 Clip Art Crazy: Adding Art
by Chuck Greenadd something significant to your communication.Explore the World Wide Web for design ideas.Choose concepts that illustrate ideas or tell a story.Choose a style that demonstrates an understanding of proportions, light, shade, and perspective.What you pay can vary widely.You only buy the right to clip art;
you do not own the copyright."Stock" images are often governed by a more restrictive use agreement.Deal only with established companies.Where to find illustrations.My first job gave me a healthy appreciation for illustration.
As the dictionary defines it, illustration is the art of "creating pictures that make something clear." As a news artist, I created the maps, photographs, and artwork that appeared over the shoulders of newscasters. Each night I was given a list of subjects to illustrate and was expected to produce relevant, finished images by show time. What I learned early on is that there is a big difference between illustration and decoration. At a minimum, a good
illustration should add something significant to your communication--it should stop traffic and draw your viewer in. At its best, the right image expresses something words can't. As much or more than any other medium, the World Wide Web is a visual place. Explore it and you'll find countless examples of how a designer can use illustrations and page layouts to create a virtual world--a place with a distinct
atmosphere and clear personality. The best make you feel as though you are crossing the threshold of a new place--strolling into a library, entering a unique store, or dropping into the middle of a science fiction movie. Choose a concept The clip art images that are the easiest to execute, and
therefore the most common, are objects--something material such as a bouquet of flowers. By putting the bouquet in the context of a flier for a florist, you visually communicate the topic. More interesting and less common are images that illustrate ideas or tell a story--such as the act of giving the flowers. These images are
more interesting because they contribute meaning to your message, and they are less common because they are more difficult to conceive and are useful in fewer situations.
Once you begin to notice the subtleties of the visual language, you'll be better equipped to choose concepts that better illustrate your message. Choose a style If concept is what you say, style is how you phrase it. There are as many illustrative styles as there are illustrators. In fact, it is not uncommon for one artist to use several different styles. These light bulbs give you some idea of that diversity.
Light bulb 1: from the Household Items font by MvB Design; Light bulb 2: from the House Stuff Set by Art Parts; Light bulb 3: from DigitArt Objects & Icons by Eyewire; Light bulb 4: from Task Force Clip Art by New Vision Technologies; Light bulb 5: from CMCD/Everyday Objects 2 by PhotoDisc Inc.; Light bulb 6: (my favorite light bulb symbol of all time) from the Dick & Jane font by MvB Design While one artist simplifies the image to a series of basic
shapes, another captures the contours and shading to achieve a completely different look and feel. Style must be built on a strong foundation. It is said that to be a good abstract painter, you must first master realism. Although all good illustrators have not necessarily mastered realism, they understand basics such as the proportion of the human figure and the use of light, shade, and perspective. If you find it difficult to nail down whether inconsistencies in a drawing are
part of an artist's style or simply poor execution, move on to another source. And old is not necessarily bad. Like wide lapels and bell-bottom pants, illustrative styles come and go. It's not unusual to find artwork from past decades incorporated into the work of a world class design studio or advertising agency. Where to find illustrations Clip art is the most frugal way to create your Web environment. The term refers to collections of illustrations sold to more than one user for more than one purpose. There are hundreds of places to buy it, on-line and via catalogs, and virtually any conceivable subject matter to choose from--aardvarks and accordions to zoos and zeppelins. What you pay can vary widely--of the hundreds of sources
available, one company sells a collection of 200,000 images on 14 CD-ROMS for $75 while another sells a single image for more than $100. How, when, and where you intend to use an illustration obviously has a lot to do with how much you'll be willing to pay. It is important to remember that when you buy clip art, you buy the rights to use the material; you do not own the copyright. In most cases, you also enter into a license
