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Reviews An Industry Strikes Back!
copyright Lisa L. Cyr Conference Review CA September/October 2001, pages 52, 54 Today, the illustration business is fragmented and the marketplace is extremely unstable. Fees are stagnant and discounted. Many publishers are either phasing out illustration or redesigning their format no longer including illustration. Large stock houses have altered the nature of competition by building client loyalty with buyers who now expect instant delivery at a low cost. Royalty-free corporations are creating a substantial inventory of work-contractually eliminating the artist as the creator. Publishers are forcing all-rights contracts on assignment work and later image banking it for further use or resale. Bulletin board art buying and cost consultants are also changing the way art is being bought and valued. For many, the future of ... Burning the God of Gloom
Conference Review CA March/April 2000; pages 162 and 167 Illustrators are by nature a solitary species. Most live and work in isolation?toiling in their studios in the occasional company of a cat or dog. So why did 550 of them (with nearly every big name in the business) leave their splendid isolation?to travel to Santa Fe, New Mexico, last October? Long a haven for New Age gurus, artists and therapists, illustrators knew that even if the conference turned into a dud, they'd at least enjoy the town's great food, competitively-priced massages and seductive natural light... Controlling Our Destiny
copyright Lisa L. Cyr 2001 Step-by-Step Graphics, page 28 - 33 The illustration industry has seen enormous change caused by a fragmented and volatile marketplace. Over the years, illustrators have moved away from the big cities and their artistic communities have dissipated - leaving them isolated, uninformed, and unaware.... ID Magazine Review
for ID Magazine, 1999 Once dominated by paints, brushes, pencils and canvas, the world of commercial illustration is now mixing the raw ingredients of fine art with a palette of pixels. Painters and illustrators nationwide convened for the first time ever this fall at The Illustration Conference in Santa Fe, NM, to address the new processes and protocols they face with the transition from tactile to digital. And discussion of analog-to-digital-shift issues continued long after the gathering ended. On a message board for artists on The I-Spot, a Web site where illustrators post their portfolios, commercial illustrator Jeffrey Terreson glowed, "This was not just a pep-rally. There was a real, tangible information exchange. It was defining." Illustration repackaged
Andrew Selby heads to Santa Fe to the American Illustration Conference.
The horizons of America are always impressive. The drive up Interstate 25 from Albuquerque affords plenty of opportunities to marvel at the endless expanse of earth and sky. Passing through the native American reservations, it is easy to see how the early pioneers must have thought that the world had limitless possibilities when they happened upon this place.
The second Illustration Conference held in Santa Fe in June brought together creatives from across North America to debate issues which currently dominate the profession, and to broaden horizons of the possibilities open to illustrators in the digital age.
The first conference was held in October 1999. Since then, illustration in the USA and Canada has been sorely hit by the power of copyright free imagery and stock illustration houses who have taken an enormous chunk of the market. Creatives in all sectors, including illustrators, photographers, authors and journalists have seen contracts demanding blanket rights in return for declining fees.
Of fundamental importance to the American audience was the need to protect illustrators' rights and the licensing of imagery for secondary use. Or, put more succinctly, their livelihoods. Brad Holland, Dave Lesh, CF Payne and others are at the forefront of an initiative called the Illustrators' Partnership of America (IPA) which seeks, amongst other things, to redress the balance of stock illustration.
The organisation seeks national recognition for minimum fees and copyright issues to be understood and addressed, to include lectures for art editors and designers at a later juncture. This programme is already being introduced in several American art schools in the hope of educating the next generation not just about how to commission illustration but also to understand the nature and power of copyright. American illustrators need to support this initiative if they are to stop publishers and corporations from strangling the industry. Working as a co-operative affords more power but increases the risk of dissenting voices.
Away from the business side, J Otto Seibold [CR, Feb 97], described in the conference notes as a "producer entrepreneur", showed his latest venture, "Bubblesoap", a spoof band designed in Illustrator and manipulated in Flash. The animated piece is designed for audience interaction and seamlessly meshes together illustration and animation, proving that illustration really has escaped its boundaries and pushed its horizons further forward, certainly in the last decade.
An entertaining figure both on and off stage, Seibold is nothing short of an illustration genius. A man who claims to live a "Command F life", he has single-handedly reinvented illustration for a generation, expanding his repertoire from children's book illustration into personal merchandising and e-commerce in the form of T-shirts, records and stickers. Seibold is, in effect, an inventor of new markets and claims not to worry about his future, as he will be able to reinvent himself should the need arise (or he becomes bored).
One of the best attended sessions was on the issue of reinvention with perhaps the biggest applause reserved for Noah Woods. Woods has reinvented his work (and his name) to suit current trends of the illustration industry relating to shorter deadlines. His beautiful collaged images have attracted a wide audience, allowing the illustrator to broaden his appeal to a larger section of the market.
American illustration as a whole needs to open its eyes to the wider possibilities of the profession and the market place and to embrace new technology in a creative and personalised manner. Boundaries need to be questioned. There is a market here too for British illustrators - who should broaden their horizons by accepting the challenge and getting their work seen.
For further information see www. illustconf.org. Andrew Selby is a lecturer in Illustration at Loughborough University
Illustrator's Ireland Conference Review
Take a look at the Second Illustration Conference: Effecting Change, through the eyes of an Irish illustrator.
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