One of my favorite things is when a client comes to me with a need for an illustration and is open to anything my imagination can dream up! It’s like letting a kid loose in a candy store; there’s so much freedom to pick what I want, but sometimes with no direction, all the possibilities can be a little overwhelming to start. Recently, I had the honor of designing the cover to a Leadership Guide for Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains and found myself in that very situation. Whether it's a blank piece of paper or a blank canvas in your favorite illustration software, here are a few steps that I use to guide myself through the design process - from start to finish!
1. Find your style
If you’ve been illustrating for a while, you’ll already have an idea of what your artistic style is! But if you’re a new designer/illustrator, you’ll want to pick a specific style that you want to illustrate your cover in. This could be a thick-lined, cartoon-y style to a realistic-looking illustration! Whatever direction you feel inspired to create your illustration in, it’s important to establish the style in the beginning to make sure your piece feels cohesive and well-planned!
2. Create a few thumbnails
…Thumbnails?! No, not the body part. While this is kind of an “old school” concept, I love to start with designing a few thumbnails to give the client options of the direction you want to take the illustration, especially if they give you free reign of the project! A good rule of thumb would be to start with 3-5 quick thumbnails (or general ideas) so that your client feels like they have a good foothold in the creative process. This also helps keep clear communication on the illustration to prevent you from getting too far on a design concept without feedback from your client.
3. Start your rough draft
Whether it is “old school” pencil-to-paper like I prefer or a quick and simple draft of your concept in your preferred program, providing a rough draft will pull together the concept and your style to give the client a “big picture” idea of what the illustration will look like. During this step of my creative process, I like to provide a layout of the illustration (where certain elements will go, the “flow” of the piece, and overall concept, etc.). If there needs to be text on the cover, I like to place the text and information so the client can verify that the appropriate information is present on the piece. During this step, I like to keep a draft anywhere from 1-2 hours max to make sure I’m using time efficiently, but also providing enough artistic vision that the client clearly sees the vision you are trying to create. An example of this would be the usage of stick figures and simple shapes as shown in my sketched rough draft for the cover illustration for GSTOP.
4. Creating your working illustration
This is where the fun begins and the real magic starts to happen! Once you come to an agreement with the client in vision and style, this is where you’ll spend the bulk of your time creating your illustration. I like to build from the basics and start with the fundamental sections (or the focal point) of your piece. For creation purposes, this gives you plenty of time to change and tweak the “big picture” item and devote attention to the most important subject of the overall design. Once I have the focal point flushed out, I start to build in the secondary pieces to create a complete illustration. Depending on your client’s time/cost budget, this is what has the potential to take the most time. We don’t want too much to distract or overcrowd the focal point of the illustration, but we want to use these secondary pieces to accentuate the overall piece. Be sure to be communicative in this process about the client budget so you don’t get too far in your working piece without feedback from your client to ensure effective time management!
5. Finalizing your piece
Depending on your client, this may take one review or several reviews. Nailing down the final piece that will be public-facing is super important from main concept to little details! Depending on the client’s budget, during this process I am adding in the fine details that bring an extra “pizazz” to the piece. This could be adding texture to the piece, playing with stroke and outline weights, or adding background details to bring life to the design. In the GSTOP cover illustration, I had time to create all the little plants and flowers on the front of the cover that was also carried throughout the design of the guide.
From conception to execution, finding your process in illustration is very important to develop so you can get into your own personal groove. This will not only be able to increase the efficiency of your workflow, but also ensure a quality piece that you are proud to give to your clients!
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