Editorial Illustration for Magazines

Finding your illustration specialty can be as challenging—and as rewarding—as finding your voice and style. Swedish designer Emma Hanquist has found hers in Editorial Illustration, a branch that revolves around creating idea-driven illustrations that complement and enhance a written piece. Through it, she has worked for every major news outlet and magazine in Sweden, as well as companies like Spotify and Airbnb.

In this course, Emma shows you ways to come up with illustration ideas by creating an efficient way to find inspiration and guides you through the process of creating an editorial illustration for a magazine, from the sketch to the presentation.

Start the course by learning about Emma's background and how it led her to illustration. She also shows you the work of artists that inspire her, specifying exactly what in their work influences her and her work.

Emma shares her views on editorial illustration; what it is and how it’s such a great communication tool. She also talks about the importance of being communicative in order to serve the text and help the reader learn about different subjects. She presents you with an editorial assignment to complete together, step by step.

Learn ways to turn a text into a visual idea by narrowing a text down and using its essence in your brainstorming process. Learn how to use illustration symbols and other artists' work when coming up with ideas.

In the third unit, start visualizing your idea by making communicative sketches. After deciding on a sketch you will then continue to create the final image by building shapes in Adobe Photoshop. Emma shows you how to break some rules when creating characters and apply details, shadows, and color in order to complete your image.

To finish the course, learn some additional ways to develop and explore your illustration, using different color variations and also by placing your illustration in different page layouts.

Create a finished editorial illustration with a clear idea, that is adaptable to a magazine layout.

People interested in illustration, who are either just starting out or professional illustrators looking to broaden their field into editorial illustration.

You will need basic sketching skills, either analog or digital. If you choose to work digitally, you’ll need a graphics tablet and, if you draw, a scanner. You will also need a computer with Adobe Photoshop installed.