This new title in the highly successful Essential Design Handbooks series sets out to explain the underlying principles of illustration, as a means of visual expression, as a highly competitive industry, and as a contemporary, innovative practice. What is Illustration? is a must-have guide for illustration practitioners and students, as well as graphic designers and other media professionals who require an understanding of the issues and principles surrounding contemporary illustration.

What is Illustration? explores the discipline’s history, and its relationship with art, design, and photography; it investigates how illustrated images are read and understood, and how personal visual languages are created by today’s illustrators and image-makers. This book also investigates the many different contexts for illustration, and the range of career opportunities that are open to today’s illustrators; from editorial illustration in newspapers and magazines, to book publishing, illustration for advertising, design, music, fashion, websites, and the increasing demand from stock libraries. Showcasing the very best of contemporary illustration, this book features portfolios from solo artists, illustration studios, and collectives as well as some of the world’s leading illustration agencies.