http://www.drawger.com/yuko/ Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:47:35 EST FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://www.drawger.com/yuko http://www.drawger.com/yuko/index.php?section=articles&article_id=9972




Readership of the magazine is mainly young men, so the only art direction they gave me was to have "sexy girl with music instruments". I had a lot of fun with this lighthearted project every month. I think I did pretty much every variation I think of in the theme within that 32 covers. Things do end when they need to end.  It was time for a change. 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.









]]> Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:42:43 EST http://www.drawger.com/yuko/index.php?section=articles&article_id=9939


I have moved to New York form Tokyo 11 years ago. The first apartment I found was on Upper East Side with a Haitian roommate. We only lived together for three months, but we became a long time friends since. She has cooked me Haitian dishes, taught me how to prepare Haitian mint tea, and told me about her family. I have never been to Haiti, but I feel close to the country because of her. 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.



]]> Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:31:10 EST http://www.drawger.com/yuko/index.php?section=articles&article_id=9926 Great Recession continues. And, every one of us know at least a few close people in our lives who have lost their jobs because of this current economic situation. This illustration was done for March issue of MORE, a magazine for grown up women with career and family, about this exact topic. 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!  









]]> Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:44:22 EST http://www.drawger.com/yuko/index.php?section=articles&article_id=9798 Why is snow so pretty when it is falling, but becomes a huge mess right after?  Winter feels a lot severe this year, doesn't it? When trees start to get light green new leaves, and flowers start blooming everywhere, that is my favorite season. I have been dreaming about Spring ever since this long winter started. 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.















By the way, I do draw snow scenes a lot. This goes back to when I was in graduate school and I was getting good at drawing figures but terrible at putting them in environment. 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.



]]> Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:35:20 EST http://www.drawger.com/yuko/index.php?section=articles&article_id=9773 Congratulations again to everyone who’s work is exhibited at the Society of Illustrators Book/Editorial Show, and nice seeing you (those who were there) at the opening party on Friday night.  Missed the party? No worries,  the exhibit is open to public through February 20th. I had realized I forgot to post the creative process of the cover for The Beautiful and Grotesque, a collection of short stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, one of the most celebrated modern Japanese authors.  So, here it is. AD: Albert Tang (W.W. Norton) and Rodrigo Corral (Rodrigo Corral Design). The book will be published from W.W. Norton this year.



















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