Illustration Styles I like

I think I’m conflicted. I like two distinctly different illustration styles. Maps and infographics are so easy to understand with clean digital graphics, but I love the style of rough-drawn line drawings.

Illustrations by Lamosca from Monocle Magazine

Detail of a World Map poster by Japanese illustrator Satoshi Hashimoto

Detail from one of Paula Scher’s unbelievably complex and detailed maps (one of which is hanging in Union Square Cafe I noticed a few weeks ago). Author Katharine Harmon may be someone more obsessed with maps than I am. She’s written two books: You are Here and The Map as Art (where I scanned this image from) that contain the most creative and abstract maps in gorgeous styles.

This illustrative map by Stephen Walter looks like it was a fun project – a map of the imagination.

I went to the Renegade Craft fair in Brooklyn today, and between dust storms found illustrator Claudia Pearson. One of her childrens coloring books is titled Buy Local Eat Seasonal and it contains charming illustrations of the kinds of produce you would find in season each month. I love this style – reminds me a lot of Kate Bingaman-Burt (in the image below) from her Obsessive Consumption project.

Also today I started looking into sharing between individuals in a community – a service that doesn’t require ownership of, for example a drill when you only need it for one thing and don’t want to buy an entirely new one. This concept makes so much sense and would reduce consumption and environmental impact. I think it could be represented in this illustrative style in a screen print with each object that could be shared/rented between individuals in the community and the name and price next to it. This is something I would like to explore creating. NeighborGoods is one of the sites I’ve found that facilitates this service.

More inspiring work from Claudia Pearson. It looks like she created a portrait of many faces in her community and gives a little idea of what many of them would say.