Editorial illustration was a project that I struggled with a bit. Creating something that would act as a support to text on an article was something I hadn’t done. Watching and looking at other artists’ editorial illustrations was intriguing because it showed me how important it is to have. While this work was not my strongest, I want to keep exploring editorial illustration after working on this project.
I bounced around with my ideas for this project because while I had a direction I wanted to go in, others ideas made it so I had to shift my focus. In the article, I was stuck on the word “relentless”. The idea that millennials are constantly having to do something or that they are never “off the clock”. This made me think about the toys that appear in our lives that are always constantly moving and when they aren’t we restart them or make them move/do more.
I went with a wind-up toy and a solar dancing toy. With the wind-up toy, I wanted to show some movement with one leg up. The woman is holding a computer and blowing air out of her mouth to show that she is burnout or exhausted but she keeps moving because the little twist cap was twisted. I added a background of a busy looking desk with lots of papers to add to the messiness of working non-stop.
For the solar toy, I wanted to show the man trying to balance having a kid and working. With a baby in one arm and holding a tote bag and computer in the other showing that we are never really “off the clock” even when it comes to caretaking and balancing work. For the background, I placed the toy in a place that is more often to be seen on a car dashboard.This also adds to the idea that we are always going somewhere to do chores or go to work.
Editorial illustration is meant to have a quick turn-around so this was similar to having to quickly think of a concept and execute it. I feel like with some practice I could get better at it, but currently I’m okay with how my illustrations came out.
