Illustration Skills
About Illustration
Illustration is visual imagery that is best known for interpreting, depicting, explaining and/or decorating the words in books, newspapers and online media. You’ve heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words”, and that is why illustration is so important. It gives depth to words. It also allows people to be truly expressive, it inspires generations, it captures stories, and it engages with consumers.
Why should you learn about illustration?
Most of us think of the pictures in novels or the diagrams in science textbooks when we think of illustration. However, illustration goes way beyond just books. In the modern day and age, illustration can be used for so much. Illustrations are the drawing that make websites and apps more user-friendly. They are the eye-catching characters on children’s cereal boxes, or the cool wallpaper you saw at your friend’s house. Illustration is also the cool logo you saw in the clothes shop today or the funky branding on the wrapper of the sandwich that you just ate.
Illustration is all around us and being good at it is an incredibly useful skill!
Learning the fundamentals of illustration can be incredibly useful for all kinds of careers and can open you up to huge number of opportunities outside of the typical ‘illustrator’ role. Whether you’re a small business owner who wants to use illustrations to capture the attention of consumers, or a hotshot marketing manager who wants to level up your next campaign – good illustration skills will allow you to think more creatively and create beautiful art that leaves a lasting impression. Careers other than a ‘illustrator’ that illustration skills will be incredibly useful for include:
• Advertising art directors
• Advertising account executive
• Author
• Graphic designer
• Fashion designer
• Artist
• Teacher
• Special needs teacher
• Medical illustrator
• Web designer
How to improve your illustration skills
There are a number of ways to gather the illustration skills you need to access a huge number of careers. Of course, the most obvious is to attend University and achieve a bachelor’s degree in illustration. During this time, you will develop and refine your studio skills and methods (e.g., drawing, sketching, photography, moving images, digital media and specialist software) so that you can become a successful professional illustrator.
However, it is not essential to achieve a degree in illustration to gather the skills you need to be good at illustration. There are plenty of fantastic online classes, both for free and for a fee, that can teach you everything you need to know to develop excellent illustration skills.
Online learning can offer you the opportunity to gather tuition from some of the best experts in the field. What better way is there to learn about all the tricks of the trade than from those who have been there and done it themselves? Plus, when you learn online, you can learn in your own time, at your own pace and you can pick a course suitable to your budget.
Illustration isn’t a huge field, but nonetheless, there are still lots of different aspects to be explored! Firstly, you need to decide whether you want to become good at illustration as a whole, or whether you just want to advance your skills in a particular area. If you want to progress at illustration as a whole, then you may want to take a whole range of online classes or focus specifically on the adobe illustrator classes.
Whereas, if you want to develop your illustration skills to add another skill to your ‘skill basket’, then you may want to only focus on one or two aspects of illustration. You may be particularly interested in how lettering can be used on websites. Or you may want to learn how to use drawings to entice customers!
Online Illustration Courses
If developing your skills in illustration sounds like something that would benefit you professionally, then we’ve got just the thing for you!
Whether you’re looking to become an ‘illustrator’ or whether you’re wanting to broaden your career options by gaining illustration skills, we think online classes will be very helpful to you. We’ve explored all the different illustration skills that you may want to learn, and we’ve spent a lot of time researching the best online classes available. Your next step is to check out our hard work and then decide which course(s) suits your budget and time frame best!