Illustration

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part of Design · tier 2 · Image · 81 pieces of work carry it · 5 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Bought for brand identity, advertising, and editorial content — a named sell-side service in its own right (Oddfellows sells 'Illustration' beside Systems and Motion Design); brands commission illustration for ownable, non-photographic visual voice.

Custom drawn or painted artwork as finished work — someone DREW it. Illustration adds authored visual personality to brand materials; the craft claim is the act of drawing/painting, not a drawn-looking style.

Tag it when…

Tag when the piece is visibly drawn or painted artwork presented as finished work: editorial illustration, campaign art, drawn social pieces, comics/cartoon panels. The canonical acid pair applies: illustration = someone drew it.

Never tag it when…

An 'illustrative' LOOK on non-drawn work is the look facet (content_material store, canon v2.1), never this craft (canon §1 worked pair: illustration the craft vs illustrative the look). Exploratory development art goes to Concept Art; sequential planning panels to Storyboarding; icon systems to Iconography. Drawn work IN MOTION is Animation craft (2D/cel) — co-tag this leaf only when the illustration itself is a deliverable.

Easily mistaken for 5 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• material facet 'illustrative' (content material junction, v2.1) — Looks drawn but isn't drawn craft → the LOOK facet (content_material store); drawn as the work → this leaf (the canon's canonical worked pair)
• design concept art — Finished publishable art = Illustration; exploratory instrumental art = Concept Art
• design storyboarding — Panels in shot order with camera notes = Storyboarding; standalone drawn scenes = Illustration
• design iconography — A family of small functional symbols = Iconography; expressive standalone drawings = Illustration
• design graphic design — Layout/composition of type+image = Graphic Design; the drawn artwork inside it = Illustration — co-tag when both crafts are visible

At what size it applies

ASSET tag when the piece IS the artwork. An illustrated interstitial or drawn passage inside a film is a MOMENT; the film keeps its own craft.

Pieces that settle the definition

• Weekend cartoons in ChatGPT. Just ask chat to bring your comic strip idea to life! — image 3 — Drawn cartoon/comic artwork as the piece (DB-verified link, is_primary)
• Rolling out today, you can now make images like these in ChatGPT—just ask chat to create an image, infographic, cartoon, — image 13 — Illustrated imagery presented as the content (DB-verified link, is_primary)
• #soraweeklychallenge — image 6 — Drawn-craft corpus exemplar (DB-verified link, is_primary)
• #soraweeklychallenge — image 4 — Illustrated piece from the corpus (DB-verified link, is_primary)

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.