What is an illustration?

Illustrations are images expressed by patterns. In line with the principle of unity of beauty and practicality, we strive to make lines and shapes clear and vivid, and make them convenient. Illustration is a universal language in the world, and its design is usually divided into characters, animals and commodity images in commercial applications. Figures: Illustration is based on figures, and it is easy to hit it off with consumers, because figures can best show cuteness and intimacy, and there is a lot of room for imaginative creation. First of all, the proportion of shaping is the key. In life, the head-to-body ratio of adults is 1:7 or 1:7.5, and that of children is about 1:4. The facial expression of the characters is the focus of the whole, so it is very important to describe the eyes. Secondly, the use of exaggerated deformation will not give people an unnatural and uncomfortable feeling, but can make people laugh and feel happy, making the overall image clearer and more impressive.

Animal image: Animals have a long history as cartoon images. In real life, many animals have become people's pets, and these animals are more popular as cartoon images. When creating animal images, we must attach great importance to creativity and personification. For example, one difference between animals and humans is that their faces don't smile for a long time. Anime images can give animals the same smile as human beings through personification, and humanize animal images. It is easy to be accepted by people to use animal schools that they know and love in their lives.

Commodity image: it is the expansion of animal personification in the field of commodities, and anthropomorphic commodities give people a sense of intimacy. Personalized modeling has a refreshing feeling, thus deepening people's direct impression of goods. As far as the concept of commodity personification is concerned, it can be roughly divided into two categories: the first category is complete personification, that is, exaggerating commodities and personifying them by using their characteristics and modeling structure. The second category is semi-anthropomorphism, that is, adding hands, feet and heads unrelated to commodities as anthropomorphic characteristic elements. The above two anthropomorphic molding technologies make the goods humanized and personalized. Through the form of animation, emphasizing the characteristics of goods, its actions and words are directly related to goods, and the publicity effect is more obvious.

Illustrators often draw illustrations for graphic designers or directly for magazines, newspapers and other media. They are generally professional illustrators or freelance artists, and have their own themes and painting styles like photographers. Their professional sensitivity and desire for new forms and tools have led many of them to use cg animation design tools to create illustrations. The software function of Cg animation makes their creative talent play a greater role. Whether it is simple or complex, whether it is traditional media effects, such as oil painting, watercolor, printmaking style or the endless new changes and new interests of digital graphics, it can be completed more conveniently and quickly. Digital photography is the latest development of photography. Photographers shoot objects with digital cameras or scan traditional positive films into computers through scanners, then adjust, combine and create new visual images on computer screens, and finally output positive films or negative films through film recorders. This new photography technology has completely changed the creative concept of photographic optical imaging, with digital graphics processing as the core, also known as' darkroom photography'. It blurs the boundaries between photographers, illustrators and graphic designers. Nowadays, as long as they are talented, they can complete all three tasks on the same computer.

What are the types of illustrations? Illustration occupies more position than copywriting in most advertisements, and it plays an equally important role in the promotion of goods. In some poster advertisements, illustration is even more important than copywriting. The main functions of illustration in advertising include attracting, reading and inducing. Attraction function mainly refers to attracting consumers' attention. Some people in the American advertising industry invented the principle of "reading illustrations is the most labor-saving", that is, reading an advertisement is more labor-saving than not reading it. He assumes that his consumers are psychologically tired of all advertisements and suddenly see them when they don't plan to see them. The wonderful illustrations in the advertisement make consumers forget that he didn't come to see the advertisement, just like Alice fell into the abyss, but in the abyss, consumers found the truth and acted according to it. That's how you should make consumers fall and get up with you. The reading function of illustrations mainly refers to quickly and effectively conveying the contents of poster advertisements. The best poster illustrations should be concise. Illustrations that help readers grasp the key points. Some foreign advertising illustrators use Tibetan methods to test the expressive ability of advertising illustrations, that is, to cover up the words and titles of advertisements so that readers can only see the illustrations and see if they can understand the contents of advertisements. Good illustrations often have the power to take effect in three seconds. The inductive function of illustration refers to grasping the psychological reaction of consumers and attracting the attention of copywriting. A good illustration should be able to link the advertising content with consumers' own reality, and the illustration itself should fascinate and interest consumers. Pictures should be strong enough to make consumers know more about the details of products and induce consumers to turn their attention from illustration to copywriting.

