illustration: more useful than photographs?

A Pedagogical technique of using a drawing or computer generated image to both capture reality and also highlight certain information and filter out other. Illustration are almost inevitably stylized, intentionally or not, and abstracted.

Illustrations are often more useful and instructional than photographs, which is in part why they are used for most airplane emergency cards. They may include mixed scales.

Quick lab: Go to Amazon.com and look up the bird guides (or just click here). How many of the best selling ones use photographs vs. how many use illustrations?

Scientific illustrations stress fidelity.

See also comics and conceptual illustrations.