Conceptual Illustration at WSJ

When I held down my day job at The Wall Street Journal as lead illustrator, I created some interesting, graphic, conceptual illustrations. These assignments followed the introduction of a ‘Section Two’ at a previously one-section newspaper. Back in the 1980’s, the WSJ was strictly black-and-white, and rarely brooked photography in their editorial content. All of the following images were published as Section Two pieces…

Sidewalk Desk

Here, we see a poor guy who’s lost his job. Apparently, he hasn’t been keeping up with technology (as it was!). The office drones inside have their equip-du-jour, so they’ve retained employment. Note the antique computers and square 1980’s era headlights on the parked car.

The illustration above attempts to show the link between the funding of technology and progress towards a tangible, beneficial product. Depicted here are a space capsule, a satellite, and a space shuttle. This was prior to the Challenger disaster and the dismantling of the shuttle fleet. (I remember watching the disaster on television while at the office.)

Turncoat

The image above was for a feature called “Turncoats”. The executive pictured is leaving one job for another, taking his valuable contacts with him!

Paper Stack

The illustration above refers to those small businesses that relied on enormous piles of paperwork to keep records. I tried to make a skyscraper out of one of those paper-slip trees you still sometimes see… the stone base with a spike for stabbing receipts through. A Paperscraper! You’ll notice the graphic quality of all these drawings, with solid blacks and lots of hatching. The WSJ gave me wide latitude as I experimented with different graphically stylistic expressions. (The New Yorker was also generous to me in this way.)

Ethnic Vendors

These were cool to draw. I still have the original artboard in my collection. The concept here was to illustrate the different corners of the market that attracted various ethnic groups in the U.S. In this illustration, we see the Greeks running diners, the Koreans operating fruit-stands, and the Pakistani’s dominating the news-stands. (This was likely a local phenomenon, applying to New York, in the day.)

Lastly, a rather involved drawing pointing to where we are now. A banking system relying on satellite links. The drawing used a lot of ink, and, I’m sue, used up some on press, too!

Satellite Bank