Illustration Teardowns: How much facial detail should illustrations have?
From silhouettes to cartoon-styled to highly detailed portraiture — which approach is most effective for today’s online reader?
There’s no doubt that the use of illustration in online applications, products, blogs, etc., has exploded in the last couple of years (just see my other article Big Brands Using Illustration in 2020 if you question that fact).
However, there are some folks that appear to take issue with the latest corporate art styles that seem to be en vogue today:
The TL;DR is that some folks think faces and figures in today’s illustrations are just “too cartoony”.
Why is this style so popular?
I can only provide personal assumptions I have in this area as an illustrator myself:
- The visual weight claimed by certain realistic portraiture elements like eyes and mouth draws too much of the viewer’s attention away from the message or metaphor being illustrated
- Irreverent styles like Abstract Realism and Dadaism and others have gained more popularity in the past couple of decades and abstraction in general seems to be preferred by many creative directors
- Animated feature films has trained our eyes to appreciate this sort of imagery
- Perhaps realism restricts from the creative possibilities for some illustrators and also adds to the turn around time on delivery
I can think of several other speculative reasons why, but, it’s true the level of realism one find in commercial illustration varies greatly and leans towards a more silhouette style.
How much is too much?
So exactly how much facial detail should be included in an illustration then?
Sorry, but there’s no definitive answer and the best answer I could provide would be: as much is needed and appropriate for the type of image and audience being targeted.
With that evasive answer, let’s go ahead and look at some talented contemporary illustrators of today that use a varying degree of details in their work. Perhaps you can form your own opinion.
I believe they are a cut above what I typical see in a more generic cartoony illustration for a SaaS product, but, ahem, that’s a whole ‘nuther can of worms.
Have a look at these and pay attention to how much or little facial detail is added and ask yourself if it generally “works or not”:
Concluding Thoughts
Hopefully, seeing the above examples shows that there are variety of approaches (in terms of portraiture details) that can be successfully applied to an illustration. Some to note are:
- Fully silhouette style
- Silhouette profile to show a bit more of the facial contour
- Vector or flat with features but gradations kept to a minimum
- Realistic (not represented in any of the examples above)
Rob Levin is a freelance illustrator. Portfolio: https://roblevin.myportfolio.com/ For illustration work enquiries, collaboration, or to say hi: roblevinillustration@gmail.com.
Also, you may like to read more of the illustration teardowns articles.
