Whether we look it or not, the age we currently live among is one the most fast paced times man has seen. Swamped with technology and branding everywhere we look, various ports of advertising are appearing everywhere. The main source of this of course, is the Internet. People’s lives are constantly infested with tweets, pokes and posts. New ways of reading the news are cropping up at every turn with inventions like the kindle and ipad but is this going to put the final nail into the casket of illustrators and publishers? I came across a pretty interesting article on the BBC website about how the sales of books are decreasing due to electronic devices and the closure of high street shops such as Borders. It made me think about the future of work concerning illustrators.
It was inevitable that the next leap for technology would be a form of moving, digital literature (not quite as advanced as the papers in Harry Potter) and Apple seem to be doing a pretty good job by releasing the first of its type and now following that the ipad 2 with tough competition from Amazon’s Kindle. The way we view literature seems to be changing into smaller bite sized chunks rather then, the sometimes viewed as off putting paragraphs and pages we were so used to seeing. So could the ebook be taking things back to basics in some respects by kick starting people’s love for reading where some would find it a repellent? The fad for new gadgets and what’s hot could give reading the boost it needs by using the ebook as a gimmick to get people back into reading literature instead of wasting their time getting square eyes.
As a designer (sort of), I think it can be looked at two very different points. When people discuss the work of illustrator 9/10 would stereotype the role being to illustrate book covers and imagery for storybooks. If the invention of digital reading is to carry on at the pace it’s doing so, could it eventually wipe out the use of tangible books and magazines? This could seriously affect job roles from all points of the spectrum involved in publishing. Sellers, illustrators and publishing companies could be hit pretty hard leaving only the writers themselves untouched so to speak.
Then again, this could give illustrators a real boost and chance to get involved in something quite alien to some peoples usual practise. With the ipad containing not only still imagery but moving GIFs and short animations, this could merge the boundaries of illustration and moving imagery together to create something new and exciting. With more and more people investing in these different types of technology it could be seen as a massive form of free advertising for the artists to gain more recognition. If the modern man is now too lazy to read bigger pieces of literature then they are perhaps more likely to be attracted to the ebooks appose to the real thing. Hopefully this might turn things round for the artists and significantly increase the exposure of their work in the public eye leading to a bigger client base?
I’m not overly sure about what’s in store for the future of illustration. I can be quite a tech geek at times and love playing about on my iphone but for me personally, I don’t think you can beat reading a nicely printed magazine with the smell of fresh ink on a good quality paper. My eyes start to boggle if I read for any amount of time online so I usually end up printing the article out anyway and reading on paper. I’m all for the traditional proccess of the printing press and much prefer the analogue way of reading but if us artists can gain from it then perhaps digital illustration could be the only option in years to come. I’m all for which ever will benefit the artist most and enough more people to read. Not sure they both go hand in hand though…
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