How much illustration work is done in a computer?

Zeitgeist, the “spirit of the times,” is a phenomenon that has been acknowledged by historians and sociologists examining various aspects of cultures (Danielson, 1989). According to Pearce (1954) Zeitgeist is about dictating people’s likes and dislikes of apparel and personal appearance. In this study, a new attitude and approach in fashion illustration is to be examined, namely computer illustration.||In the business of fashion, illustration is one of the ways employed to present ideas. Through the spirit of times, fashion illustration, undeniably forms a specific visual language, and has become a universal means of communication. Fashion illustration is different from any other type of illustration because of its subject matter. It explores approaches and styles in a great variety of media.||Today’s computer challenges the stereotype of the artist who draws with brush or pen in hand. It also forces a re-evaluation of what is illustration and the traditional meaning of fashion illustration. The question of technological domination is also a complex issue. According to Sparke (1991), people are either for it or against it, and endless debates will continue to take place concerning the role of the ‘machine’. Sparke further mentioned that already in 1936, Herbert Read, a renown figure in the British art and design movement, warned us: “The danger we run in a machine age is that we sacrifice one set of values and confine art to an intellectual concern with form and function”.||Where pluralism of tastes and/or the need to create a market is in evidence, and that the technological aspect becomes a part of the creation, such digital technology requires a reevaluation of what fashion illustration is, in terms of both a search for an appropriate aesthetic for its products and its beneficial and detrimental effects on the fashion illustration culture as a whole.