My First Illustrator Illustration

Project 1: Reductive and Conceptual Illustration - Part 2

To create the icons or symbols, we explored the magic of figures of visual communication. Figures of visual communication – a take on "figures of speech" – allow illustrators to design new signs to add to the world's visual lexicon. You generally start with a streamlined drawing (hence, "reductive illustration"). It must have as few details as possible white staying perfectly legible. Next, transform it until it creates new meaning or a new concept.

One such remarkable example from the 20th century comes courtesy of Milton Glaser; with his heart shape in his famous "I [heart] NY" he proclaimed the visual symbol for love.

In class, I presented these possibilities, using arithmetic operations as a source of inspiration.

Project 1: Reductive and Conceptual Illustration - Part 1

What if you had to tell your life story without words, only using icons organized over some kind of meaningful map? That's our first big project. It combines reductive illustration (in the form of streamlined visual symbols) with conceptual illustration (the symbols and the map). For the maps, students researched the many ways humans have graphically represented time and space across cultures and over the centuries.

Check out those finds by our team of investigative artists:

- old world map, "Typus Orbis Terrarum"

- a treasure map

- World metro map

- Legend of Zelda map

- Aztec map of Cuauhtinchan

- Map of the Internet (by Lanet-vi program of I. Alvarez-Hamelin et al.)

- map of ancient Egypt on papyrus (tourist souvenir)

- Prix Ars Electronica 09 map of submissions

- San Diego zoo map

- the illustrated Great War of 1914 (Europe)

- Tolkien's map of Middle Earth

- Lion map of Belgium

- personal life "Time Management" map

- the wonders of Sabah, Borneo map

- map of the Universe (from National Geographic)

- digital devil saga map

- old celestial engraved and colored map

- sketchbook thought process map of notes

- Disneyland map

- map of love and the mind by IQMatrix.com

Learning Digital Illustration

The "Digital Illustration" course at Cal State Fullerton combines the study of the various fields of illustration (conceptual illustration, technical illustration, reductive illustration, sequential art, environments for concept art, etc.) while learning to use digital tools such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Google SketchUp. This semester, students will craft four main artworks:
1. a metaphorical map of their lives with icons representing important milestones or personality traits
2. a parody comic strip (sequential art) of a technical illustration based on a "how-to" process gone wrong
3. the choice of one of these: a narrative illustration for a children's book, an editorial illustration for a "pretend" cover of The New Yorker, or a sketch turned into a finished illustration
4. an environment based on a famous tale or classic book using a photo-collage technique and transformed into an anaglyphic (a.k.a. stereographic 3D) image

Past students in this class have had their illustrations selected in national illustration competitions such as the Society of Illustrators Student Competition. Let's see what this year brings!