agreement with the publisher that grants you the right to use the copyrighted material in specific ways. Use on your Web site is typically covered, but be sure to check the specifics. The term "stock" illustrations typically means that the material is governed by a more restrictive agreement. The amount you pay to use a stock image is most often based on criteria such as the type of project, the size of the potential
audience, and/or the number of copies you plan to print. Most companies that sell stock art now offer Web-use rates. I shy away from downloading free images from obscure sites or individuals because it is difficult to know where the original came from. If I were to use an image that was lifted from a copyrighted collection, I would likely suffer the penalty. So to keep my sleep sound, I deal only with established companies under a clearly stated use and
copyright policy. There is a lot to be excited about. Designers once feared that the proliferation of clip art illustrations would spell the decline of high-quality illustration, but the opposite is true. The entry of a huge number of design-interested users into the market has multiplied the sources of artwork tenfold. Of the hundreds I have used, these are my Top 10: Aridi Computer Graphics Inc. Specializes in recreating historical graphics--borders, decorative initials, and ornaments--in digital form. 800-755-6441 www.aridi.com  Art Parts
 Offers subjects as diverse as animals, health, business, holidays, travel, and finance--all illustrated in Art Parts' trademark, humorous style. Now available through
FontHaus at 800-942-9110 www.fonthaus.com
 Artville
Artville works directly with professional illustrators from around the world whose work has appeared everywhere from The New York Times to Time magazine. They're as professional as illustrations can be and come in an impressive range of styles from cartoony to collage to computer to classically elegant, to photographs. Many of the editorial
illustrations at the top of eFuse's articles (including the one at the top of this page) are from Artville. The styles are unique and personal, and you can buy them individually from their site, or on CD, so you can get an entire collection of images in the same style and on the same topic—this makes your publication look more polished and professional. You can visit their site, www.artville.com or read an in-depth review of their products written by the editor of eFuse. 800-631-7808, 608-243-1215 Broderbund Company Offers ClickArt: mega-collections (as many as 200,000) of artwork in just about every conceivable category. Lots of great stuff! 800-548-1798 www.broderbund.com  CSA Archive Company
Specializes in both packaged and stock "retro" images from the 1920s through the 1960s. 612-339-1263
http://www.csaarchive.com Digital Wisdom Inc. Mountain High Maps is a library of meticulously detailed
relief maps of the continents, countries, and ocean floors, and views of the globe. 800-800-8560 www.digiwis.com Dover Publications Inc.
Publishes an enormous collection of clip art and engravings in book form. 31 E. 2nd St., Mineola, NY 11501, 516-294-7000 Dynamic Graphics Inc. Though they are one of the most experienced companies in the business, they remain a young-hearted organization with an ever-changing collection of stellar artwork. 800-255-8800 www.dgusa.com Eyewire (formerly Adobe Studios and ImageClub) Adobe Studios, the catalog arm of the famous folks who make PageMaker, Illustrator, and Photoshop is now EyeWire. They develop their own clip art, fonts, and photo products and resell many others. 888 502 8393 www.eyewire.com  New Vision Technologies
Their Task Force Collection is everything a clip art collection should be--great content, deftly illustrated, so cheap you'll wonder how they make money. 800-387-0732 http://fox.nstn.ca/~clipart StockArt, formerly Iconomics A coop of world-class illustrators who sell their illustrations
as stock images (by the piece and usage) and who offer their services for creating custom art. 800-297-7658 www.stockart.com  Ultimate Symbol Inc.
Ultimate Symbol has created a category unto itself. Their Design Elements-A Digital Reference features graphic elements such as geometrics, pointers, pictorial symbols, dingbats, printers' ornaments, and all manner of shapes--among other things, a terrific collection for creating logos. 800-611-4761 www.ultimatesymbol.com 
About the Author  Chuck Green is eFuse's "The Mix"
columnist as well as Home Office Computing's Design Doctor, the author of the Desktop Publisher's Idea Book, 2nd Edition (Random House), and the publisher of the design and marketing resource: www.ideabook.com
Illustration: Tranacting Business by Vasily Kafanov by www.artville.com
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