Of course this opens up the old can of worms of whether illustrators deserve the same recognition as a book’s author and writer. Interestingly though, it’s actually the digital age that we live in that’s affecting our own perceptions of a book’s illustrator. An essay on the Rockwell Center (2009) - an American research institute dedicated to American illustration art - quite rightly points out that when illustrated works first began to appear, they had ‘a crucial role in affecting the cultural appetites of the day’. Since then though, drawn illustrations have ‘surrendered its exclusive power to television, film and the internet’ and this is something we can definitely observe in the UK publishing environment. Illustrations just don’t have the same impact, and that might be why we have seen it recede more into children’s publishing, and why we value it so much less nowadays.
Even children’s publishing is seeing a saturation of exciting new design concepts. The Bookseller reports (2011) that ‘new British talent is being forced abroad’ as UK publishers are becoming increasingly conservative. This could lead to even more of reduction in the perception of illustrations and their creators.
Nigerian poet and writer Mabel Segun expressed her concern over this way back in 1988 in her essay The Importance of Illustrations in Children’s Publishing, where she exclaimed ‘illustrations are literature in their own right’.
Having said that, that doesn’t mean writers of children’s publishing are selfishly stealing the limelight for a book they had minimal input. John Wallace (2014) publisher and illustrator himself, mentions on The Word Pool that it’s actually the writer that’s ‘presented with the blank sheet of paper to fill in’. He notes that people don’t understand how much work goes into a 250-word picture book text, because the writer has to conceive the plot, style, tone, characters and theme.
So yes, illustrators definitely deserve more recognition in today’s digital age, but that doesn’t mean you take the credit away from the authors either.
Bibliography
McIntyre, S. (2014) the carnegie co-author conundrum. [Online] Available at: http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/668686.html. [Accessed: 25th October 2014].
Rockwell Center. (2009) Art of Illustration. [Online] Available at: http://www.rockwell-center.org/art-of-illustration. [Accessed: 25th October 2014).
Horn, C. (2011) Children’s illustrators concerned over UK market. Bookseller, 10 June. [Online] Available at: http://www.thebookseller.com/news/childrens-illustrators-concerned-over-uk-market. [Accessed: 25th October 2014].
Segun, M. (1988) The Importance of Illustrations in Children’s Books. Illustrating for Children. Ibadan: CLAN pp.27. [Online] Available at: http://www.mabelsegun.com/Illustrating.pdf. [Accessed: 25th October 2014].
Wallac, J. (2014) Working Together: The Relationship between Writers and Illustrators. [Online] Available at: http://www.wordpool.co.uk/wfc/art/illusrelate.htm. [Accessed: 25th October 2014].