Illustration is an essential stage for every publishing project. It is not just for children's books nor is a traditional hand drawn illustration the only option. What visual elements do you want to use to break your text up? Photos, Charts, Diagrams, Pull Quotes, Checklists... the options are endless. There is nothing more boring then reading page after page of plain text.

You basically have 3 options to choose from when it comes to illustrations and they are as follows:

OPTION 1: Use illustrations

This is traditional illustration and what most people think of when the term 'illustrating a book' is used. This option includes any form of original art being created whether that be pen, pencil or texta work, pastle, arcylic or charcoal work, by hand or computer, realistic or charcatures. If you have the skills to do this yourself fantastic but most people don't have traditional illustration skills and as such if this is the option you have choosen to illustrate your book then it is best to work with the professionals to ensure your book is illustrated to the highest quality standards possible.

OPTION 2: Use photographs

Good photo's can make a book but bad photos can equally break a book and as such it is important to think about the quality of every image in your book. Are you using traditional photography or are you using digital photography? What is the quality of the equipment you are taking the photo on? and what is the quality of the product it provides? (whether it be a print or downloadable file). If you have the skills to do this yourself fantastic but once again it may be worth checking your equipment and final product options with a professional before begining a shoot to avoid having to redo everything again at a later stage. If you want a really slick book why not have a professional photographer handle creating your images for you. At the end of the day the quality of your book will be determinded by the quality of the elements in it.

OPTION 3: Use design elements

This is the option where no original artwork needs to be created at all. This normally involves things such as computering charts and diagrams to illustrate what you are talking about in the context of each chapter. Sometimes this may be created from scratch (eg. from rough skteches you have drawn to show your designer how you want them to look) and other times it is collecting (in print or electronic format) already existing charts and diagrams and getting permission from the original source to use them in your book.

Sometimes design elements aren't image based and can be text based like pull quotes or checklists where you select a part of your text in your manuscript you want highlighted to stand out on the page (eg. bolder, larger, different font etc.) or summarising the key message of each chapter in bullet point format at the end. The best thing about design elements is genereally your designer will create these for you (based on your instructions) which makes the illustration stage of the publishing process very low cost as you don't need to pay someone else to do it for you.

Once you decide which of the above options is right for you and your book your book is well on it's way to being beautifully designed!