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Comment by IrishJourno | Hacker News Reader

I'm the author of the article and the editor of the section: a while back we decided to use illustrations rather than photography for this section of IEEE Spectrum—it was a style choice, but it gives us more options in terms of showing components and process diagrams.

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Why not do both when appropriate?

Locking yourself into only using real images or renders seems very limiting.

When we made the switch, I was initially concerned about this as well, but as is often the case, well-chosen limits can promote creativity, just as say, choosing to work only in black and white might be done by a photographer or comic book artist, or choosing to use pixel art in a game built for modern systems. The illustrations also give a unified, and distinct, look to articles in the Hands On section, which is important in a crowded domain: the qualitative and quantitate feedback we've gotten since we made the switch has been quite convincing for me.

How exactly does limiting your language give you more options?

It's the nature of abstraction: just like a map versus a satellite photo, it allows us to more easily highlight particular features. It also allows for options like cutaways and x-ray style images, and allows us to compose scenes how we like without the hassle of setting up physical shots.

I mean no offense, but you obviously know nothing about electronics, what prompted you to write an article on such a specialised subject ?

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