A Small Thought About Use of Text In Editorial Illustration

If we consider illustration as a visual equivalent of writing, should our editorial illustrations that accompany written articles ever contain text? Is it a shortcut, a cheat, or not an issue at all to guide the viewers eye through an Illustrator's 'translation' of an article by using text in the illustration?

If you were to translate a foreign language into your native tongue, would you leave words you didn't know the meaning of, or would you seek out their meaning?

This maybe a pedantic arguement but our role as Illustrator is to communicate in our own unique language and ideally our visual concepts and solutions should be succint enough to not require written repetition or instruction from the accompanying article.

This is something I've been considering recently. At times, when I'm not working on an idea I'm completely satisfied with I introduce text into my image to 'guide the audience home'. Increasingly though, I'm considering this to be a cheat. An Illustrator is a visual communicator and when interpreting a written article, we are hired to translate, or interpret, into our own language. Should the best newspaper and magazine Illustrators avoid the use of type in illustrations? What do you think?

-Robin

Misreading Signs/ Saga Magazine/ Robin Boyden 

Dr Raspberry will see you now

Aaron's added some new tasty illustrations to his website. The walnut working out is a particular favourite of ours. Updated illustrations

Robin - St.Georgia The Comic

A couple of years ago, I developed a card for my younger sister's birthday. She was born on St.George's day so I created a character along those lines and also something that matched her quirky personality when she was a child. After many pages of writing over the past two years, I finally have the opportunity to produce a comic tale with the character as my Master's degree major study. 

I'm casually adding development sketches for characters, locations and maybe the odd panel to a set on Flickr, so go have a look and maybe let me know what you think. Its early days but as things progress I will post updates on Paperfox and you can see how my process works and maybe let me know how you would do things differently!

Any suggestions for materials, ie. paper,inks,paint,pens would be great too. I will be doing some experiments with materials and then build a section on Paperfox for recommended Illustrator goods and where to purchase them.

AOI Images 35

This year I managed to squeeze four of my illustrations into the AOI (Association of Illustrators) Images 35 annual, which is always a treat (provided you can afford it!) .They sent me a fine copy of the book the other week which is worth a look at (art students, there should be one in your library, if not, ask for one!) and features work from some of my favourites including Simon Pemberton, A.Richard Allen and Stanley Chow.

Aaron Miller - New Updates

Aaron's added some new work to his online portfolio, with projects completed for Virgin and Computer Arts amongst others. Go take a look and let him know what you think - Aaron Miller Portfolio