The music lover doesn't suddenly explode with albums, overcome by its shear power. Instead this is his world, a metaphor for the way he has been consumed by sound. Music reads like fragments in his head, pieces of noise constantly surrounding him. He is unconcerned by anything else in life but the sound. Perhaps this is why it is so easy to liken the scene to a black hole. The vinyl is his black hole, sucking him in so that this is the only thing that exists.

"Exploding in Vinyl" is a beautiful work, that displays the possible talent to come from Niklas Lundberg. He is a young artist yet, and I am certainly eager to see what is to come. For more of his work, take a look at his online portfolio, diftype.com.

Starting at the Bottom

I'm still trying to figure out if I'm successfully making my way through art school, or if I'm just disillusioning myself into believing that I've made any progress. The professors have established a coded way of delivering information to us. We don't know our grades, we don't know if we're getting any better at we're doing,--hell--we don't even know if they take the slightest pleasure in what we do. They hand out the assignments, give us advice as we move along, and, when the day to turn in our work rolls around, they deliver generalized commentary and then tuck our work away to be discussed at a later date. How overwhelming that will be, when they pull our stuff from their hidden chests, hang it up upon the walls and ask us how we think we did all semester.

Six professors in one room, ready to let loose after an entire semester of holding back. One shudders to think.

I'm pretty sure I'm at the bottom of the curve, and it's really hard not letting that get to me as I try to move forward with my other projects. That's the thing that we all have to learn to do--move on. I'm okay with the fact that I'm not the best, and even that a lot of my stuff is pretty crappy--it's just the part about being surrounded by amazing artists and designers that gets to me.

Fortunately I stumbled across the article "I'm the Worst Designer" a month or two back, and it has been extremely encouraging. The video to which he links is a particularly important part of the read--so I don't recommend skipping out on it. It touches at many of the things that I and, I am sure, many of you have been feeling as we try to make our way through this highly competitive and very large world. I highly recommend that you read it, even if your focus isn't design or even art. This applies to a lot of professions where one is responsible for creating--whether it be writing, filmmaking, or even engineering. We must always remember, that every great artist had to start out somewhere, and that somewhere was never on top.

Taking Control of Time

One thing I've learned as I get further into the year is that time management is the key to survival in this major. Truth is, even if you spend every waking hour working on your project you will find that you've run out of time before you've gotten midway through. And you can complain about how slow you are, or how there's not enough time in the day, or that the professors have unrealistic demands on you, but truth be told that's not going to get you anywhere.

Unfortunately, time management is a surprisingly elusive thing to many artists--well people in general. Part of the problem is we have no sense of time. Many times we're so caught up in the pleasure of perfecting this piece, or adjusting that line to just right, that we forget that the seconds and minutes pass much quicker than we realize. You work a tiny tweak, look up, and see the clock's moved ahead a full hour. Often in my case I'll start working on something at 5:00 pm and realize that it's 3:00 am when I thought only thirty minutes passed. *sigh*

I've started trying something that has been fairly successful for me in the past few weeks. I look at the clock and tell myself, okay, this needs to be done by such and such time--usually a space of fifteen minutes to an hour. Now, that of course doesn't refer to an entire project, but whatever moving parts I need to make in order to add up to a whole.  This means, if I'm making a large-scale poster I will tell myself, "Okay for the next fifteen minutes you will work on the typography, and after that you will work on cleaning up these images for an hour," etc., etc. This acknowledgment of time has me looking at the clock regularly, making sure that tomorrow doesn't creep up on me. It's also making me realize how much time it takes me to work through certain tasks--which in the long run is helpful considering I know which quick and simple details can be saved for last and which "simple" details should actually be done sooner and with more consideration.

The downside is, of course, that I often feel like I could do so much more to a project if I just gave myself a little more time, and it's certainly and effort for me to tell myself, "Okay, times up. That's all you're allowed to do." But in the grand scheme of things, it's better to have a cohesive work with several well-worked out details than a chaotic, last-minute pile of crap that has only one elegant element. Plus, if I finish early I can always go back and try to perfect the work as a whole.

Ultimately, I must remind myself that these projects are only school fair. Yes, some of them may end up in my portfolio one day, but that is my decision and not my professors. My professors don't expect these to be an accurate representation of what I am capable of, but rather a way for me to learn so that I may improve as a designer and/or illustrator (my path is currently up in the air).

Learning to Draw Better

Today I asked a friend, "What is the best way to get better at drawing?" This has been a concern of mine for quite some time. Now I no longer take drawing classes, and in fact though my major (Communication Design) supposedly requires no drawing skill at all, I often feel at a loss because I do not have the basic skills. I can draw moderately close to accurate, and quite well if given the right amount of time--the right amount of time being a couple of hours if not days (which it seems to be of late). This is completely useless when your professors want several neat, readable thumbnails in less than two days. I've learned long ago that I am the only one who understands my thumbnails, so I've been working at making them neater and more composed. Unfortunately, this is tedious (near impossible) when I have to erase every line I've made every minute or so.

And now my professors have told me that though I intend to go into the design track of my major I seem to be leaning more toward illustration. It seems that I treat text and composition the way an image-maker would and am completely clueless about the design aspects. It's ironic, considering I am incapable of creating images, yet I do find myself spending a large amount of time considering and making them.

So, I asked my friend the best way to become better at drawing. Understand this question was aware of the obvious answer--practice--and was aiming more toward how does one practice. Her answer is so simple and obvious (in fact I even came to the same conclusion last night) that I'm a little angry at myself that I never actually tried it. Simply put: look at the images that you like, and do your best to recreate them.

This is after all the way that we learn. Even the most basic functions are acquired through emulating the world around you. Walking, talking, writing--even reading--all come from several sessions of watching/hearing someone else and making yourself do the same to the best of your ability.

This of course will take some time and I will have to be patient with myself, but I think the effort will be worth it in the long run. I recall the year I struggled through Drawing 1 and 2 and it's amazing how much I grew from one end of the year to the other. It may be slow and subtle at first but it will happen.

The Benefits of Failure

For the past week and a half I have been settling into my classes, and in the process discovering something new about myself. I've always thought that I was at a huge disadvantage to my classmates, having spent exactly one year actively pursuing art to their many. And though it's true I am not on the same level as they are, I have found that I have a certain very valuable advantage over them: I do not mind failure.

I spent so much time in the past fretting over my work, trying to make everything as perfect as possible and afraid to show people anything until I thought it was close enough to perfect--which it never was. My process was slow and deliberate, making production limited and I was always devastated when I discovered that my final product wasn't graded consistent with my level of attention.

I'm not sure how it happened, but over time I finally overcame it. I am able to say to myself, I am not perfect, my work is not perfect, and all I can do is learn from my mistakes. So when I fail, I don't take it personally. I look it over, see what was the problem and avoid making that mistake again.

There is a reason why almost every art professor starts off the semester telling you to "become comfortable with failure." It has nothing to do with intimidation tactics, but rather, it is the best advice they could ever give you. The professor is essentially freeing you to take risks, so that you can explore yourself as an artist. If you consistently fear failure, and only do things you know are tried and true, you will never stand out on a nationally or internationally competitive market. What's worse, if you allow fear to dominate you, it will be nearly impossible to make it through art school. Not because you have shoddy grades--they may in fact be decent--but because you've burnt out from stressing over those decent grades instead improving your work.

The other night, I sat in a classroom, charged with producing 50 compositions, and aware that this was not a final project, but the workings toward one. And as the hours weaned on, I had fun experimenting with each and every comp--not bringing them to perfection but exploring their possibilities, even when those possibilities seemed like erroneous pursuits. At the same time, in the background my peers began to complain, freaking out, saying, "I don't know what [the professors] want from us. They don't explain things and then tell us we did bad." It went on like this for several minutes as they vented their frustrations, getting nowhere in their work as they tried to perfect each and every comp.

The thing was, it wasn't that big of a deal. We were not being graded on all 50, or even on a single one. We were putting them up to be looked at, analyzed and discussed so that we could understand what direction to go in for the final project. But my peers, frightened by negative criticism and afraid do poorly on a single one of their squares, pushed themselves under remarkably high levels of stress even though we weren't even two full weeks into the semester. This is not the way to work or to succeed. This is the way to run yourself ragged and burnout before you have even started the job. This is the way to start hating what you do.

Bamboo Fun!

