Industry

Hardware / Industry — 1 Comment
20
Jan 12

The Textbook, Reinvented

Yesterday, Apple announced a joint initiative with publishers to bring textbooks to the iPad. This move would make them cheaper, lighter, always up to date, and—of interest to us—more richly illustrated and interactive.

When we set out to bring textbooks to iPad, there were really three areas we focused on: we wanted to have really fast, fluid navigation, we wanted to have beautiful graphics, we wanted to create an easier way to take notes.

—Roger Rosner, VP Productivity Applications, Apple

Apple also released a free iBooks authoring suite, iBooks Author. This application enables anyone to write, design, create interactive modules, and publish a book to the iBooks store for sale.

While I’m not sure that the iPad is a more durable medium than paper for kindergardeners through high school students (could you see yourself in your garage with a iHaynes manual?), this is certainly an encouraging development for our trade. It demonstrates that people learn best, are enthusiastic about learning, when information is presented in a highly visual, immersive way.

The choice of graphics shown might also be a signal that if you’re not dabbling in 3D, motion and interactivity yet, it might be a good time to start. Remember, every threat is also an opportunity.

The Business of Freelancing Creative

Peter Beach, a technical illustrator with over 25 years of freelance experience, wrote in to share his blog The Business of Freelancing Creative. There Peter has a wealth of wisdom, including his 21 Practical Tips to a successful illustration career, and candid essays on finding your niche, work-for-hire, copyright, pricing and stock illustration.

I’ve only started reading through, but it’s already proving to be a valuable resource for those considering a career of freelance and seasoned professionals alike.

If you have a site or resource to share, please visit the Suggest page.

Contracts / Industry / Tip — 9 Comments
21
Jun 11

A Cautionary Tale

Bill Mayer, a seasoned veteran illustrator, recently shared this cautionary tale. Innocently enough, he took on a cover illustration for an alternative weekly magazine with a very low budget because he loved the subject matter and thought that being an award-winning professional would earn him some creative freedom. Instead his best concepts were thrown out and his final illustration was micromanaged by the magazine’s advertisers. Then he was tarred and feathered by his peers for ever taking on the job.

Steve Brodner summed the whole thing up best:

One more thing I tell my students: if [clients] pay you like shit, they treat you like shit.

It might be a good time to review our tips on pricing technical illustration.

Have a similar horror story? Let us know if you can relate in the comments.

Industry / Inspiration — 4 Comments
4
May 11

Style versus Communication

I’ve been meaning to write about style — the design and arrangement of visual elements that creates a tone or voice in an illustration, throughout a project, or across an illustrator’s entire body of work. More specifically, how style conflicts and complements with a technical illustrator’s role of visual communication.

This critique of dozens of newspapers’ adaptations of an Associated Press graphic serves as a great introduction to the topic. News graphics veteran Charles Apple dissects the minute decisions made by the various papers’ editors in the name of visual appeal, visual communication, story telling and branding.

Is technical illustration more about visual communication or style?
How do you compromise between the two?

[A Look at Tuesday’s Graphics-Heavy bin Laden Presentations]

Industry / Suggested / Tip — 5 Comments
28
Mar 11

Twitter for Technical Illustrators

Greg Maxson, freelance technical illustrator and co-author of The Complete Technical Illustrator, recently wrote to share his experiences using Twitter as a marketing tool:

I saw Twitter as a sales tool with an immediate and pointed delivery, to be aimed at current and prospective clients. Free, direct, and uncluttered advertising to an audience with a common interest.

Using Twitter he reconnected with Popular Science magazine, a client he worked with regularly between 1994 and 2001. He had tried with hard-copy promos, emails and even voicemails with little response. Then he started following @PopSciGuy, art director Matthew Cokeley:

Each morning Matt would Tweet, “Morning tweeps! Let’s get to work!” After following PopSciGuy on Twitter for a few weeks, I decided to make a bold move. While having lunch at a local restaurant, I replied to one of these morning salutations with “Matt, put me to work in the next issue!”

Now, I certainly wouldn’t recommend this approach to everyone! But my gut told me that this direct, outside-the-norm tactic might just garner a favorable response from the A.D. of a leading science and technology magazine. This approach was destined to go either of two ways: bold, yet smart or, the dumbest move ever.

…and it worked—within two hours, Matthew got in touch with a project for Greg.

For those of you on the fence about it, this is what Twitter is for; Connecting with people with shared interests & goals, in a casual, personable way.

To get you started, you should follow Greg @gregdraws, the hilarious Matthew Cokeley @PopSciGuy, me @jamesprovost, the TechnicalIllustrators.org feed @technicilly and everyone on the the Technical Illustrators list!

Books / Industry / Suggested — 2 Comments
4
Oct 10

2010 Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook

The 13th edition of The Graphic Artist’s Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines is now available [Amazon]. The 2010 edition includes an updated pricing survey, legal information and sample forms & contracts. As in previous versions, there is a section dedicated to standard trade practices and rates for technical illustration.

If this book isn’t on your shelf now is a great time to get it. If your copy, like mine, is out of date it might be time to update.

Industry / Site / Software — 5 Comments
22
Sep 10

Adobe Illustrator Gripes & Feature Wishlist

I’m going to have the ear of 3-4 developers from Adobe’s Illustrator team sometime in the next few days. They want to know what makes our life difficult, and what would make it easier. What are your gripes, pain points, repetitive stress injuries? What is your dream feature? What are you accomplishing with plug-ins that should really be built in?

Let me know in the comments, or by editing the fancy Google Doc after the jump.

