From designing to drawing
After working as a graphic designer for about 20 years in Europe, my life took a turn when I moved to Japan in 2013. Around 2014, I changed my career to illustration. Below are my thoughts on how I personally see the differences between the two professions and how the switch affected my life.
Designing vs drawing
Of course designing is far more lucrative than drawing, but that only shows how unfair the world can be: to be a graphic designer – please forgive me, my beloved designer friends – is so much easier than being a drawer.
I learned design by mimicking, copying designers, reading books and keeping a close eye on the tools at hand (typometer first, a Mac later). Of course designing implies loads of knowledge of the trade, making a lot of things —from identities to books to posters— keeping an eye on design everywhere, reading about type, colour, composition, etc. But it’s for the most part an external trip, something you do by looking around you.
On the other hand, drawing is an internal trip: you have to look inside you in order to learn it.
The act of drawing requires these things from you: