Illustrations

Illustrations are forms of creative art either made by hand or with the use of digital graphic design applications. Illustrations are everywhere; they’re found in books, posters, magazines, newspapers, billboards, social media posts, website banners, and other print and digital media platforms.

Illustration Definition & Meaning

Illustrations are artistic visual iterations of objects, people, places, and landscapes that are made using pencils and other tools for creating handmade art; but with the technology we have, most illustrations today are created using graphic design software.

Illustrations are visualizations of a scene, a person, or an object used to add context to a topic or complement the message of a book, article, blog, passage, or quote.

What Is an Illustration?

An illustration is a visual artistic tool that helps improve the context of a written piece. It can also be just a simple decoration to enhance the aesthetic of a book cover, a marketing poster, a desktop wallpaper, etc. The individuals responsible for creating illustrations are usually graphic artists and graphic designers.

10 Types of Illustrations

Cookbook Illustrations

The pages of cookbooks are mouthwatering and gorgeous, but people will likely not take interest in a cookbook if it doesn’t have an attractive cover. For that reason, cookbook illustrations depicting digital drawings of dishes exist. Cookbook authors can take advantage of them to make their work compelling at first glance.

Fashion Illustrations

Fashion illustrations spark with elegance as they depict people wearing fashionable clothing. Most of them feature a sketch of a woman wearing high-class suits or dresses for offices and social gatherings. The beauty of fashion illustrations makes them worthy of being featured in fashion magazines and fashion advertising materials.

Business Illustrations

Business illustrations show drawings of objects, people, icons, and other stuff related to office work. Some of them depict email notification icons, business software logos, office desks, and employees going about their tasks. Business illustrations make for excellent complementary visuals for business management textbooks.

Cartoon Illustrations

Illustrations that fit the theme of children’s books are none other than cute cartoon illustrations. These types of illustrations feature cartoonish drawings of trees, creatures, landscapes, anime characters, fantasy lands, space, and many more. Though cartoon illustrations are primarily made for kids, adults can also use them for their own purposes; such illustrations are for all ages.

Flower Illustrations

Flowers are always fun to draw because of their innate beauty as part of the Earth’s flora, which is why we see plenty of flower illustrations online. Flower illustrations are great pieces of decoration that can be inserted in wedding invitations, Valentine’s Day posters, and other sorts of romantic artwork. Other than that, they’re a sight for sore eyes for women who love flowers.

Watercolor Illustrations

Digital illustrations created with watercolor effects are known as watercolor illustrations. At a glance, they look like watercolor paintings depicting animals, plants, little boys, little girls, people, city buildings, mountains, and whatnot. They’re undeniably elegant regardless of whether they’re in a landscape or portrait orientation.

Star Illustrations

Stars are symbols of happiness and excellence and plenty of companies took inspiration from star symbols to create their logos. In general, people are enamored by stars, and because of that, it’s no surprise that we can find thousands of star illustrations on the internet. A lot of them are for free and can be used by people as decorations for their works.

Geometric Illustrations

Geometric illustrations are illustrations consisting of straight lines and perfect curves bound together to form an object or a visually-appealing pattern. Most of them are beautiful abstract works of art that make for good wallpapers and house wall decorations. They don’t need to have a meaning or purpose to be regarded as digital art.

Animal Illustrations

If you’re an animal lover, you’ll love animal illustrations. They’re beautiful digital drawings of the most adorable pets such as dogs and cats and the most magnificent creatures in the wild such as deer, tigers, lions, zebras, gorillas, otters, rabbits, horses, and so much more. Preschool teachers can also use animal illustrations to teach their pupils what certain animals look like.

Water Illustrations

Water illustrations, as the name implies, depict bodies of water such as lakes, seas, oceans, ponds, waterfalls, rains, water droplets, water bubbles, water puddles, swimming pools, and many more. Some of them can be used as pictures for books about nature for kids and some can be used as mere wallpapers. Water illustrations are relatively easy to create since bodies of water are easy to sketch.

Illustration Uses, Purpose, Importance

Illustrations are everyone around us and many of us don’t realize it until now. In our homes alone, paintings hanging on our walls, wallpapers, and your kid’s fantasy/superhero posters are all examples of illustrations. Illustrations play an important role in our want for seeing art and color and in adding context to pieces of our literature.

