Clockwork Orange - City Illustrations

As I'll be creating a city scape for one of my ideas, I thought It'll be a good idea to look into how other designers have created cities using illustrator as the main medium, especially when my knowledge of a city scape and what to include isn't as strong. The main outcome from this research is to find inspiration and to see how you could illustrate a whole city without overpowering the design. What I know so far is that I'll be using a isometric grid to create my city so the images below should give me an idea of what aspects to use and what features to leave out.

Below are the different styles and variation of illustrated cities.

Simplistic and flat take on a city scape. The city is only limited to a few building and a roads, suggesting that this city may be used for audiences who are a lot younger. The simplicity of the illustration can be easily understood by children, by aspects like layout and the minimal colour scheme. This city could definitely work within a book cover. The city won't overpower the book, which is a big worry. If the design is too overpowering then other important aspects of the book can become lost like the title and authors name.

This city scape is more detailed, using a lot more elements then the previous illustration. Again the colour scheme is still restricted to only around 4 colour, by restricting your colour scheme you can get away with more detail if the colour scheme is limited as it wouldn't be overpowering to the eye and wouldn't clash with other colours around the illustration.

The target audience for this city would be a lot higher as it's more detailed and more intricate. Even though the city looks a bit over powered the title is still easily readable and visible and that because of the choice of type. Using all caps San-serif typeface allows for a readable and legible font. It also helps by using empty space to display the title on.

This illustrative city is based on an isometric grid and is the kind of city that I can take a lot inspiration from as the set up and style is the kind of illustration I have in mind. What I love most about this illustration is from a distance the city looks really detailed and over worked but on closer inspections It's very simple and that's due to the isometric grid. Once one building is done then it's a simple process to replicate the buildings within a small amount of time.

This design is advertising for the donut company Dunkin' Donuts and they have clearly Incorporated donuts within the city, making them a part of the city and running off that theme. Theme is so important, theme gives the concept strength, flow, framework, along with a stronger aesthetic and makes the whole process a lot easier as you can always relate back to that specific theme. Theme is an aspect in which I hope I can incorporate within my design.

Lastly this image could work very well on a full jacket book cover. The city could wrap around the whole cover, so instead of just working with the front cover, the book can be more interactive on all parts of the book including the back, spine and the front of the book. This feature would engage the audience and entice them into picking up the book and looking at the design from front to back and that could be a crucial point where the user decides to whether or not to buy the book, so it's an important aspect.