News

Intellect is excited to announce that the Journal of Illustration 5.2 is now available online, as guest edited by Jaleen Grove. For more information about the issue, click here >> https://bit.ly/2PCSnSR

Content

The ‘Theoretical Turn’ and pedagogy in illustration education

Authors: Jaleen Grove 
Page Start: 179

More eyes, different eyes

Authors: Donna Leishman 
Page Start: 191

In this article I survey the current status quo in UK illustration education, and argue the case for a pragmatic and culturally porous approach to theory within illustration education. The pragmatic approach allows illustrators to see themselves as a form of social scientist, ethno/anthropologist, community activist or facilitator for change – a constructive move that directly mirrors broader diffuse changes in the design sector. The article ends by discussing notions such as the ‘public intellectual’ and ‘perspectival seeing,’ and concludes that as an international discipline the illustration community can offer much-needed new discourse and perspectives.

An introduction to the manifesto for illustration pedagogy: A lexicon for contemporary illustration practice

Authors: Mireille Fauchon And Rachel Gannon 
Page Start: 207

As illustration educators our role is to be at the forefront of championing the development and understanding of our subject. Through practice, debate and research we strive to extend the remits of contemporary illustration and provoke debate as to what may be achieved at the very heights of ambition. Questioning of the potentials of illustration has never been more urgent as we work to prepare students to enter into a rapidly expanding field. Changes in industry, the vast expansion of potential platforms and the shifting of hierarchy as illustrators become more autonomous has prompted professionals to interrogate new ways to apply their diverse skill sets. This, met with the development of illustration taught as an independent subject not beholden to other graphic art forms, has seen the emergence of increasingly experimental and interdisciplinary uses and placements of illustrative work. Within our community of educators there is a concerted effort to establish new benchmarks for the study of our subject, to provoke aspirational thinking amongst our student cohorts and to facilitate pioneering practice. The Manifesto for Illustration Pedagogy intends to nurture ambition for the future of contemporary illustration practice and support the development of a discipline-specific critical vocabulary.

Eye Heart Theory: Not to be taken lightly

Authors: Adam Paxman 
Page Start: 225

This visual essay criticizes the notion that illustration education and practice without intellectual engagement, theory or inquiry can exist. Whilst providing a humorous yet sincere rebuttal of this stance, Eye Heart Theory advocates the sublime importance of theory in art, design and visual communication curricula from several perspectives – those of the professional illustration practitioner, Contextual Studies lecturer and personal practice as research experimenter. Drawing on diverse secondary sources including Crow, Heller and Chwast, Lupton, Lynch, Male, Maslow, McLuhan and Fiore, O’Shaughnessy, Poynor and Zeegen and Roberts, Eye Heart Theory analyses the role of the illustration educator in fostering autonomous learning, creative thinking and cognitive skills within undergraduates and future design professionals. Presented as a visually dense information burst and impassioned commentary on the topic incorporating lateral references to popular culture and visualizations of illustrative, theoretical and semiotic devices, Eye Heart Theory is not designed to persuade or interpolate but rather challenge the reader to think about and question the content as a conscious critical observer in much the same manner as a theatrical work featuring verfremdungseffekt – alienation or distancing technique – by playwright Bertolt Brecht.

Creativity assessments

Authors: Orla Crean 
Page Start: 235

This article outlines a variety of definitions for creativity within the context of an art education, specifically exploring a range of different teaching approaches to create an awareness of creativity as process, and a skill that can be learnt alongside traditional art teaching. It investigates the systems and environments by which creativity is best enhanced, whilst acknowledging the current parameters or restrictions within the traditional secondary art classroom. Consideration has been given to the future international assessments on creativity, a positive move that appears to be at odds with the United Kingdom’s latest academic measures of secondary school success. This research has been motivated by the belief that an arts education should be at the forefront of teaching creativity, recognizing its importance for students now and for their futures whilst re-establishing the value of an arts education for all students.

Integrating theory into illustration education: An interdisciplinary approach enhanced by artistic research in İstanbul

Authors: Ilgım Veryeri Alaca And İpek Onmuş 
Page Start: 247

Focusing on the roles of theoretical engagement and artistic research in illustration education, this article presents a case primarily based on an undergraduate illustration course in the Media and Visual Arts Department of Koç University. Authored by the instructor of the illustration course and a former student in the course, this article provides insights on theory’s potential to stimulate illustration processes. In addition, it expands on this topic by carrying out eight structured interviews with instructors at other universities to contextualize the case study in relation to current illustration education in Turkey. This study deliberates on the innate presence of theory in illustration, the ways that theoretical arguments may be embedded in illustration, and how a flexible approach in education may facilitate the integration of theory and illustration with a personal flare.

What do comics want? Drawing lived experience for critical consciousness

Authors: Martha Newbigging 
Page Start: 265

This article presents a reflection on drawing autobiographical comics as a method of engagement with critical theory and the potential for illustration education. I suggest that drawing and sharing autobiographical comics might be used to engage illustration students to think critically about identity, representation and power. To illustrate this approach, I present my own practice-based research project that used comics-making as a method to make sense of queer ways of being in childhood – ways of being that may have been discounted, ignored or suppressed within a dominant heteronormative culture. The intention was to evoke a playful mode of drawing that might queer my illustration practice while braiding childhood memory with critical theory. As educators, to get our illustration students to think critically, we might start with the students’ own lived experience and enlist the potency of comics to visualize their stories as resilient and instructive counternarratives. I suggest that drawing comics might be reframed as a performative space for playing with our stories to understand the historical and socio-economic forces that shape our lives and identities. Through making and sharing autobiographical comics, we engage in a transgressional strategy that uses story and drawing as transformative tools for Freirean critical consciousness.