I’ve just gone back to John Berger’s Ways of Seeing. It’s one of those books (and TV series) you bump into in art school, but it hits differently when you revisit it after working in the creative industry for a while.

Berger wasn’t talking about commercial illustration specifically, but so much of what he says about images, power, and context applies directly to it. Here are a few thoughts I’ve been mulling over:

Images Carry Power, Not Just Beauty

Berger insists that every image has an agenda—it reflects and reinforces certain ways of seeing the world. Commercial illustration is exactly that: images that sell not only products but also lifestyles, values, and ideals. When we draw for a brand, we’re shaping how people imagine themselves. That’s powerful, and sometimes a little uncomfortable.

Context Changes Everything

One of Berger’s most famous points is that an artwork in a gallery means something different than the same image in a reproduction, on a postcard, or in an advert. For commercial illustration, this is obvious but worth stressing: an image on a billboard doesn’t land the same way as it does in a magazine or on Instagram. As illustrators, we can’t control everything, but being aware of context makes our work sharper.

The Male Gaze, Still Relevant

Berger’s chapter on the “male gaze” in art history—how women have been posed as objects to be looked at—feels disturbingly relevant in commercial illustration today. Fashion, beauty, lifestyle ads still lean on those tropes. The lesson isn’t just to critique them but to actively push for different, more complex ways of representing people. That’s where illustration can be radical: it can redraw the world.

Seeing Is Political

Berger argued that seeing isn’t neutral—it’s shaped by class, gender, and power. Commercial illustration isn’t neutral either. A cereal box illustration, a sneaker campaign, or an editorial spot all reflect decisions about who’s being spoken to and how. Rereading the book made me more conscious of those choices: who gets represented, who gets excluded, whose perspective is being normalised.

The Illustrator’s Responsibility

What I take from Berger is a reminder that illustration isn’t just decoration. Every line and colour carries assumptions, histories, and implications. Commercial illustration might be part of marketing, but it also contributes to the wider visual culture people swim in every day. If we see it that way, the job becomes more than selling—it becomes storytelling, critique, even resistance.

My Takeaway

Rereading Ways of Seeing reminded me that commercial illustration is never “just commercial.” Like Berger said of paintings, it teaches us ways of looking at ourselves and each other. And if that’s the case, maybe illustrators have more power—and more responsibility—than we usually admit.

Rereading Ways of Seeing and Thinking About Commercial Illustration