Thinking Visually (Basics Illustration 01) Paperback – October 11, 2006

Having bought the entire AVA Academia range of Illustration books, I've read several of them already and know what to expect. It's a great series, however, Basics Illustration: Thinking Visually by Mark Wigan could have been easily improved with minor tweaking. Much of the information contained within is just echoed from "The Fundamentals of Illustration."I understand that this is an 'introductory' level book, so I wasn't expecting anything life changing in it. The book has several areas where it lists further research for styles and contemporary trends in the industry. This is great; this is exactly what the book needed to deliver. The book also suggest projects for individual improvement as well as guidelines by which to judge and challenge oneself.So why did I give it only four stars? (Really merits 3 1/2, but Amazon doesn't expressly give you that option.)The writing seems at times lazy and cringe-inducing. Mr. Wigan is a good illustrator but is also a 'lister', and much of the text is one gigantic, unreadable, stale block of solid text with only commas for comfort. To ILLUSTRATE as it were, imagine if you were reading a 160 page book where most of the text was run-on, repetitive, redundant, listless, uninspired, overly didactic, systematic, expected, uninterrupted, rambling, dry, foreseen, bland, stale, robotic, programmed, trance-like, stagnant, blurry, unnecessary, echoing, monotonous, drivelling, homogenous, and mediocre.To be fair, reading the last part of my review is a little too critical. It might have been the only way to condense the text, but the problem could have been more innovatively solved. This is one of the few series of books on the subject that is well developed and fairly continuous in its level of quality and visual polish. It's just the listing that marrs the title, severely, at times.

This whole AVA book series, along with Teaching Illustration: Course Offerings and Class Projects from the Leading Graduate and Undergraduate Programs by Marshall Arisman and The Education of an Illustrator by Marshall Arisman, make for the perfect independently learning course outside of and Education Institution for a fraction of the cost to get started. One might be able to supplement the norms of education, providing one joins some of the societies and groups, as well as attend some of the conferences and museums activities. Works their backside off developing a reputation, portfolio, and countless contacts through networking. But this seems like it would need to be done in an over flooded educational system and job market anyway. Aside from that this would be beneficial to the life long animation student or artist in the sense that it will provide an awakening or rejuvenated refreshment on different ways to approach and create it. Each book provides an excellent example of project ideas to start, choose, or revise. They also have professional working examples, industry insights, and reference pictures or inspiration to boost things along. This helps rather than just dry reading.

This is a really useful handbook which considers the value of ideas, research and experimentation in the design process in a thought provoking way. The book teaches the reader how to think visually; balancing the need to work creatively with that of meeting deadlines.The author places each area of discussion in its historical context, including any precedents, which is really useful. The book uses a variety of clever examples from The Illustrated Ape to Ian Pollock to Andrew Rae.The variety of working examples is in keeping with the author's emphasis on the variable role an illustrator must play in their career. This could be a little daunting but, as a result of the author's enthusiasm, it is actually very creative and inspiring.

This book is OK for inspiration thanks to its illustrations, but not very good for reading. The type setting is so poor, that your eyes get tired after reading one page. The author was thinking visually, but somehow forgot, that most books are meant to be read. This one will end up just to flip through. So, if you are thinking about buying it, look around, there are better books. Masters of Poster Design by John Foster is well worth the money for example.

This is a stimulating source book containing a lot of interesting visual material and a handful of quite stunning images. The text is not particularly informative and I'm guessing is aimed at beginning students, aiming to teach them some big new words for quite straightfoward things. Much of the text is in the form of lists which, apart from those giving the names of interesting artists to follow up, are not terribly informative. The book has not taught me how to do anything new or triggered any great flashes of insight or inspiration. However, it did point me towards the work of George Grosz, who has become my new current favourite 20th Century artist. I can imagine that I will browse the images in this this book again from time to time. Useful but not amazing.

This is an excellent accompaniment for any budding illustrator and tutor of illustration, packed full of great ideas,wonderful images and concise breakdown of the major areas of illustration

Ok