Artistique’s Award Winning Illustrator for The Wall Street Journal

Artistique Agency‘s editorial artist Beth Goody has recently won the Communication Arts award of excellence for her work with the Wall Street Journal! Ready more about Beth’s work and process below.

As a conceptual illustrator, Beth’s work is primarily focused on problem-solving and creating one-of-a-kind illustrations that express complex concepts in an understandable and intriguing way. Her illustrations aim to surprise the viewer by combining key themes, objects, and scenarios. It was at university where Beth first discovered her love for conceptual thinking, graduating with a degree in illustration in 2015. She is fascinated by the idea of using visual metaphors to create a twist in her work.

Beth allows the concept to fully shine – through her use of minimal colour palettes. Her use of beautifully bold and vibrant colours, as well as her understanding of tonal hierarchy, generates depth in her work.

Her early days as an illustrator involved scrolling through her favourite magazines and illustrating the articles. Beth still likes to have a copy of The New Scientist, The Economist, or Science Focus magazine on hand for when she’s able to squeeze in some personal work – they still serve as a great source of inspiration for her. She works on a range of topics within her illustrations including financial, scientific, medical, current affairs, and business.

Before becoming a full-time freelance illustrator, Beth worked as a graphic designer and Illustrator for London-based advertising agency, Recipe. It was here that she developed a greater understanding of large-scale projects and the process involved, often at speed. Beth was tasked to make decisions at a quick pace which translates well into her work as an illustrator – often having to turn around projects to meet a tight deadline. She has learnt to be much more efficient in her decision-making by trusting her instincts and experience. Her natural flair for graphic design strongly influences her visual language and minimal approach.

Beth’s process starts with reading through a brief multiple times to allow her to better understand the feeling and overall message, whilst developing an understanding of its tone. At this stage, she may also undertake background research on the company or subject matter to get an overall better picture.

The most important part of Beth’s process is coming up with ideas, highlighting keywords and identifying major themes whilst also jotting down any notes or ideas that spring to mind. Further research often helps to connect the dots and allows the creation of a more conceptual image through combining one or two of the ideas.

Beth then goes on to create rough concept illustrations that capture the themes of the brief in different ways. She’ll typically provide three options for a client to choose from before working up and refining the chosen direction. Often the colours change as Beth works through an illustration, fine-tuning the selection to dictate the mood and atmosphere of the image.

The ITSme Society is a collective of top creative agencies that represent award-winning talent worldwide. The ITSme Society agencies represent illustrators and writers across 7 agencies: Advocate Art, Astound US Inc, Illo Agency, Artistique, Yeon, CWLA, and Collaborate.