In the first project of semester two, we looked at the world of editorial illustration; that is, creating conceptual pieces to complement articles in the media. We were each given an article to illustrate for, and a set of requirements to stick to.
​

SPOTLIGHT ON EDITORIAL ILLUSTRATION

There's a large market for editorial illustration. With so many media platforms now, both physical and online, eye-catching images to compliment articles are in large demand. Images effectively break up text and draw attention to boost an article's viewers, but they also represent its themes and ideas - that's where the conceptual part gets interesting.

I love the symbolism and connotational aspect of conceptual illustration. Clever and creative ways of conveying a point or an idea, but concealed in a thought-provoking visual that isn't entirely (or at all) literal. I think being a symbolism nerd definitely upped my enthusiasm for this project, and I was excited to give it a go. Despite this, however, I was fairly new to editorial illustration - what I'm not too enthusiastic about is reading the news. So the first port of call was to research some conceptual editorial artists and their pieces for inspiration (you can see some I found interesting below).

conceptual illustrations by various editorial artists

​THE ARTICLE
​

annotated article

​Looking at my individual brief, I read the article I had been assigned. It is titled 'social media damages teenagers' mental health, study says' (read it here). Bit close to the bone, but alright.

I actually found the article quite irritating. In my opinion, it's poorly written, doesn't tackle the titular issue, constantly goes on irrelevant tangents... but I suppose that's a challenge illustrators have to face. Some projects you work on aren't going to be ones you like or are particularly eager to do. So if anything, I guess it was practise for those circumstances!

I couldn't contain my passive aggression in my initial annotations, though.
​

THUMBNAILING​

It was an interesting theme to try and capture conceptually. There was a lot to play with from the get-go - I had quite a lot of ideas I wanted to try out. I didn't get as many thumbnails as I'd have liked done, but I was happy with the choice I was able to give myself in the ones I did produce.

Before I did anything, I thought of relevant iconic visuals I could incorporate, like icons from Facebook and social media logos. I also experimented with ideas like medicinal symbolism, addiction symbolism, masks, lifelines, isolation... The use of drug imagery wasn't ideal for a teen-accessible article, and some ideas just weren't particularly relevant. I needed an idea that covered and interconnected all three themes of the article - social media, mental health and the pandemic.
​

thumbnails experimenting with different ideas

mock idea #1

mock idea #2

colour experiments

After redoing my narrowed-down choices in more detail, I ended up going with the 'floating thumb'; a figure atop the iconic Facebook emoji (the famous 'like'), navigating an ocean of sea mines. 

The idea was to use the thumb as a symbolic 'lifeboat', and the sea mines (bearing close resemblance to Covid-19 molecules) as both a symbol of instability and the pandemic. Social media has been a lifeline for many young people throughout the pandemic; a means of negating the isolating effect of lockdown. This is shown by the

figure afloat on the Facebook thumb, kept safe from the mines. However, the mines do not only represent the pandemic - they represent the minefield that is social media itself. Although it can be a helpful and formative tool for young people, it also provides a platform for bullying and societal expectations that knock confidence. If used correctly it is safe, but it can have a devastating effect on the mindset if you're not careful - just like a minefield.

For the spot illustration, I used a fairly simple idea to convey the same message in a way that complimented the main illustration. This visually contrasted the Facebook 'heart react' symbol against a broken heart, showing the difference between an on-screen "I'm fine!" persona and what's really going on in the background.

THE FINAL
​

final editorial illustration

final editorial spot illustration

Here you can see my final illustrations for this project.

I created the final pieces using Procreate, with a range of brushes that imitated traditional paint. I chose this approach because I liked the 'digital-but-not-digital' look of the images I researched, and felt it was a good fit for an online article. The canvasses were also sized in accordance to my individual brief.

Overall, though I didn't expect it, this project has sparked a little interest in editorial illustration. 

---