A tale of three thumbnails

One of the problems I occasionally run into as an illustrator is art directing myself. Although it goes without saying that my eye is infallible, my taste unassailable, my body sweet smelling, etc., illustration is a collaboration between Art Director and Illustrator, and without an AD, illustrators can miss the mark.

So when I had to illustrate a new electronic newsletter I'm designing and art directing (DealView, from KPMG and The Deal -- I'll come up with a URL when there is one), I asked my editors to art direct my illustration. The story was about growth equity, which is  essentially when PC firms invest in a rapidly growing company instead of buying it outright, in the hopes of realizing fast capital gains. (Which sounds a lot like what we used to call "investing" back on the ranch, but I digress...)

Anyway, I submitted three thumbnails for this piece. The first was about these big investors trying to breed their own baby bull market, the second was about big businesses raising up smaller businesses by investing capital, and the third was just an image of rapid growth. You can see the sketches below.

Now, to be honest, I really thought the second image was the best of the three, a point I shared with my editors. And to be totally honest with you, they disregarded my opinion and went with the third idea. And here is the odd thing: I think they were right. 

I was thinking like an illustrator. My feeling was that the second thumbnail was the more original idea and was more closely related to the story. But my editors wanted were thinking like art directors. From an editorial point of view, they felt it was more important to emphasize that in this depressed market, growth equity was one of the few growth stories around. 

So totally unbegrudgingly (a word my spell checker does not believe exists, and an attitude that my wife might find hard to believe exists in me either), I agreed and drew this piece, which you can see below. I think it came out nicely. You can see it here and form your own opinion. As a minor note, you'll see that the aspect of the final is different from the thumbnails. Originally, it was going to be the cover story and needed to be landscape instead of horizontal.