There's a good interview over at the AIGA between Stephen Heller and Charles Hively on illustration in contemporary design. Hively is the man behind 3x3, "the first magazine devoted entirely to the art of contemporary illustration."

On illustration in design curricula:

Students are encouraged to search for stock images and to never consider using art-original or even stock art. Professors don’t introduce design or ad design classes to illustration, only illustration classes talk about illustration. I know when I introduce my graphic design students at Parsons to illustration, the light goes off.

Is this really the case? I've been out of school for a while now, and even when I was there, my focus was on photography, not design. Is it that illustration has been pushed out of design curriculums or that design curriculums have simply become more commercial? My gut says the latter, and looking at the boorish monotony of mainstream advertising coupled with the commercialization of the University System, the only explanation seems to be that there's a certain expectation from students to be taught a Trade rather than an Art. If your goal is to pay off the $100k a BFA costs nowadays, then succumbing to commercialism and corporate expectations for The Photograph is probably the only way you're going to hit a zero balance on the credit card. Which is unfortunate. I know this can't be the case everywhere — there are surely wonderful design programs exposing students to a breadth of media, but if what Hively is saying is true, then those must be in the minority.

I half agree with Hively on the following: "When everyone else is doing photography, do something other than photography." I know what he's getting at but I gawk at production ethos prescribing something because it's *not* something else. Photography and Illustration both fall under fine arts and should be used as appropriate on a per-project basis. That said, there is definitely an unbalanced predilection towards photography in recent design (book jackets, anyone?!), and Hively's beautiful work in putting together 3x3 is most definitely an attempt to shake up those brain-dead art directors stuck in photo tunnel vision.

Some of the most interesting design pieces I've seen of late (and especially at the ADC) have been almost wholly illustration based. And it's probably more than apparent to followers of our work that we have a very strong bias towards illustration in connection with literature. There's something about printed matter and the lusty flavor in the lines of hand-drawn illustrations that really connect on a gut level for me. I couldn't imagine having had a photograph of Shinjuku on the cover of Kuhaku, nor could I have imagined having NASA Hubble shots of stars for Do You Know.

Kudos to Hively and Heller for sparking some conversation on this subject.

Here's a couple links to some "illustrators" doing beautiful things:
Brian Cronin
Richard May (+ an interview with Apple)
Yoshitake Shintsuke