Ian West is the illustrator for the visual summary pages in the forthcoming Revision Companion – we asked him for a picture of himself and he sent us this wonderful image! As a visual artist (with regular commissions for publishers, advertising and corporate clients) it was interesting to get his take on the relationship between images and memory; his view is as follows:

We all remember illustrations and images far more than text, well that’s my theory anyway… They can simplify the message and omit unnecessary detail. Also by setting the scene for the text, it makes it easier to place everything in context. I tend to think in pictures, so when asked to recall something from the past, it’s always an image that I see. 

It is good to hear that it is illustrating for education that gives Ian a run for his money:

Of all the illustrations that I produce I think it fair to say that educational is the most challenging and diverse. It can vary from, say, drawing a boy wearing a red hat in a market place for a French language book to an elephant riding a bike for a science theme. In educational work it’s nice to think that you’ve helped turn what could be visually boring pages of text into something that pupils may actually enjoy looking at.

We think Ian has has done a brilliant job on his visual summary illustrations for The Revision Companion; many thanks to him for all his hard work from everyone involved in the project.

You can find out more about The Revision Companion at this link.