illustrations Digital Future

 Illustration has to be prepared for its digital future, digital is taking over many aspects of the design process, such as a source of research, designing and now presentation.

The age of the I-pad as portfolios and owning a whole library of books on your phone is here, but what does this mean for illustrators? Do we have update buttons too? I hope we wont be required to be up-to-date with technology to keep on par with other illustrations, or to be thought less of if you turn up to a visit with a original portfolio rather than an I-pad?

I do agree that with uploading images rather then printing as there is less stress about print quality and materials, but on the other hand I think that’s part of being in design, you are problem solving and inventing as you go. The more hands on the better I think, the same goes for the processes gone into creating the images, the quality is in the process.

Sometimes I think its getting harder to find current illustrators that inspire my taste in the current publications, I find a lot of digital and think they can have a bland look to them. I try and source the imperfect, hand made, playful and organic images to inspire me. I think digital technology will house mostly digital work.

I personally use a lot of crafts, so to present these in my portfolio I need to be digital, take a photograph and print it off, so I cannot be against digital, it helps in ways but I do not rely on it. To keep up with the industry I also have to keep myself published socially through Facebook, Flickr, twitter etc. I do appreciate social publishing as it can make connects with people quicker, can reach other countries that you and your portfolio may never get to and it is handy to be able to connect with your portfolio from wherever.

So to conclude, it’s inevitable, times and technology is changing, I accept that but I want to keep hold of some originality, keep hand made alive and not to rely on digital.