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Illustration is a robust and internationally established academic discipline. It engages a multiplicity of disciplinary subject matter and is investigated in-depth by a range of fields and approaches including, but not limited to, practice-based research, design studies, and cultural production. Illustration is fundamental to our understanding of the world as it operates across a diverse range of our engagement with everyday life and experience. After all, we learn to read images before we learn to speak and read any other form of language. This paper outlines the burgeoning role of illustration outcomes as Non-Traditional Research Outcomes (NTROs) within the Academy. With NTROs increasingly being recognized within universities, clarity around how illustration as a field of research meets requirements and is comparable to traditional research approaches is needed. Additionally, this paper seeks to showcase an exhibition of international illustration researchers titled Seeking Vision: A Virtual Exhibition of Illustration Research. This exhibition of 25 international illustration academics included creative outputs accompanied by written research statements for broader context. The result was a diverse range of outputs and approaches which signifies the complexity of the growing international research community on illustration.
Chand et al. (Tue,) studied this question.