Interview with David Karlins: Maybe You Shouldn’t Learn Illustrator From An Artist
David Karlins analyzes, writes about, teaches, and implements new developments in digital communication culture, design, and technology. His latest book is Adobe Illustrator CC For Dummies. I’ve used the book, and I had a chance to sit down for an afternoon with Professor Karlins to ask him about how Illustrator fits into the world of digital design, and how he approaches teaching Illustrator. I’m sharing the interview in four episodes.
So you’re an experienced designer and have worked with a bunch of clients to design websites and illustrate graphics for them. You teach, currently, at New York University and in the BFA program at the City University of New York. And on the side, you have written a bunch of educational books related to the design field.
Recently, you published a book called “Adobe Illustrator CC For Dummies”. How did you come to write for the “For Dummies” brand, and why did you? Was it that they came to you, or did you deliberately sought out them?
This is my fourth “For Dummies” book. I’ve written a couple of web design books and a book on data analytics under the “For Dummies” brand. So yeah, I have a lot of appreciation for that series. I first started working with “For Dummies” decades ago: doing some editing, submitting some things that got rejected, and learning their system. Sometimes they have come to me, sometimes I’ve gone to them, and then this one was kind of a mutual thing. What I like about “For Dummies” books is that there’s consistency so that people know what they’re getting.
You said I’m a designer. Not exactly, I’m more of a workflow expert. I do some things in Illustrator at a professional level, especially mapmaking and infographics. But more than anything, I’m someone who makes people productive in Illustrator. I’ve helped print shops properly produce high-quality color output from Illustrator files. I recently worked with a team of artists who needed to “vectorize” their work to distribute through Etsy in the form of everything from t-shirts to cups. I’ve worked with fashion designers to help them acclimate to drawing vectors instead of sketching with pencils. I’ve served as a bridge between designers and animators. So I would describe myself as an Illustrator problem-solver. It’s a combination of having a knack for problem-solving and decades of experience in the trenches with Illustrator, and even before that, other vector graphic applications.
So that’s one side of how I ended up writing this book. Another dimension is that I’m an Illustrator teacher. I’ve got decades of teaching techniques in my head, going back to teaching at the University of California’s extension division in Berkeley, and even before that, doing training in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. I’ve been teaching online and live at consulting events and doing my own projects. So it all kind of came together. It was a very fulfilling experience for me. Exhausting, though! Try writing a 384-page book. But it felt good. At the end of each chapter, I went: “You know what? People are going to understand why they should be using this feature — whatever that is — , and I think they’re going to come out of this knowing why and how.”
You say you see yourself as a workflow expert and not a designer. But wouldn’t you say being a designer involves being a good problem-solver?
Yes. (smiles)
I’ve heard you say people shouldn’t learn Illustrator from an artist. Why is that?
Well, three reasons. One, I don’t need the competition. But on a serious note, I know artists who are great teachers and find ways to balance that with doing their art. But sometimes you do a better job teaching things that don’t come naturally to you. I struggled to get my head around Illustrator, and I had many, many “ah-hah!” moments. And I think people who have gone through that can often do a better job at communicating and teaching technique and concepts.
You’ve worked with all kinds of creatives: designers and animators. What do you think separates designers from artists? Or vice-versa?
That’s a great question. I think the relationship between the requirements of a client and the final result is the main distinction. A designer works within parameters. Now, in real life, there are always parameters for an artist. For example, one’s imagination might be limited by the society they live in and the kind of values that society promotes. Or what kind of funding is available. But if you are a designer, you know if you’re hired to do a Nike ad, they don’t want an Adidas shoe in it. As an artist, you don’t have those same kinds of very direct constraints.
I remember someone once said, that for him, artists usually aren’t working in a business sense. When I think of artists, it’s creativity foremost, and less about making the client happy, making money, and how will this work for a target audience. I guess some do, but when I think of artists, I think of art pieces done for an exhibition or a museum.
I want to emphasize, or interject, that fine artists are an important part of the Illustrator community. I worked for decades with one in Berkeley, California: Bruce K Hopkins. He takes advantage of the capacity of vectors to do things like space inspired abstracts, where the ability to generate thousands of anchors or dots and all kinds of mathematical based curves, facilitates the fine art he’s trying to do, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that.
Another fine artist colleague of mine, Laura Splan, uses Adobe Illustrator in her workflow and process all the time, including processing computer-generated vector graphics, processing Rhino-generated vector graphics, laser etching, and cutting fabrication prep. (For the readers who have a passion or interest in what you can do with fine art and Illustrator, you can check out Bruce’s work here and Laura’s work here.)
If there are any notions that you can’t do fine art with Illustrator because it’s “computer art,” I think that’s bullshit. Art is art and should be judged as art, and I think there will be a growing role for Illustrator in that, as well as in things like gaming. Not just gaming like Grand Theft Auto, but gaming in the sense of creating other kinds of worlds in fantasy and sci-fi stories. That, I think, would fall into the realm of fine art. The ability to do that in Illustrator could open up a whole new world because there’s so much detail that goes into those animations. And if you just had to sit there and draw them all, forget it.
You asked about the distinction in general, and I thought your definition’s right, but I also think that there will be a growing role for Illustrator in fine art, and prejudices that it can’t be art if it’s done with the program are going to crumble. I mean if you think about it, that’s always been there. “Oh, Jackson Pollock, that’s not really art. Oh, Andy Warhol, that’s not really art. Graffiti, that’s not really art.” The ability to just grab your phone and make a sketch in Adobe Draw and have it pop into Illustrator, I think is kind of amazing in terms of being a channel for creativity and that’s something I addressed in the book. I wouldn’t say fine art problem-solving is a major theme that runs through my book, but the tools are there. And also I probe it. I have examples of: “Okay, here’s what you do. You’re walking along, a sketch pops into your head, you do it on your phone, you open it in Illustrator. And here’s where you go from here.”
David Karlin’s, Adobe Illustrator CC For Dummies, can be purchased on Amazon for Kindle or print. You will also find his aforementioned web design books there, such as HTML5 and CSS For Dummies, and Building Websites All-in-One For Dummies.
In part 2, we talk about the ongoing clash between how-to books and video tutorials. For part 3, we talk about the psychology of dealing with client feedback as a designer, and the collaboration process behind his book. And in the final part of this interview, we talk about the future of Illustrator. Stay tuned!
