CIA Insight - The Power of Illustration

From working with ethical brands and non-profit organisations, to communicating powerful messages, this week we caught up with CIA’s artists and agents on the power of illustration to drive positive change and how adopting this unique language might just be the key to a standout brand. 

In the Spring of last year as the world was still reeling in the relative infancy of the pandemic, a symbol was a needed to succinctly represent steadfastness, unity and hope. Rather beautifully, a specific artistic statement emerged from London’s children, a rainbow, with many doorways and front windows becoming ad hoc gallery spaces bringing colour and optimism to streets across the capital. 

In May, Peter Blake was invited by the Evening Standard and London Advertising to contribute to this visual ground swell, his graphic iconography as one of the great names of the Pop Art movement making him the perfect artist to cohere this universal rainbow into a bold and singular statement of togetherness, positivity, and compassion. This statement also helped shine a spotlight on the Felix Project and their continuing mission to provide food for those most in need during the crisis including children in poverty, the elderly and the isolated.

As an illustration agent, how can illustration ensure that a brand stands out from the crowd? 

Emilie - In a landscape cluttered with images and photographs, illustration can help brands stand out in a more unique, memorable, and engaging way. Part of what makes a brand successful is its ability to stand out from its competitors. Illustration can accentuate a brand’s personality more distinctively, taking their brand storytelling to the next level ensuring that they stand out from the crowd.

Ben - The key to illustration, the quality that makes it so different from other visual approaches, is its capacity for utter individualism. One of the principle responsibilities of a branding exercise is demonstrating a keen point of difference from the competition and an illustrative route can provide a completely unique language. As a former photographer with a degree in Graphic Design I have a great deal of respect for typography and photography - traditionally the two immediate alternatives to illustration - but in my view the dramatic difference between how two illustrators might approach the same brief has the edge over other creative disciplines.

Can you give us 4 ways in which illustration can take your design to the next level?

1 - Illustration is an extremely powerful tool for storytelling especially for brands who want consumers to relate to them, endorsing their vision and personality. What better way of doing this than through illustration to create compelling visual content that engages and captivates their audience?

Developing a unique illustration style for your brand story will help to humanise your brand and provide a sense depth to your identity, which in turn will only increase your chance of grabbing and holding your audience’s attention for longer, helping you to stand out from the crowd!

Considering artists like MH Jeeves, Nishant Choksi, Simon Spilsbury and Stephen Collins to name a few, the delivery of humour has to be one of the ways that illustration in particular can grab an audience’s attention.

2 - We remember visuals much better than we remember plain text. Illustration has the power to communicate complex ideas into digestible and approachable visuals. In doing so, illustration can help audiences understand advanced information and abstract themes. 

3 - Illustration is also a very natural partner to animation and with digital media the dominant platform, motion is another way to bring a campaign to life.

4 - Illustration is a powerful way to assert your brand authenticity. There is an artisanal quality to the work created by many of our painters and print-makers that commands a level of respect - there are no clever filters to hide behind when your tool is a brush or a blade. What could be more authentic than working closely with an artist to bring your brand to life?

Having heard our agents’ perspective on the power that illustration holds, we now want to flip the coin and get an artist’s insight. 

Earlier this Spring, Network Rail teamed up with Severnside Community Rail Partnership to commission five local artists including CIA’s Anna Higgie to transform the graffiti underneath Fox Park viaduct on Stapleton Road in Easton, Bristol.

Backed by Bristol City Council, this art scheme was intended to improve the overall look and feel of the area by making it a more pleasant environment for local communities and passers-by. It supports the Secretary of State Grant Shapps’ commitment to improve areas on or near the railway that are affected by graffiti and vandalism in a bid to encourage people to travel by train.

The paintings, which took two weeks to complete, each reflect the Easton districts’ vibrancy and diversity. Each column focuses on a different theme including bringing communities together and promoting sustainable travel. 

We took a moment to catch up with Anna on this project, to hear more on her role as a contemporary artist and the impact illustration can have.  

As an artist, how can illustration add value to a project?

The beauty of illustration is that the possibilities are endless. Illustration adds value by creating a playful, dynamic, and accessible visual language.

What message do you hope people take away from this project?

The theme of my mural is sustainable transport, so hopefully they’ll feel inspired to hop on a bike or go for a walk.

Tell me more about illustration as a tool for steering change?

Sometimes the simplest images can convey more directly, powerfully, and effectively to an audience than any other form of communication, without the need for language or complex explanation.

As a contemporary illustrator, what would you say your main role is? 

To communicate effectively with clients in order to manifest their vision as successfully as possible, whilst evolving & growing my own personal style & practice. 

Steve Melanophy, Network Rail’s community safety manager added: “It feels fantastic being able to see this art scheme completed from start to finish. The local artists have made a huge difference to the local area and the brightly coloured artwork reflects the true style of Easton and the wider Bristol community.

Illustration has the power to stimulate and inspire people of all ages and backgrounds and the seeds we’re able to plant through the public projects we devise at CIA have a legacy that stretches far beyond the original events.

Several years ago, having relocated our agency to East London, CIA approached the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green with a project to engage with children in the local area. We took a team of artists for an introductory session asking children of various ages what the future might look like. The responses were both fascinating and hilarious and we crafted each child’s vision into a brief which 50 of our artists illustrated, a dozen of them live at a performance based event at the Museum. 

One of these children was 4 year old Rex who joined in with his parents and conjured up a future dominated by owls and ice cream, a future that one of our artists, Sarah Coleman, painted live, with Rex’s help. As his Mum, Jo, remembers: "It’s somewhat challenging to keep a 4 year old focused on a task for 5 hours, but the artist, Sarah Coleman, was so engaging, the team so welcoming and the day so exciting that Rex was captivated throughout. The end result was a spectacular large scale artwork, which after display in the museum was also installed as posters around London. We would often get messages from friends who had spotted ‘Rex’s artwork’. For Rex, the whole experience was a real milestone event, something that boosted his confidence, and made him feel very, very special. Teachers and classmates from his school visited the exhibition, and he would often speak about ‘his artist’ and the day they had made the work.”

Fast forward 5 years and Jo started working on a child-led arts project at Turner Contemporary in Margate. 'Pioneering Places' is a long-running ambitious project working with 70 children to research their neighbouring town of Ramsgate, finally working up to commissioning a major new public artwork.

We were invited to bring some of our artists to the gallery for an event with the children, replicating that sense of power and agency that collaborating with an artist had given Rex. The children are now approaching the end of the project, have developed a brief for a new commission and have appointed Conrad Shawcross RA to deliver this, to be installed in the summer this year.

“That chance encounter made with my 4 year old, in a noisy room in a museum in London, has reverberated through the years, with the beneficial effect on Rex, and the way it had influenced me in the project I manage, and has gone on to positively impact again on the children who are leading this project. When Shawcross’s work is installed on the South East coast later this year, it is absolutely a testimony to the work of the children over the past 4 years, but also an echo of a collaboration made by my 4 year old, with Sarah Coleman and CIA, years previously."

From enhancing your brand story and asserting your authenticity, to communicating complex themes and uniting communities, we can all agree just how powerful illustration can be!

So if you’ve got a project on the boil and need some inspiration be sure to check out our website and Instagram or why not get started now by dropping us an email at [email protected]!