The Informed Illustrator: Why Use Illustration For Advertising

There was a time long ago when all advertisements that contained visuals were illustrated. Although that time has long since past, illustration is still being used to visualize advertising campaigns, adding artistic distinction, style, and individualism to concepts and content communicated by advertisers. Companies who commission illustration for their advertisements recognize the advantages illustrations has over other types of visualization in certain situations, specifically photography. As a matter of fact, it's the capability of photography to depict or document a person, place, or thing in a precise manner that can present a disadvantage in some advertising situations.

Illustrative Advertising Campaign Advantages

Advertising thrives on creativity, and Illustration as a visualization media, when brought into the creative problem solving process, can expand the range of conceptual solutions for advertising messages. Illustration can invent a person who never existed, bring a dead person back to life, or depict a person whose age, race, or even gender is not identifiable. It can portray fictional characters, mythological gods, fantastic creatures, devils, angels, and as in the case of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, even God.

Pictorial Advantages

Illustration can show what it would be like to walk on the bottom of the ocean, fly through the atmosphere of Venus, or swallow a cow. It can picture subjects and communicate concepts that cannot be documented photographically, such as bipolar disorder; electrons, protons and neutrons in action; how an electronic circuit works; how the universe began, etc. Illustration can render a building in a landscape before it has been built.

Stylistic Capability

Through the application of stylization an illustration can convey exaggeration, attitude, emotion, expression, and personality. Through artistic methods, it can convey a stylistic uniqueness that is difficult for photography to impart. Additionally, illustration can visually simplify and explain confusing or complicated subjects.

Cost Effectiveness

Illustration can be a very cost efficient way to implement advertising concepts. Especially photographic ones that would require location work, extensive sets, actors, props and post production digital manipulation. Illustration not only can be used to visualize unreal concepts, it can also be used to pictorialize photographable subjects at a much lower cost.

Illustrative Campaign Traits

Creative advertising concepts aside, there are definitive traits that illustrations created for a coordinated campaign must exhibit. These traits relate to formal artistic concerns as much as to conceptual, contextual ones. Composition, application of media, use of objects, artist’s style, and color treatment must all be coordinated from one ad to the next.

Composition

Scale and placement of elements, perspective attitude, and figure/ground relationship are compositional considerations, i.e., the design of the image. These and other determinations have to be consistently applied to each individual ad in a set to be identified as a campaign.

Client: Panasonic. Illustrator: Paul Grelet. Agency: Proximity BBDO, France.

Client: Yuju. Illustrator: Pinata. Agency: hasan & partners, Helsinki, Finland.

Client: xpixpi. Illustrator: Thomas Damtsios Agency: attp, Athens, Greece.

Client: OgilvyOne. Illustrator: Patrick Munyi. Agency: OgilvyOne Worldwide, Africa.

Elements

The choice of elements such as people, characters, objects, and setting reinforce
the visual consistency of an ad campaign. When considering content more than context, subject choices must be consistent. If applicable, this can include season, time of day, and environmental attributes. It can also include surface textures and simulated materials.

Client: maygreen organic fashion. Illustrator: Sabrina Dibbern. Agency: weigertpirouzwolf
Hamburg, Germany.

Client: Sarson's. Illustrator: Paul Thurlby. Agency: mcgarrybowen London, UK.

Client: ATSS Keyless Entry Systems. Illustrator: Mark Gmehling. Agency: McCann,
Mumbai, India.

Client: Surfrider Foundation. Illustrator: Pieter van Eenoge. Agency: Y&R, Amsterdam, Netherlands /
Y&R, Paris, France.

Client: Proctor & Gamble. Illustrator: Amaia Arrazola. Agency: Leo Burnett, Toronto,
Canada.

Rendering

The choice of artist’s media, albeit digital, conventional, or mixed, along with the rendering technique (style of mark making), application of media, and amount of detail will determine the level of consistency a campaign will exhibit. This is where an illustrator's unique style plays a central role in establishing a unique appearance to a campaign.

Client: AFS International Programs. Illustrator: Ana Pareja. Agency: Calvo Miami Ad
School, Madrid, Spain.

Client: Mai Sushi. Illustrator: Jakaterina Budryte. Agency: Not Perfect | Y&R Vilnius,
Lithuania.

Clint: Copic. Illustrator: Gustavo Dorietto. Agency: FCB Chicago.

Client: Anjali Kitchenware Fruit Peeler. Illustrator: Rahul Arora. Agency: Makani
Creatives, Mumbai, India.

Client: mob fun and food. Illustrator: Eduardo Rosa. Agency: CCZ*WOW, Curitiba,
Brazil.

Color

Color methodology, either a natural color, or a pseudo color (invented) color scheme, contributes to the mood and atmosphere of an ad and can have a profound influence on reinforcing a campaign identity. In addition to being an attractor, color can also be used as an indexing device to distinguish the elements within an ad or between ads within a campaign.