LO
Illustrator — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Craft Artists · Etchers and Engravers · Art Directors · Set and Exhibit Designers · Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers · Commercial and Industrial Designers · Fashion Designers
In the official classification#
Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Job Zone 3: medium preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Graphic and multimedia designers
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Graphic designer
Fit with this page: closest match, not the same job
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 27-1013.00 (Fine Artists, Including Painters, Sculptors, and Illustrators). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
- Operations AnalysisImportant
- CoordinationImportant
- Service OrientationImportant
- PersuasionSomewhat important
Knowledge
- DesignVery important
- Computers and ElectronicsVery important
- English LanguageVery important
- Production and ProcessingVery important
- Fine ArtsImportant
- Education and TrainingImportant
Work activities
- Thinking CreativelyExtremely important
- Getting InformationVery important
- Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing WorkVery important
- Making Decisions and Solving ProblemsVery important
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeImportant
Abilities
- OriginalityVery important
- Fluency of IdeasVery important
- VisualizationVery important
- Arm-Hand SteadinessVery important
- Visual Color DiscriminationVery important
- Near VisionVery important
Essential skills
- Critical ThinkingImportant
- Active LearningImportant
- Active ListeningImportant
- Reading ComprehensionImportant
- SpeakingImportant
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 5 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 4 match at least one. 1 are not in O*NET's list for this occupation. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Editorial and commercial illustrationDraw detailed or technical illustrations.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Thinking Creatively · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Interior designer
- Concept art and visual developmentDevelop artistic or design concepts for decoration, exhibition, or commercial purposes.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Thinking Creatively · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Interior designer
- Game art assetsDraw detailed or technical illustrations.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Thinking Creatively · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Interior designer
- Commissioned art for published productsDraw detailed or technical illustrations.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Thinking Creatively · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Interior designerPresent work to clients for approval.covers part of this task · Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Interior designer · Project manager
- Rights and licensingNone of the activities O*NET lists for this occupation covers this task.
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
Memorandum of Agreement of August 1, 2024
AI systems, paragraph 3.b: producers may require AI use in covered work, but not require prompts in a way that displaces a covered employee, and must give advance written notice · may · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) → Concept art and visual development
2024-12-02 · the record →Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability
conclusion on prompts, with the example of AI-generated background artwork in a film · defines · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Rights and licensing
2025-01-01 · the record →Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 4 backed by a verified event, 1 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.