Decorations

Illustrations are flat artworks but they have the depth to be decorations for artworks and written text. They give something a character or a personality; for instance, a room with pictures of flowers feels safe and relaxing like a queen’s garden. They give life to anything and everything, and that’s why it’s worth it to decorate books, bedrooms, living rooms, and hallways with the right illustrations.

Complement Texts

Though most of the texts in books, magazines, articles, and blogs convey their messages clearly, having illustrations showcasing what they mean is preferable to the average reader. Other than being preferable, the message of the text is further glorified by the illustration, making it more interesting to read. However, in some cases, illustrations are necessary, especially with children’s books since kids love seeing pictures rather than merely reading.

Marketing and Branding

Companies use illustrations for marketing and branding purposes. It’s evident with their very colorful and lively posters, billboards, flyers, pamphlets, brochures, websites, social media posts, and business logos. Without illustrations, promotional materials wouldn’t attract audiences; in other words, they’ll fail to serve their purpose. Companies, especially those with renowned brands, spend a fortune to ensure their marketing and branding stuff has professional-grade illustrations worthy of the public’s attention.

Express Feelings

Creating or sharing illustrations is a way for some people to express their feelings or their passion. Illustrations after all are art as we know it, and art is a method of expression. If a person feels happy, he or she may create or share illustrations of beautiful landscapes, flowers, smiling people, stars, and whatnot on social media.

Manifest Imaginations

People who have the skills bring their imaginations to life by creating illustrations. It’s a productive hobby and a great means of escape from the daily stress of life. Making artistic illustrations can put the mind at ease and is a good exercise for one’s creative juices.

What’s in an Illustration? Parts?

The Sketch

The sketch is a freehand drawing in an illustration created by a talented artist. It’s the very image of what thing, creature, place, or scenery the illustration intends to depict; as a matter of fact, it can be considered as the illustration itself.

The Straight and Curved Lines

Not all illustrations have straight and curved lines, but those that have such lines have them because they’re necessary. Straight and curved lines are arranged together to form objects and patterns. Prime examples of illustrations with these lines are geometric illustrations and isometric illustrations.

The Colors

Colors add depth to an illustration depending on their shading and lighting. They breathe further life into an illustration and gives it the personality it requires. For example, a Christmas-themed illustration must have red, white, and green colors as they’re the colors closely associated with the Yuletide season.

The Background

The background is the backdrop of the illustration. It can be plain white or in any color as long as it highlights the illustration itself. The backdrop should have a light color if the illustration has a dark color and vice versa.

How to Design an Illustration

1. Choose the perfect Illustration Size.

2. Decide what kind of illustration to make.

3. Select any of the best Illustration Templates.

4. Edit the selected template by changing the colors and inserting more visuals.

5. Enhance the background and layout if necessary.

6. Save and download the customized illustration.

Illustration vs. Clipart

Illustrations are handmade or digitally made artworks depicting people, things, places, landscapes, food, scenery, and creatures used for display, expression of feelings/imagination, visual context on literary pieces, and decorations.

Cliparts is a graphic design image often used as ornaments or infographics in documents; they’re similar to illustrations but are often smaller and less likely to be a centerpiece of a whole and complete document or work of art.

What’s the Difference Between an Illustration, Book Cover, and Comic Strip?

An illustration is a work of art that depicts anything such as an animal, a person, a tree, a flower, a body of water, a dish, a popular landmark, or any object of interest; it can either be made by hand or by using graphic design software.

A book covers is the outer covering of a book that encases its pages and has a design that matches the theme or teases the topic of the book.

A comic strips is a set of graphical images arranged chronologically to tell a story or narrative and are accompanied by speech balloons displaying the dialogue of the characters and the narrator.

Illustration Sizes

Just like most works of art, illustrations come in different sizes. To choose the right size for an illustration, one simply needs to select the best and most appropriate choice of standard illustration size.

• 1004 x 650 pixels
• 1169 x 2480 pixels
• 3508 x 2480 pixels
• 9449 x 23662 pixels

Illustration Ideas and Examples

Creating an illustration from scratch takes a lot of time and effort, especially if you don’t have any references, and even experienced artists struggle at times. But with the perfect set of illustration ideas at one’s disposal, anyone can craft an inspiring and eye-catching illustration.

• Isometric Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Christmas Tree Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Food Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Breakfast Cookbook Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Cute Animal Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Women Fashion Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Cartoon Pet Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Simple Flower Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Star Border Illustrations Ideas and Examples
• Star Symbol Illustrations Ideas and Examples

Illustration FAQs

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