This is a really excellent essay (in the form of a list) detailing ten things Milton Glaser has learned during his lifetime of award-winning design work.

Of particular interest to me, is Number 5: Less Is Not Necessarily More. I've long been critical of the current school of art in cartooning that's epitomized by the work of John Porcellino and James Kochalka, a home-grown aesthetic that celebrates its simplicity and minimalism. Not to say that I dislike the work per se, just that I prefer work that has more to it, visually. I guess I'm tired of feeling like I need to justify my texture work and 'over-renderings' in the face of such a simple alternative, and it's nice to see someone else share my ideal.

I'm going to have to continually revisit this list during my journey.

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In my search to rediscover what it was that originally made me want to become an illustrator, I revisited a number of the children's books I enjoyed so much way back in the day, and the illustrations that really sparked my imagination and held me in such thrall. I was an avid reader back then, and my literary diet was comprised largely of selections from the Weekly Reader Book Club and some of the novels of Roald Dahl. I remember being so familiar with James and the Giant Peach that I could rip through the book in less than two hours by the time I was eight years old.

Until the 1990s, when Quentin Blake was given the boon of re-illustrating Dahl's entire bibliography for Puffin Books, two of Dahl's most popular books (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and its sequel) were illustrated by Joseph Schindelman, and he was one of the first I wanted to study on this journey.

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