I was delighted when my client chose hand-drawn icons instead of smooth vector images. I’ve done those for her before, but I find them very boring compared to the sketchy work I am doing now. Not only boring, but harder! I would always try so hard to infuse a little bit of personality into them that the illustrations would take a long time and it was ultimately a frustrating process.
Drawing by hand is more fun, and the results are so much more appealing. Those slightly wonky lines are the work of a human hand, and our human brains like that. As generative AI becomes more advanced I become more devoted to the handicraft of creating images and to images that show they have been made by a person rather than a computer.
My client runs a fantastic project that helps Thai women in Sweden learn about their new homeland and thereby avoid exploitation (a sad reality for many of the Thai women who live here). She was preparing a presentation and needed illustrations to help her create a strong, memorable Powerpoint that would help her win more support for her work.
This illustration shows the factors that push Thai women into exploitative working conditions, and how the safety net that exists for many other immigrants doesn’t help them, since most Thai women arrive on a family visa rather than a refugee visa.
I also created some hand-drawn icons that she could use to show how different authorities and organisations in Sweden can work together.