There are many tablets out on the market today, but Wacom is undoubtedly a leader in their production and sale. I remember mentally drooling when my sister first told me of the Wacom Cintiq—a tablet that can quite literally replace your computer screen. It acts similar to a touch screen, displaying the screen on the tablet which allows for direct input. This is definitely a revolution in the graphic arts process, one that I would love to participate in if the opportunity arose. But alas, the smallest model runs about $1000, and I am a broke college student.

Fortunately, one does not have sell organs on the black market in order to utilize the amazing capabilities of Wacom. The Bamboo Fun runs between $100 and $200 depending on the size, and is great at assisting with basic graphic design needs. For me, it’s an excellent replacement for my laptop touchpad and prevents me from having to use a mouse—the scorn of my existence. Okay, perhaps an exaggeration, but over the past few years I have begun to wean myself off the mouse, opting to learn every shortcut key I can—even its function requires more complicated action than actually pointing and clicking. But I can’t stand the way the wires tangle, the balls get stuck and dirty, the way a mouse can suddenly start doing its own thing and make its way halfway across the page before you can do anything about it. Even the wireless ones give me no end of trouble. The Bamboo Fun is a definite cure for this. It comes with both a pen and a mouse (which I would not recommend using for reasons beyond my mouse phobia), but you truly only need the pen to get around.

The tablet is set to be directly proportional to your computer screen. Unfortunately this isn’t entirely accurate, since screens come in different shapes and sizes while the tablet is sold as a one size fits all. In terms of proportion, my screen is slightly taller than the tablet space. Luckily this setback is both minor and temporary. At first it’s a little difficult adjusting for the difference, but it took me only a few hours to master it. I often forget there’s even a discrepancy. Problems only arise when you’re trying to draw angles—I’m going to have to practice that.

When I first received my tablet, I thought it would only be useful in programs such as Photoshop, Jasc, or Coral—a problem considering I would primarily be working with Graphics programs such as Illustrator. The good news is it’s helpful in almost anything you use. I say “almost” simply because I haven’t tried every program available and definitely never will. Thus far I’ve found it useful for everything.

I had used it solely in Photoshop at first, but after discovering that I was addicted to my tablet—yes addicted—I try it elsewhere. Using the tablet in combination with shortcut keys makes Illustrator even more fun to mess around in.

Despite its ease of use, the tablet does have its flaws. First, I found that after the first few days it had already begun to show the marks of use. I know I’m heavy handed—something I’ve been trying to overcome for years but just can’t seem to beat—but it seems just a little too easy to mar the surface. Cleaning it doesn’t really do the trick, but at least the scratching does not affect the way that the tablet works.

The tablet also comes with a couple of buttons at the top, meant to integrate seamlessly with your desktop and make navigation that much easier. The buttons come with preset functions such as zoom in and scroll, but the great thing is it is possible to alter their function. You can reset buttons so that they control your browser, instantly bring up your desktop, act as a commonly used key (i.e. ctrl), or open a specific program. Well, not quite that last one. I’m not sure if it’s a flaw with my particular tablet—I’m really too lazy to check (plus everything else works)—but it seems that it cannot open the programs, reading them as a function of the tablet and not as a program to run. A shame considering I would have made wonderful use out of that function. This was also the biggest disappointment for me.

A third flaw lies in the mouse that I mentioned earlier. For those who still like to use their mice, I’m sure it’s a welcome addition, but I find it to be more trouble than it’s worth. It acts just like a regular mouse, meaning all that stuff about the tablet space being proportional to your screen is instantly thrown out. That’s right, a lot of lifting, moving back and forward just to get to the top of your screen. Which is why it’s definitely easier and better to stick with the pen if you can.

All in all it is a fantastic tool for beginning graphic artists, though I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up to the more heavy duty use it would sustain in the hands of professionals. Both its small size and scratchable surface make it a featherweight. But the size isn’t all bad—it makes it easily portable.

Bamboo Fun comes in either small ($99) or medium ($199) and four different colors: blue, black, white, and silver. In addition to the tablet, pen, and mouse, you will receive Adobe® Photoshop® Elements, Corel® Painter™ Essentials 4.0, and Nik® Color Efex™ Pro 3.0 WE3. I haven't personally cracked into that software so I'm not sure how well it works, but it's certainly a tantalizing offer.

For more information visit Wacom.