The Art of Product Illustration by Kevin Sprouls

I enjoy the precision of product illustration. It’s a good challenge to take up the pen and capture the essence of a product. As you’ll see in the following images, it often takes many hours to craft the detail into this type of illustration…

Food product illustration

 I tackled this assignment fairly early on, shortly after I quit my post as Senior Illustrator at The Wall Street Journal. Aside from the typographical hurdle of getting the label executed by hand-drawing, drawing all those coins in various positions was a rigorous task!

Fashion product illustration

One of my clients during this time actually facilitated my departure from the Wall Street Journal, where I had originated the iconic Hedcut style. I worked on a big print campaign for the Concord Watch Company. I probably illustrated upwards of 25 watch styles. The ad agency, Ogilvy and Mather, would send me home with five or six watches at a time, all in a brown paper bag! I would get these back to the studio, do a photo-shoot of each, and draw them. It paid well and was interesting work. Here is a typical example of the drawings I was creating:One of the black and white illustrations I decided to colorize, just for fun (and to see if I could pitch it)…I think the color version is effective. It certainly brings out the white and gold metals involved in the making of this fine timepiece.

Vodka product illustration

A little later on, I was commissioned to produce the iconic Absolut bottle. The client wanted it drawn “straight”, so I took extra care to capture the nuances of the glass and took extra care with the typographical content of the labeling. Here it is: