Digital Illustration

When using illustrations within a project we have to do it for some pertinent reason; if we do it just to give a little life to the text or to make it prettier, it’s ornament, not illustration. The illustration does not only have to accompany the text; it would be ideal that it extended the information, or that it opened a door to an insight related or parallel to the written content. In the pages of this section we deal with some aspects the programs that are used to create digital illustrations in detail: on the one hand the vectorial drawing programs —known also as illustration programs and on the other hand, the programs for bitmap painting and photographic editing.

Just another tool?

For all those that enjoy the artistic creation on paper, especially with the drawing and work on paper, the computer is a very special instrument. It is not only one more tool — it confers a new meaning to many works of illustration and graphical design.

Advantages of digital illustration

The graphics programs complement the classic techniques: we can begin a work in as a pencil or ink sketch, or in any conventional technique, and finish it in the computer. We can also do it the other way around: to scan a painting or image, and apply a series of filters in the computer.

The computer revolutionizes the way certain tasks are carried out; complicated things often become very simple and fast tasks. For example, creating a perfect flat colour object or a perfect colour gradient is time-consuming and boring with traditional media, while it just takes a mouse click in a computer. There is more:

To copy an image, whole or part of it, is very simple. The “original” one really ceases to exist once something it has been digitized. The copies are exactly equivalent to the original one.
It is very easy to apply variations of colour and filters that significantly alter the image, to find the most suitable effect without destroying the original one, and in just a short time. Computers are perfect to try out alternatives.
The geometric layouts are not difficult: drawing perfectly regular geometric forms is simplicity itself.
The photographic or visual effects are applied instantly and they are reversible or undoable.
Experimentating is encouraged, because a given image is just one more possibility; any test can be saved, you can return on our steps, you never run out of paint or paper, and the brushes and pencils never break down...

All of this has changed the process of graphical design for many designers. Before, in the creation of a definitive product much more time had to be invested; when choosing an option it practically meant to discard other options, because it was time-consuming to produce the chosen design until the end. Now we have more freedom to explore different alternatives, and to give a finishing touch to different options, since much less time and labour are necessary for colouring or the application of the typography. And you always have the peace of midn of having a backup copy ready to continue experimenting possibilities, without extra work or cost to prepare it. Almost all of today’s illustrators and professional designers have adopted (at least partly) the techniques of digital work, either with vectors, either in bitmap or a combination of both. Some well-known examples include Mariscal or Terry Colon, illustrator for the corrosive Suck.com ezine or Neville Brody.

The computers and programs that have been used for the graphic design are the Apple Macintosh (macs), although in these last years, the gap that separated PC of Mac with respect to the capacity to run this kind of programs has narrowed; most of the applications have a PC version and a Mac version.

Where do we get the images from?

With the exception of creations based on geometric forms, generated directly in the design programs, the starting images for the illustration normally come from outside the computer: a photo, a drawing, an engraving... and somebody must be the author of these. If the designer is also a competent photographer and knows how to draw reasonably well —no problem. If this isn’t the case, he must obtain the images from somewhere. He may commission them or he may take advantage of things already done.

Since to pay the services of an artist to create custom illustrations for a project is not always possible, the most habitual solution is to use clipart, as it comes or modified in some way. You can read more about clipart in another article in this section. It’s always advisable to study it well and introduce some changes: to change the colours, to eliminate some part, to combine two or more images... And a good part of the content of cheap discs of clipart, like those included certain programs, or clipart downloaded from Web (free or even commercial) is really bad. Commercial quality clipart ad stock photography is usually rather expensive, but it makes a big difference. Some webs as Veer or Corbis deserve a visit, to see quality images and good ideas.

Una fuente alternativa y segura de imágenes la constituyen los grabados de libros antiguos. Si localizamos un libro con grabados, del siglo XIX o anteriores, podemos utilizar libremente sus imágenes sin problemas legales de derechos de autor. Que muchos diseñadores utilicen este recurso no obedece, pero, a criterios económicos: este material es a menudo fascinante y se presta a tratamientos muy diversos. Las fonts de dingbats (o fuentes de símbolos) contienen símbolos siempre a punto para utilizar en cualquier programa; hablamos de ellos con más detalle en otro . Old book engravings constitute an alternative and safe source of images. If we find a book with engravings, of the XIX century or early XX, we can freely use its images without legal problems such as copy rights. Many designers use this resource not only due to economic reason: this material is often fascinating and it lends itself to very diverse treatments. Dingbats fonts (or picture fonts) always contain symbols ready to use in any program; we’ll talk about them in more detail in another article.