Design versus illustration

There's a website that I like to checko out occasionally called


Click Design Observer . It's basically a site for design nerds, that, as it 's tagline honestly says, features writings about design and culture.

Anyway, the site currently has a commentary up, by Adrian Shaughnessy , on "Graphic Design vs Illustration". It's a fascinating read for anyone that feels illustration does or doesn't have a role in the world of design.

In the piece, he writes: "To understand the contemporary state of illustration, we need to look at its relationship with graphic design..

Shaughnessy reflects back upon the time when design and illustration were once "indivisible" and then goes into the evolution or devolution (for some) of illustration as a form or medium of design and art.

His concluding statement is an eloquent reflection on what many of us already believe. He writes:

"Graphic design’s ability to deliver explicit messages makes it a major (if little recognized) force in the modern world: it is embedded in the commercial infrastructure. Illustration, on the other hand, with its woolly ambiguity and its allusive ability to convey feeling and emotion, makes it too dangerous to be allowed to enter the corporate bloodstream. Our visual lives are the poorer for this."