Abstract
AbstractThis commentary discusses my submissions for this PhD by Publication, situating editorial work and books (completed between 2000 and 2024) within the context of theory and praxis and highlighting my contribution to academic debates on the subject of Illustration. At a time of the subject’s flux and evolution in the early 2000s there was little understanding of the field of contemporary practice. Its practitioners and academics were vulnerable in the face of sector developments that contributed to turbulence, pessimism, and marginalisation.Through my inquiry into Illustration through process, pedagogy, and profession during this era I aimed to contextualise the subject as an emergent object of practice-based research within an academic framework and to provide clear guidance through the professional terrain. By engaging with the professional body,The Association of Illustrators, and as a leader of a series of publications and events I was instrumental in originating an Illustration community to foster a depth of research within the field for the first time. Research conducted within a professional and academic network, alongside my involvement in the creative industry, led to a series of publications, informed by cultural, pedagogic and semiotic theories, that delineate the spectrum of Illustration practice from an international perspective. These publications offered new insight into illustration’s value within the creative industries and impacted upon the research, teaching and practice of the discipline.Through revealing individual practices influenced by shifting ideologies and means of production and manifest in a diversity of formats and iterations as a form of mass production and authorial practice, I contest the legitimacy of Illustration as a cultural product and agent for social change.
| Date of Award | 11 Nov 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Oliver Gruner (Supervisor) & Jac Batey (Supervisor) |