You don’t know Yunmee Kyong’s work? You are missing out a lot. But that’s no more.
The latest on my illustartor interview article series for Japanese magazine Illustration features Yunmee and her whimsical and fantastic world. (layout are as follows)
If you don’t read Japanese, don’t worry, Illustration Friday has published the unabridged original interview in English.
Get inspired by this world citizen!
More of Yunmee’s work can be seen on her website.
There were illustrations I had created for Outdoor Life that I have been meaning to post here. Before the calendar changes to April, I have to post this last blizzard image of the season.
The story was about elk hunters gotten stuck in blizzard, a page-turner survival story. Illustrations I created are for double page spread opener and two interior spots. Needless to say, I had so much fun. I felt like I was one of the guys who got stuck in the mountains!
Big thanks to Art Director Jim Walsh of Outodoor Life for this fun project.
How I Got My First Job, a lecture at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) will be held tomorrow evening, March 24th.
I will be a part of it together will fellow Drawgers: Marcos Chin, Fernanda Cohen and Zina Saunders, along with Fred Harper.
The lecture will be open to public.
Fashon Institute of Technology: 7th Avenue at 27th St, New York City Robert Lagary Board Room 9th floor (C Building)
March 24th (Wed) at 6:30PM
Hope to see you there!
The Society of Illustrators annual show of advertising and institutional category just opened last week here in New York (runs up to March 20).
I have two pieces in the show, both of which were album covers created for a British music magazine The Word. They have supplement CD filled with new music every month.
To have two of my favorite covers out of 33 covers I created monthly, was a good finale for the project. The project that started close to three years ago, recently ended with the magazine redesign as of February issue of this year.
This monthly gig came during their last redesign. Matthew Ball, a Scottish freelance art director and former Rolling Stone AD who I used to work with often, kindly pulled me into this project. What I thought would only last for a short period, ended up as accumulation of 33 images. I think I got some good pieces out of them which lead to some other jobs and projects.
In this occasion, I decided to post some of the covers I was happy with. You can also see cover image archive here.
Big thank you to Matthew Ball, editor Mark Ellen, AD Jonathan Sellers, production editor Mike Johnson, and last but not least Jerry Parkins who made sure my payments don’t get delayed every month.
The new The Word looks really good with illustrated covers by André Carrilho. Take a look when you are at (international) newsstands.
Many of fellow Drawgers have posted their head drawings/paintings already. My belated contribution… black/blue/green ink and red seal on watercolor paper.
100 Heads for Haiti is a group show organized by Dave Plunkert and Spur Design. Each head, done by various illustrators, will be sold for just $100 each for charity purpose to raise money for Doctors without Borders.
Show opening Saturday, April 12th at SPUR Gallery, Baltimore, MD.
To create this image, I researched the word Haiti in Chinese. It is written as “海地”. 海 means ocean and 地 means land. What a beautiful name. So I drew in her diving glasses one side ocean and one side land.
The story is titled: ‘Fired at 50′. It focuses on the emotional struggle of women who have lost their long term jobs. It felt so ‘real’ to me.
March happens to be a transitional month when winter slowly turns into spring. So I decided to use season as metapher of women’s emotional struggle.
Claudia Almeida was the Art director.
This has been a long cold winter with a lot of snow for North-Easterners, but we all know spring is right around the corner!
When SooJin Buzelli called me for PLANSPONSOR cover with the theme of “the worst is over”, this was the idea which came to my mind immediately: my longing for spring…
Process post of this image felt perfectly appropriate today when you cannot walk outside New York City without a good pair of rubber boots.
Thomas Woodruff, my thesis adviser, gave me an assignment to put people interacting in some kind of environment. I got panic, and drew this (left). It made me realize that drawing snow scene was: 1. Easy 2. Fun. I ended up drawing a whole bunch.
Now, I am proud to say I can put people in any environment. So, thank you Tom.
And this first snow trial eventually got me a gig to do the New York Times Travel Section (AD: Barbara Richer) cover (right), my first big job.
Well, I should probably love snow.
AD: Albert Tang (W.W. Norton) and Rodrigo Corral (Rodrigo Corral Design).
See you all tonight at the Society of Illustrators?
surprise or no surprise, lots of Drawger members are exhibiting their works as well as some receiving medals.
Those of you who are not into paying $$ for the party, the show is open to public (free) until February 20th.
I am super exicited to receive a medal along with my highschool class mate and unbelievably talented Tatsuro Kiuchi, who is flying in from Tokyo!
Somehow, my social savvy sister got backstage pass to Queen concert in the 80s and invited me to come with her. I don’t know why I didn’t. I probably was too young and maybe midterm exam was more on my mind than Queen. Stupid me.
My sister came back with tons of photos of Freddie and Roger and rest of the band members eating yakitori in a small restaurant during the after party. And that was the last tour Queen had in Tokyo before Freddie Mercury passed away shortly after.
Illustrators all have our ‘dream job list’. In the beginning, we get excited crossing one out at a time. After a while we realize it is OK not to cross everything out and eventually forget about the list. But once in a while, out of the blue things on the list come back and surprise us with excitement. Needless to say Freddie Mercury was on the top of my list, but I thought the day would never come because it has been so long since he has left this world.
Siung Tjia, Creative Director of ESPN The Magazine, is a friend, but most of the time we talk about Chinese movies we love and Korean food we want to try for next lunch, so I assume he had no idea about my dream job list when he called me. Well, thank you Siungl! This was such a treat and a PERFECT assignment. And designer was Lou Vega.
The story was about America’s No.1 Stadium Anthem. Of course, it was Queen’s We Will Rock You written by Brian May. The article (and illustration) is in the latest issue of ESPN on newsstand now.
