Photography began with the daguerreotype in 1839, and after a shaky beginning – there was general suspicion regarding the permanent reproduction of a moment in time – and despite it being an expensive medium, it became firmly embedded in our visual culture. Now, fast forward to inexpensive digital photography and, more recently, the smartphone, and photography is now part of everyday life for many people around the world. Add to that, the ease of posting and sharing a photograph taken on a smartphone to the web, and we now see photography all around us. The Internet Live Stats page, One Second, gives a snapshot of content moving across the Internet every second, and tells us that over 700 Instagram photos alone are uploaded each second.
Enter the illustration. UK group, Fabulous Noble recently published an article titled Illustration vs Photography outlining the regular use of illustration by magazines and suggested the reasons why. “Editors and advertisers are looking for a new way to present their concepts and ideas in order to capture the attention of our over stimulated society,” they write, and go on to explain how illustration hasn’t had the level of over-saturation that photography has.
There are different types of illustration of course. Scientific illustration will guide us through tricky ideas, and the representation needs to be accurate with no superfluous detail, as explained in an excellent piece by The Conversation. Meanwhile, Storybench discuss the role of the illustrator in satirical news media. They quote illustrator Gonzalo Gironés Sarrió, “It’s often believed that photography is the only option to reflect reality but we forget that with illustration we can go much further. With illustration we can show more details, emphasize the most important areas or resources, or even express feelings and sensations.” Closer to home, we see a focus on illustration in the magazine Frankie to support their brand positioning with a personality that says vintage, crafty, hand-made.
The role of graphic designer is to visually communicate, not only facts but fuzzy ideas and emotions as well. In recent times we’ve seen the rise of the infographic and although it’s possibly overused and probably not especially well done in many instances, it’s become a symbol for ‘look at me, I’m important’. Done well, the infographic untangles a really tricky idea, explains an intangible process or separates heavy factual content. While both photography and illustration have their place in our visual language, sometimes illustration is the only solution to Adams’ fuzzy concept.
FOOTNOTE: I wrote this piece for Rowland during my time there as Creative Manager in 2016. I was recently reminded of it when asked to create an infographic to provide at-a-glance survey results: the communication of the content was not thought through by the content owner to the extent needed for a really successful infographic. While all the figures were supplied, the meaning was not. For example, women on boards had increased from 11% to 19% in this particular industry: that could be presented as really good news – almost doubled in the period. However, this could be seen as really bad news – still well under the minimum 30% recommended by the OECD Council in 2016.
Should the headline have read, "Women on boards almost double", or "Women on boards still well below OECD recommendations"?