Illustrations show the image of the product itself, a certain part of the product, the product to be used, the product in use, the product under test and control, the different characteristics of the product, the benefits that can be obtained by using the product, the possible consequences of not using the product, testimony legends and so on. The main methods of expression are photographic illustrations and painting illustrations (including realism, pure abstraction, new figuration, comic books, diagrams and so on). ) and three-dimensional illustrations. Photographic illustration is the most commonly used illustration, because ordinary consumers think that photos are true and reliable and can objectively represent products. As a poster advertisement, the biggest difference between photographic illustration and general artistic photography is that it tries to express the characteristics of goods and expand the realism of products, while artistic photography tends to weaken some real characteristics of the subject in pursuit of a certain artistic conception. As a poster advertisement, it is best to shoot photographic illustrations with 120 single-lens reflex camera. According to the requirements of different themes, some commonly used lenses should be equipped, such as wide-angle lens, telephoto lens, macro lens and close-up lens. Photographic illustrations of posters generally use color reversal films to ensure the quality of printing and plate making.

Photographic illustrations are mostly made indoors, and the background needs to be manually arranged to set off the main body. Backup background materials include woolen cloth, velvet, cloth, paper, etc. Of course, you can boldly try wall covering, woolen linen and so on. At present, it has appeared in the market, and the slide background can also be used if conditions permit. Their advantage is that they can meet the requirements of advertising creativity regardless of time, place and climate. Drawing illustrations is somewhat subjective for the author and has the personality of free expression. Whether it is fantasy, exaggeration, humor, emotion or symbolic emotion, you can freely express and deal with it. As an illustrator, you must digest the theme of advertising creativity and have a deeper understanding of things in order to create excellent illustrations. Since ancient times, paintings and illustrations have been done by painters. With the expansion of the design field, the skills of illustration are becoming more and more specialized, and now the illustration work has already been completed by specialized illustrators.

The most commonly used technique for drawing illustrations is inkjet printing, which is a technique of drawing through a pen by using the air delivery of an air compressor. It is characterized by no brush strokes caused by ordinary painting, natural picture transition and high application value.

Comic forms are also common in painting illustrations. Comic illustrations can be divided into exaggerated illustrations, satirical illustrations, humorous illustrations and humorous illustrations. Exaggerated illustrations grasp some characteristics of the described object to exaggerate and emphasize, highlight the essential characteristics of things, and thus strengthen the performance effect. Ironic illustrations are generally used to condemn hostile or backward things and satirize them in an implicit tone to achieve negative publicity effects, while humorous illustrations expose innocent and unreasonable things in life through rhetorical devices such as innuendo, allegory and pun in a well-meaning smile, thus making people laugh and understanding something from laughter; Humorous illustrations make advertising pictures interesting, make people accept advertising information in a relaxed situation and feel new concepts in a pleasant environment, which is especially hard to forget. Illustration in painting illustration is a very suitable illustration form to express complex products, such as the operation procedure of new household appliances, the cooking method of a new food, the installation of household combined appliances, various collocation forms of children's building blocks and so on. Several consecutive charts can be used to introduce the correct operation steps to readers.

Three-dimensional illustration is a very expressive illustration form used in poster advertisements, which is rare in China at present, but it is an inevitable trend from the development of poster advertisements in the world. The production method is: according to the advertising creativity, the work is first composed in three dimensions, and then the picture is taken for the poster advertising screen. This requires poster designers and illustrators not only to have good graphic design ability, but also to have a solid three-dimensional foundation. Another method of three-dimensional illustration is to express the three-dimensional image through painting, which is to create the illusion of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional paper. In a word, modern illustration is no longer confined to the scope of two-dimensional expression space, and simple two-dimensional expression techniques can no longer meet the requirements of modern illustration design.