Continue reading →

Industry / Inspiration — 2 Comments
23
Aug 10

Toyota Safety Ads

We all know that Toyota in the passed year has had many issues with the safety of their vehicles. I came across the following advertisement (among others) that they now have playing to help get back consumer confidence in their vehicles.

If you would like to see a full version of the advertisement, visit http://www.toyota.com/safety/videos/safety-features.html#

It’s great to see the use of technical illustrations in any media form and for large corporations as it brings exposure to our specialized art form. BUT, does the use of the exploded views in this advertisement work?

I think not. There are so many other ways that I could think of to utilize a tech illustration to show how Toyota has improved their vehicles to ensure safety. Perhaps showing the specific mechanical technologies (ie. braking system) that have been improved and how they affect vehicle performance when stopping.

In the longer version of the ad they address the 5 accident avoidance technologies with an exploded view of each (ie. anti-lock brake system). Unfortunately, I find the use of the technical illustrations in this advertisement reflect a more “wallpaper” effect than being useful in supporting Toyota’s case for change in safety measures.

What do you think? Do you have other ideas of how Toyota could win back consumer confidence by using technical illustrations?

Industry — 2 Comments
9
Aug 10

ICON6 Illustration Conference Wrap Up

It has been two weeks since the ICON Illustration Conference in Pasadena (previously), and it was a blast. I’ve been so busy catching up on work that I haven’t had the time for a debriefing. Sooo:

The Future of Publishing

With the majority of attendees dependent on work from magazines and newspapers, the unofficial theme of the conference was The Future of Publishing. The opening keynote set the tone (video in two parts, here and here). In short, publishing isn’t dead, it’s just changing and paying customers are demanding richer experiences.

By now, all newspapers and magazines have websites, and some release editions for Apple’s iPad. While a static image looks just as beautiful onscreen as it does in print, animation and interactivity unlock the full potential of these technologies and deliver more immersive experiences for readers. Every illustrator doesn’t need to become a classical animator, but new opportunities will certainly open up for those with the skills to bring some motion or interactivity to their images.

This was cause for much trepidation.

Business Practices

There were some great presentations on contract literacy, price negotiation, branding, marketing and the Orphan Works Act. The showstopper though, was the introduction of a rights management system called PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System).

PLUS is a non-profit coalition of publishers and industry associations. The system combines metadata embedded invisibly into images with a third party database that would keep track of the copyrights associated with each image. This plugs into a publisher’s asset management system and informs them of the printing rights they own for a particular image, the duration of these rights, and how to contact the creator for additional rights. The system also includes a reverse image search (similar to TinEye) to locate the origin of an image without metadata. Neat stuff.

Social

ICON went beyond social drinking; Social media, viral videos, blogging, microblogging, linking in, flickring, tumbling, buzzwords abound. I’m not sure that anyone’s made any sense of it all, but it’s nice that illustrators can finally be solitary and isolated and social at the same time.

In Conclusion

Though not specifically for technical illustrators, I had a great time at ICON. I met some great people (hey Troy, Jude, Gary, Edel, Carl, Brian, Jennifer, Jeremy, Rod, Topher, Chloé, Jeehyun, Chris, Chris & Chris and anyone I’ve forgotten) and learned a thing or two. But mostly, got really excited about what I do and the possibilities out there.

Check out Escape From Illustration Island for extended coverage, interviews and videos!

Industry / Inspiration — 4 Comments
17
Jun 10

Oil Spill Illustration Roundup

The biggest news story of the past two months is highly technical and happening beneath 5,000 feet of water. These obstacles make technical illustration the obvious medium for telling the story. Collected here are illustrations and graphics from various sources, showing their visual approach to communicating the information. (Mouseover for source, click for larger version)

The New York Times‘ illustrations are well designed and executed in a graphic style typical for newspapers. Black lines delineate the key information, both a visual strategy and a production consideration (black prints well on grainy paper in fast presses, since it’s a single plate). Deep-red lines and arrows call the eye’s attention to important details. Light colour tones provide additional information such as material, dimension/shading, or simply visual separation. A variety of views are used, elevations, isometrics, perspectives, whatever suits the content. Nice stuff here.

Infographic World‘s ambitious graphic attempts to tell the entire story, relying heavily on text, but ends up feeling cluttered, unfocused and disorganized. The individual illustrations feel underdeveloped.

NOLA/Times-Picayune‘s graphics are similar in style to The Times’, but with a much thicker line weight which makes me think they might have appeared smaller in print. The multitude of arrows really get in the way of the information. A bit heavy handed.

The Economist is a weekly news magazine, but the illustration doesn’t have much to show for the extra time (to be fair, there’s no telling what sort of turnaround time the illustrator was given).

BP employs slick [no pun intended] 3D renderings to communicate the company’s repair efforts and give the impression of openness and transparency. I have two problems with this. First, they feel expensive. I imagine BP already had a 3D model library of all their equipment for planning and presentation purposes, so this may very well be the most cost-effective visual solution for them. But the impression these polished 3D renderings give is that they’re spending a lot on visuals, when they should be devoting all their resources to the repair and cleanup process.

Secondly, 3D renderings feel like constructed illusions rather than explanatory depictions of their efforts. Maybe it’s my bias towards illustration since both are just as artifical (ie. not photographs or videos), but I find The Times’ illustrations more trustworthy than BP’s 3D world.

Sources

The New York Times. “Methods That Have Been Tried to Stop the Leaking Oil”
Infographic World. “Crude Awakening”
NOLA.com. “Oil Spill Graphics”
The Economist. “Mudslinging”
Unified Command for the BP Oil Spill. “Graphics”
BP. “Gulf of Mexico Response”

Have you seen any additional illustrations of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Let us know in the comments!

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