Let's talk about what illustrators do.
Most people know that illustrators make pictures, if you google, what does an illustrator do, the first thing that pops up in the search is something from a website called indeed.com and the first sentence is : Illustrators are responsible for creating art that conveys a specific message or an idea. The website also goes on to reveal where in illustrator may work, books, magazines, websites, advertisements. There is another great website called careerexplorer.com in which they describe what an illustrator is and they go into great detail about the various ways in which an illustrator may work. They talk about editorial illustrator, product illustrator ,children's book illustrator, fashion illustrator, storyboard illustrator ,technical illustrator ,medical illustrator ,courtroom illustrator etc.
What’s underneath all of that information though, is a thread of commonality that all illustrators strive for, they are doing one specific thing in a variety of ways and that thing is storytelling. Illustrators are storytellers whether they are trying to convey the mastery of understanding anatomy for the purposes of learning medicine to advertising the latest perfume to expressing the deepest child's emotion, illustrators make their images to convey a story. Most illustrators work really hard at arranging the content of the images in such away that you the viewer can grab onto a nugget of information that would help push you into that story. A good illustrator does this with ease. Artist like Norman Rockwell, Beatrix Potter, Milton Glazier and Hayao Miyazaki come to mind. Each have their own specific style and the context of their images are unmistakable. They are examples of illustrators who mastered the craft of storytelling through images.
To find out more about how to become an illustrator please check out my tutorial on how to apply to art schools and universities. I also have a free downloadable pdf with my top 10 schools for illustration, available in my store as well.
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