Wired headphones editorial illustration: The tech comeback no one saw coming
I created this wired headphones editorial illustration as a self-initiated project for a BBC article I read online. I liked the premise so much I was immediately inspired to come up with an illustration using none other than Procreate.
In March 2026, the BBC posted an article, dubbed “Wired headphone sales are exploding. What’s with the Bluetooth backlash?” Curiously, the piece, written by Thomas Germain, spoke to me on so many levels.
As someone who was quite peeved when Apple decided to get rid of the headphone jack on iPhone 7 in 2016, this article made me feel, well, great! The tide was finally turning for near-obsolete tech. Tech that was reliable and nostalgic and secure.
For visual support, the BBC used a couple of stock graphics, rather than commission an illustrator to create bespoke artwork for the piece.
On account of this, I decided to come up with an editorial illustration with the aforementioned article in mind. What astonished me the most was how quickly I managed to form a mental image of what I wanted to illustrate.
Young woman wearing wired headphones editorial illustration
Minutes after reading the first few paragraphs, I opened the Procreate app on my iPad Pro and quickly came up with this digital illustration of a young woman wearing a pair of bulky wired headphones.
Listening to music, sporting a baseball cap and holding a to-go coffee cup, she walked against a layered city scene. To localise this line illustration, I chose Downtown Amman, in Jordan, as my backdrop.
As you can see, shops, cafés, Arabic signage, and sidewalks mingle in the background while this young woman crosses the street.
To be honest, I love hand-drawn people illustration and prefer it to vector artwork or flat design, which have been trending for a few years now to the point of oversaturation.
As a matter of fact, illustrating scenes of people – cooking, eating, gardening and reading – opens up a lot of doors for illustrators in a wide range of industries. These include product illustration, advertising artwork and, of course, character design. There’s also non-fiction children’s book illustration, which is an illustration niche I’m very much interested in.
Al Balad: Downtown Amman’s old shops and markets
There’s a hint of architectural illustration in this artwork as it features a slice of Downtown Amman (aka Al Balad or Wast Al Balad), with markets dating back to the 1920s.
A popular tourist destination, Al Balad is the old part of Jordan’s capital, Amman. Nestled in a narrow valley, this old market cluster houses a number of old-school coffee shops, a dedicated jewellery nook – called Souk Al Dahab, or Gold Market, also known as Souk Al Sagha, meaning the jewellers market – and the famous Hashem restaurant serving hummus and falafel.
If you’re looking to buy traditional souvenirs and handcrafts from Jordan, that is the place to go. It is also the number one destination for crafters looking to buy sewing machines, fabrics and little trinkets.
Artists, like me, wishing to buy stretched canvases, oil and acrylic paints and brushes will also be delighted to find a good number of small shops that specialise in art supplies and crafting materials.
I found this post by Scottish photographer, Julia Caira, with breathtaking photos of Downtown Amman, among other tourist destinations in Jordan. It gives a pretty good idea about the overall hospitality culture in this lovely Levantine country.
Illustration of Arabic signage in Downtown Amman with a few shops in the background. This artwork could be a good fit for a project looking for architectural or travel illustration. While the colours here are vibrant, introducing earth tones can reflect a different mood and aesthetic | Illustration in Procreate by Ruba Saqr.
Mockup of an article discussing the unforeseen comeback of the wired headphone | Illustration in Procreate and design in Affinity by Ruba Saqr.
Mockup in Affinity
For a moment there, I wanted to overlay my wired headphones editorial illustration on an actual screenshot of BBC’s article. That’s how excited I was about this exercise!
However, to avoid any unnecessary copyright infringement (and not to mislead readers), I decided to create a mockup article under a fake website name, called Mock Tech. I even came up with a couple of lead paragraphs for the faux article to give it an even more convincing look.
To achieve this, I used the all-new and totally-free Affinity app, which was a true delight to work with.
Fighting corporate greed
I’m actually one of the early users of the paid versions of Affinity. I started out with a couple iPad and desktop V1 programmes, which led me to purchase the full suit of V2 when it came out.
I’m also one of the users who took part in a questionnaire the creators of Affinity, Serif, had sent asking old users about any improvements they wanted to see in the new version of the app.
Among my suggestions was the idea of adding an “image trace” functionality to the vector programme, a feature many other illustrators and designers had been requesting for years.
The big surprise came when V3 of Affinity combined all 3 apps – Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher – into one all-encompassing app.
And the best part was when Canva – the new owners of Serif, ergo Affinity – made it free for everyone. A step that freed many visual artists and photographers from the shackles of Adobe’s unethical AI practices and greedy monthly subscriptions business model.
Hand lettering and illustration of a young Jordanian woman wearing a pair of bulky wired headphones, as she takes a stroll in Downtown Amman | Digital line illustration by Ruba Saqr.
Leave a Reply