Defying Description

Graphic designers use computer software, creative thinking, and artistic ability to create compelling promotional displays and marketing literature for products and services. They also develop distinctive company logos and visual designs for annual reports. They design and lay out magazines, newspapers, corporate reports, and other publications, as well as create the graphics and layout of internet Web sites. Through their endeavors, designers will advance their careers within an agency to assistant art director, art director, and creative director.

Illustrators draw or paint pictures, scientific drawings, and cartoons for books, magazines, publications and communication tools for products, commercials, or multimedia presentations. Illustrators use drawing and sketching skills learned through training in art schools and through extensive practice. Generally freelance, they are contracted based on past work and the strength of their portfolios. The portfolio is a collection of hand-made, computer-generated, photographic, or printed samples of the artist's best work. Evidence of published work carries the most weight in gaining contracts as it shows the ability to work to a deadline, and proves that someone else valued the illustrator's work enough to contract him or her.

In contrast to original pieces of fine art, an illustration is meant to be reproduced and seen by many people. Its message must be clear and easily understood. It is often used for its advantages over photography, such as a cutaway technical drawing of the inner workings of machinery, a scientific drawing of the interior chambers of the heart, or expressing just that right personal emotion, thought, or intangible concept that the camera can't capture. The unique thing about illustration is that it is related to so many of the arts: painting, graphic design, literature, photography, fine art. Fine art and illustration have always borrowed from one another. Illustrators and writers spark great creativity between them on collaborative projects.

Funny, when enjoying an illustrator's work, I find myself almost as interested in his or her artistic background and influences as in the artwork itself. In studying the career paths of the experts who contributed to the book The Complete Guide to Advanced Illustration and Design, I couldn't help but notice how the various art fields converge and blend. Here are some of their stories:

"Nick" worked in advertising, was an illustrator's agent before setting up his own agency that represents artists in advertising and editorial media. "Leo" studied illustrative processes of the 18th and 19th centuries before becoming a freelance illustrator and

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