Illustration

Work

Articles

• 10 illustrators who built an entire career on one character

  A googly-eyed doodle, a blue alien who narrates ordinary life, a bucktoothed creature that's been wandering one artist's comics since the 1980s. Ten illustrators who picked a single character or motif and never let go.

• 10 hyperrealistic paintings that trick your eye at first glance

  From a Vermeer reproduction sealed under painted plastic wrap to a rain-streaked windshield rendered entirely in oil, ten painters use nothing but brush and canvas to make the eye doubt it's looking at a painting at all.

• Gold leaf and folklore: Dannie Niu's illustrations turn women into myths

  Atlanta illustrator Dannie Niu builds richly patterned, art-nouveau-inflected portraits for tarot labels, scarves and editorial covers, working almost entirely in gold, black and one saturated accent color.

• Handle with care: Marica Fasoli paints children who live inside cardboard boxes

  Italian painter Marica Fasoli builds hyperrealist portraits of children on shaped canvases that physically project off the wall as torn, taped cardboard boxes, turning painting into a three-dimensional object.

• L'Orso: a restaurant identity built around a bear in a stone oven

  Colombian studio MANONEGRA &Co. built an Italian restaurant identity around a bear silhouette set inside a stone oven, carried across menus, packaging, uniforms and signage.

• Pure Froot: a character-led approach to juice packaging design

  Italian designer Elisa Voronova's Pure Froot concept swaps the wellness aisle's kraft-paper hush for illustrated characters and loud color. Here's how the system holds together from can to phone screen, and what it teaches about breaking category convention on purpose.