ICON6 Video & Audio: The Future of Publishing Part 4 and Discussion
Are you ready for a double dose of ICON6?
Over the past couple of days I’ve posted Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the opening keynote address from theICON6 Illustration Conference, called The Future of Publishing, which brought together Wyatt Mitchell (Creative Director, WIRED), Kelly Doe (Art Director, The New York Times), Jim Heimann (Executive Editor, Taschen America), Jeremy Clark (Senior Experience Design Manager, Adobe), and Roger Black (Principal, Roger Black Studios).
Today I’d like to conclude this particular series with Part 4 of the presentation, featuring Jim Heimann of Taschen America, who introduces the controversial question of whether or not Illustrators should animate their work to maintain their relevance in today’s market.
In addition, you can listen to an audio recording of the panel discussion and audience Q&A session where some Illustrators expressed concern about the comments made about putting their work into motion.
First, here’s the video:
And here’s the audio from the discussion that followed:
You can find more of EFII’s ICON6 coverage here.
Special thanks to the following sponsors for helping to make EFII’s coverage of ICON6 possible:
Hi Thomas,
Thanks for filming and posting these. Just a few points that came to mind:
1. The tone of the keynote did come across (maybe unintentionally) as “animate or die” or “there’s no place for your static illustrations in this brave new world” but there’s no denying that these new forms of delivery open up exciting opportunities for illustrators, whether you are a “motion” illustrator or one of those old fogeys that makes quaint old images that don’t move.
2. An illustrator working with an “enlightened” magazine like Wired is one thing but you can easily imagine many lesser magazines jumping on the bandwagon. “Yes we want it to move but don’t expect us to pay for that!”
3. If it’s overused and it will become more “visual noise” and the audience will just ignore it. It will end up era a fad and go the way of the animated gif banner. Remember all that awful Photoshop filter art in the 90′s.
4. Animating your illustrations is exciting but it has to fit the context. One powerful image is worth a 1000 frames of animation that out stays its welcome. With the risk of sounding very old fashioned personally i find find static images are full of movement and narrative. Just take a look at any painting by N C Wyeth.
5. As one person said on the imprint site we must not confuse motion with animation. Making your illustration move is different to breathing life into a character. Animation is a skill that requires understanding of timing, acting, rhythm and the principles of animation.
http://imprint.printmag.com/animation/icon-reax-is-animation-the-future-of-illustration/
This discussion made me think of a quote from artist Jean Cocteau who upon experiencing wide screen films for the first time said slyly
“Remind me the next time I write a poem, I will use a larger sheet of paper!”
Cheers
Eddy
I think the idea of “artists going out there and doing it themselves” or “illustrator as entrepreneur” is the key message in this video and audio.
It’s time we stopped looking at ourselves as merely hands for hire. And become creative artrepreneurs.
Thanks again Thomas for making this available.
Hi everybody! I am from Denmark and would like to say hello!