I love those hazy areas where one type of imagery blurs into another, where comics fade into illustration and illustration blends into easel painting and so on.

Josh McKible is an illustrator who is often called on to either explain concepts or processes or to conceptualize an idea. In service of this he utilizes a style that brings together the bold simplicity of infographics with the richer colors and patterns of editorial illustration, producing a hybrid you might call “infostration”. (Hey, how often do I get to make up new words, even dumb ones?)

McKible uses a bold outline style with thiner detail lines and areas of flat color or gradations, which he often accents with patterns, making otherwise flat areas more lively. His focus is always on the information conveyed by the image, though, and he never allows the illustration to lose that focus.

He sometimes combines illustration with photographs of actual items (usually consumer products), producing an illustration that serves as a kind of enhanced photograph.

McKible also brings a good bit of imagination and clever choice of images to the task, making for an entertaining as well as informative visual experience.

His clients include The New York Times, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Popular Science, National Geographic Adventure and others. His gallery section details where each illustration was used and the kind of story or article it was illustrating.