We live in a time where we pick up our phones and are deluged with over-styled photography, or switch on the news and can’t decipher what’s really going on in the world. Perhaps in response, the language of illustration has re-emerged as the voice of authentic experience in public media spaces.

Illustrators and image makers are reclaiming the traditions of their craft to author new works that show our true ‘reality’. From the moments when you drop coffee down your shirt or remember that bad one night stand, to a visualisation of the demons of anxiety. Sometimes it’s simply just imagining up a group that look like the people we all want to see in the world: a diverse, candid and authentic crowd. 

An antidote to stock images and selfies, these artworks are now increasingly commissioned across editorial, advertising and cultural campaigns to create symbols of shared understanding. A blobby figure getting sweaty on the morning commute could perhaps be you or me, and so we empathise, we connect – even when the character in question only has four fingers or green hair.

This type of image making has given a voice to many, allowing them to be brave, to say it how it is, and to discuss and visualise topics that are oft overlooked or tricky to tackle. There are many more young people waiting – and drawing – in the wings; hoping to connect to people in the same way. Illustration and image making plays a crucial role in depicting what we can’t see, we can’t say, what we need to see, and need to say. Even though they might be crude or strange, these representations of ourselves and each other can somehow seem more real than anything else – and we need that right now.

– Liv Taylor

We live in a time where we pick up our phones and are deluged with over-styled photography, or switch on the news and can’t decipher what’s really going on in the world. Perhaps in response, the language of illustration has re-emerged as the voice of authentic experience in public media spaces.

Illustrators and image makers are reclaiming the traditions of their craft to author new works that show our true ‘reality’. From the moments when you drop coffee down your shirt or remember that bad one night stand, to a visualisation of the demons of anxiety. Sometimes it’s simply just imagining up a group that look like the people we all want to see in the world: a diverse, candid and authentic crowd. 

An antidote to stock images and selfies, these artworks are now increasingly commissioned across editorial, advertising and cultural campaigns to create symbols of shared understanding. A blobby figure getting sweaty on the morning commute could perhaps be you or me, and so we empathise, we connect – even when the character in question only has four fingers or green hair.

This type of image making has given a voice to many, allowing them to be brave, to say it how it is, and to discuss and visualise topics that are oft overlooked or tricky to tackle. There are many more young people waiting – and drawing – in the wings; hoping to connect to people in the same way. Illustration and image making plays a crucial role in depicting what we can’t see, we can’t say, what we need to see, and need to say. Even though they might be crude or strange, these representations of ourselves and each other can somehow seem more real than anything else – and we need that right now.

– Liv Taylor

Liv runs the final year BA (Hons) Illustration at the University of Brighton, and is a freelance Visual Strategist and Cultural Researcher. For more information, or an extended essay on ‘Representing Realness’, contact liv.f.taylor@gmail.com