Chrysa Koukoura’s illustrations are wonderfully simple, well executed pen and ink drawings that are at once bold and confident. Much of her work is inspired by nature – possibly because she grew up on the small island of Rhodes – and she seems to have an infinity with the natural world, an understanding, as if lived through.

Living in an age of super saturated digital colour as we do it comes as a relief to find a designer and artist who enjoys the simplicity of black and white. It’s refreshing. A breath of fresh air. As she says herself:

With a slight hesitancy in working with colour, I use fine pen on paper with meticulous detail, my aim being to draw the viewer in for a closer look. I love the simplicity and the restrictiveness of working in black and white, as it requires me to bring something extra out of an image that wouldn’t usually be there had a colour been involved.

Philip Giordano’s illustrations come out of his love for both Japanese design aesthetics and the ability of Japanese artists and designers to assimilate Western influences – such as film, comics, typography, etc – into their work without losing their quintessential Japanese style and identity.

Much of Giordano’s illustrations have a strong emphasise on texture – extenuated by his use of simple geometric shapes – which has evolved out of his love for vintage Japanese books. And while his work, ideas and motivations comes from the same place the process varies widely in texture, composition and medium.

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Kaye Blegvad‘s illustrations are whimsical, quirky drawings that have a dark humour and simplicity that is utterly beguiling. Although I’ve only posted up her illustrations she also draws comics, makes jewellery and ceramic objects all of which carry the same sensibility; one of lightness that she undercuts with biting satire.

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Nick Howard‘s illustrations are strange drawings of collective group think, of people as automatons, without individuality. Howard has a wonderful sense of composition, his drawings simple, concise and graphic, his pictorial language immediate and appealing.

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Cosmic Nuggets illustrations are of strange biological hybrids, bizarre species evolving in his young artistic imagination. Cosmic Nuggets art lies somewhere between Aboriginal Dreamtime art and Japanese Kaiju – strange monsters that are at once ancient and alien, modern and prehistoric, fossilised and futuristic. They’re also playful and drawn from a wonderful clean design aesthetic.

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