Product illustration: Inspiration

I wasn't thrilled to do the product illustration, mostly because I have kind of a beef with using my skills to promote something like pointless consumerism and/or self-image problems (clothing/beauty ads). But, once I decided to do a TimBuk2 messenger bag, a quality product I love and made by a not-so-evil company, I warmed up to the idea. (Needless to say, I'm very socially aware.)

While researching advertisements for inspiration on my own product illustration, I came across these examples. The first is by Joe Saputo, and is a style I really like. Showing the design lines and/or insides of the product is really cool for a high tech product. In this case, the style emphasizes design and therefore high quality and engineering to the buyer, so the illustration is very effective for those types of products.

 

But, I don't plan on doing a high-tech product, so I looked for other styles. This next ad features a photograph of a product with some illustrated designs and copy, by Nate Williams. I think it's effective because it still allows the product to be the focus while containing interesting elements from illustration.

 

 This next one, although for a beer advertisement, has a similar style that has a product photo within an illustration. Seems like more fun to draw. By Bunky Hurter. This style also lets the illustrator skip out on drawing the product! Might seem like cheating but it also side-steps the issue of the illustrator portraying or stylizing the product in a way that the client or viewer does not find appealing. Very important.

 

This last one I just thought was so wonky and crazy, I had to include it. By Andy Lackow.