Illusive: Contemporary Illustration and its Context

Illustration is undergoing a renaissance today. Photography shaped visual culture for decades, but now illustration is reasserting itself with a vengeance expanding in formats and styles. Illusive records, accompanies and comments on the present illustration boom and presents a collection of contemporary illustration from around the world, addressing the variety of existing techniques and putting them into context with explanatory text. It features personal designs alongside fashion illustration and commercial work – a diversity that reveals how the medium of illustration functions independently from trends.

Today, illustration appears in design-related projects in a wide range of styles. One can find drawings done fleetingly by hand just as often as polished vector graphics created on computers. Motifs are not only being produced in pencil, chalk, airbrush and marker but also by mixing media, for example by combining illustration, photography and wallpaper. But when so many alluring possibilities currently exist in illustration, how can one stay up to date and how should one evaluate new developments?

Illusuve is a collection of contemporary illustration from around the world that addresses the variety of existing techniques and puts them into context with explanatory text. It features personal designs alongside fashion illustration and commercial work produced for books or magazines – a diversity that reveals how the medium of illustration functions independently from trends. At the same time the book is also a survey of current tendencies and design approaches. Features introducing leading protagonists supplement the examples shown.

The fact that it presents manifold methods by such a broad spectrum of international designers side by side makes Illusive stimulating and educational reading for the professional illustrator.