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The Big Picture: Surveying the Expanding Field of Illustration

Illustrators, the world is your oyster.

Any kind of oyster you want: the one from which Botticelli procured a halfshell to cradle a carefully brushstroked Venus, an animated extra in a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, a manga-style oysteroid antagonist in a graphic novel, a collectible vinyl shellfish—you name it. Breaking out of its old set position between the covers of magazines and books—wiggling free from its flat spot on the side of a package or the face on a billboard—illustration is on the brink of a renaissance.

“It’s a very exciting time,” says Esther Pearl Watson, an instructor at Art Center College of Design and an illustrator whose résumé boasts scads of books and gallery shows along with clients such as Rolling Stone and The New York Times. “I think a lot of people are getting frightened or confused because there isn’t a name for it—I don’t think—for what’s happening right now. There’s definitely some sort of shifting and transitioning going on in terms of illustration.”

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And where is the transition taking us? Nearly everywhere. In-the-know pros vary in their perceptions and prognostications, but they tend to agree on at least one thing: Illustrators have more options than ever before.

Defining Illustration

“I’ve seen monumental changes since I started,” says Anita Kunz, a Canadian-born illustrator with an illustrious 30-year career that has included chairing the Society of Illustrators Museum of American Illustration, receiving the Les Usherwood Lifetime Achievement Award and creating cover art for magazines ranging from The New Yorker to Sports Illustrated. “Even the term ‘illustration’—what that means—has changed over the years. When I first started as an illustrator, it was mostly about print. You could be an advertising illustrator or an editorial illustrator, but there really wasn’t much more than that.”

In the new millennium, options abound: graphic novels, animation, product development, gallery shows, DVD covers, posters, game design, the Internet—not to mention the forms of illustration not yet conceived. Some illustrators are leaving their options open to better ride the coming wave of change—a wise move, in Kunz’s opinion.

“I think it’s a mistake to specialize too soon,” Kunz says. “Things have changed so much in the past couple of decades that we have no idea what’s going to happen in the future. I really see illustrators weaving in and out of commercial work and fine art and animation and personal work and commissioned work; it’s much more fluid.”

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