Trend X

May 2025

Life is all about change, and art – including commercial illustration – always reflects the changes going on in the world. Yet it does so in surprising and often unpredictable ways. To help understand these changes, every three months we analyze and interpret the data we
collect here at IllustrationX to better understand what’s happening in the market – aesthetically and commercially.

As one of the world’s biggest illustration agencies, with artists working in markets around the world, we’re able to collate significant amounts of data. This includes revenue generated, bookings, enquiries and web traffic according to our creative style pages and the portfolios of the artists we represent. By comparing current figures with past data, and with the addition of insight from our experienced team of agents, we can identify current, ongoing and emerging creative trends.

While our TrendX report is by no means comprehensive – other industry bodies may well see things differently – we hope it will be both interesting and useful to design studios, creative agencies, publishers, brands, artists, animators and anyone else involved in the illustration market.

While there is some overlap, things have certainly changed since our last report, issued at the beginning of the year. However, one thing this new edition of TrendX does reflect is the fact that our artists and agenting team are always adapting to the changing landscape in ways that best meet the needs of our clients.

 

Trending: The return of fantasy art

•  The artist with the most web enquiries for the quarter works in this style
•  Web enquiries about fantasy art up 50% quarter on quarter
•  Two of our 20 highest-earning artists work in this style
•  Our second most-booked artist for the quarter works in this style

The fantasy art genre has been badly affected by the advent of AI image generation. The software has been trained, usually without permission, to recreate the styles of some of the world’s leading fantasy artists past and present – from the pre-Raphaelites to Lord of the Rings painters to the artists who today illustrate games like Magic: The Gathering. So, it’s puzzling that our data shows and uptick in interest and commissions in this area.

One reason for this is that illustrators can consistently deliver high quality imagery to the exact specifications required by our clients. They’re able to fill their imagery with storytelling elements in imaginative ways. In pop-up books, for example, hundreds of individual pieces of artwork must be created, scaled to comply with the exacting die lines of the design. In spite of AI, fantasy artists are creating monsters, magic and heroes in fresh and unthought of guises – innovative rather than derivative work.

In other cases, we have been approached by clients who have created roughly what they want using AI but then would like an illustrator to paint a better rendition of the composition – one they can own the rights to without the potential for future litigation. Some also feel it suits their brand better to work with a human artist than to ape an artist’s style using technology.

“The world is changed,” Galadriel says in The Fellowship of the Ring. The world of fantasy illustration has changed a lot too – in some very unexpected ways.

Artists to watch

Anthony J Foti

Luiza Laffitte

Diego Abreu

​

Trending: Traditional picture books

• Website visits for picture books up 143% quarter on quarter
• Website enquiries about picture book artists up 200% quarter on quarter
• Four of our 10 highest earning artists for the quarter create picture books
• Four of our 10 most enquired about artists create picture books

The field of children’s illustration is always popular and is an area of special expertise for our agency. In the first quarter of 2025, we witnessed strong interest from website visitors and commissioning art directors with a particular focus on artists capable of creating traditional picture books.

Although children are growing up surrounded by tablets and smart phones, parents, educators and children themselves value the physical world engagement picture books offer. From talking Halloween pumpkins to superhero potatoes, well-worn favourites on bookshelves around the world are testament to this.

Applying traditional children’s book styles takes the artwork away from the often games- or cartoon-oriented look and feel of digital entertainment. This in turn provides a connection with the people, animals and toys that are part of children’s lives away from the screen, and then the ordinary leaps into the imaginary.

The sentiment isn’t necessarily nostalgic. Just as authors cover contemporary themes in their storytelling, picture book artists use contemporary touches to bring the traditional narrative approach up to date. Sometimes, the result is imagery with a timeless quality – new stories and imagery, which feel like they might have been around for ages.

Many illustrators say they would love to create storybooks, and many train to do specifically that. This makes it a highly competitive field, as it has been for generations, but we continue to take on fresh talent to meet the market’s ongoing interest in traditional picture book illustration.

Artists to watch

Andressa Meissner

Guilherme Francini

Tatsiana Burgaud

 
​

Trending: Maps for wayfinding

• The maps category received the most web enquiries for the quarter
• Web enquiries about map artist up 100% year on year
• Three of our 20 highest earning artists work in this style
• Two of our 10 most booked artists create maps for their clients

During 2024, we saw a growing interest in illustrative maps capturing the lifestyle, culture and atmosphere of locations around the world. Often commissioned to accompany travel articles, featuring everything from landforms to cuisine and even yoga studios, these were not maps intended for navigation.

However, the beginning of 2025 has seen cartography come to the fore – the kind of maps that realistically depict countries and cities, town layouts, work campuses or even wilderness landscapes. Artists capable of creating accurate maps that respect the scale of objects and relative distances have been in demand.

There’s a whole range of applications for this type of artwork – for example in geographic publishing, civic and architectural projects, property development and environmental initiatives. From drawing maps that guide visitors around theme parks to ones that take engineers to the key locations within cargo ports, artists are combining creativity with pinpoint accuracy to meet their clients’ needs.

 

Artists to watch

Mike Hall

Liz Pepperell

Mark Watkinson

Emerging: Organic textures, digital tools

While there’s nothing new about using software to create artwork that looks as though it was painted or drawn using natural media, in recent years there has been a tendency to blend digital and traditional elements in illustrations. This has resulted in a hybrid form of art, often associated with the iPad application Procreate – realistic brush strokes and textures are combined with digital techniques, vector perfection and colours that are sometimes so intense they look unlikely.

Today we’re seeing clients and artists are stepping away from this look, and we’ve been recruiting illustrators who, although they work digitally, create images that are truer to real- world media. A variety of different software packages can be used including Adobe
Photoshop, Corel Painter and Procreate too, of course. Brushes of all descriptions, watercolour, gouache, marker pens, airbrush, coloured pencils and more, are being fine-tuned to deliver an individual finish for projects. Some of the artists on our roster now give courses teaching others how to customise brushes and textures using creative software.

Alongside the authenticity of the work, another upside for our clients is the flexibility digital tools offer. Amends are quick and easy compared to real world media. This isn’t just more cost effective, it allows for greater creative exploration, the potential to animate all or part of an image, and a more collaborative process.

Artists to watch

Koalanov

Debora Islas

Maryam Seraji

​

Trending: Retro groovy

• Our second highest earning artist for the quarter works in this style
• The artist with the third most portfolio visits on our site works in this style
• The artist with the second most portfolio visits in February works in this style

Flowing line work, freewheeling fun and psychedelic colours return in retro inspired illustrations that have set the rhythm for the first few months of 2025. Reminiscent of the poster art and typography of the late 1960s and early 70s, the popularity of this style may well be a form of escapism. Illustrators are providing an alternative to the culture war, adversarial politics and the reality of a cost-of-living crisis.

Bright and colourful, it’s a style with an easy-going feel, a sense of optimism and possibility, and there’s energy too in the languidly flowing line work. It’s like riding a wave, if only for an afternoon, stimulating the senses and relaxing the mind. With artwork, not drugs, of course.

While some of the inspiration comes from five or six decades back, the vibe is being recreated with smoother, more defined forms. There’s a little more innocence to it, with the focus on the fun instead of satire. It feels like it can be part of today’s culture, rather than a counterculture, and we’re seeing it used in lifestyle contexts across editorial, publishing, packaging, merchandise and more.

Artists to watch

Daniel Sulzberg

Laura Greenan

Lively Scout

Words by Garrick Webster