Graphic Design vs Illustration

http://designobserver.com/feature/graphic-design-vs-illustration/4857

"The outcome of all this was that designers seemed to lose the habit of commissioning illustration, and most illustration was relegated to mere decoration."

"Milton Glaser has said: "In a culture that values commerce above all other things, the imaginative potential of illustration has become irrelevant... Illustration is now too idiosyncratic.""

"We seem to have reached a point in Western culture where the abstract is no longer tenable."

"Graphic design's ability to deliver explicit messages makes it a major (if little recognized) force in the modern world: it is embedded in the commercial infrastructure. Illustration, on the other hand, with its woolly ambiguity and its allusive ability to convey feeling and emotion, makes it too dangerous to be allowed to enter the corporate bloodstream. Our visual lives are the poorer for this."

Interesting comments on the current state of illustration in comparison with Graphic Design, and reasons for why the roles are becoming merged.

"So maybe, if someone believes illustration is dying, they might want to think about the possibility that the majority of illustrators are simply not evolving with the time. "  

"Illustration has, and always will be the red-headed stepchild of design and perhaps art in general."

- Comments in response to the article. Interesting to see other opinions.