Paint me a picture.

{Yuko Shimizu for Target advertising 2005}

Last night I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a discussion panel by illustrators, held at FIT called "Personal Vision". The four illustrators, all graduates of the Masters of Illustration program at SVA, were Nathan Fox, Eddie Guy, Yuko Shimizu, and Sam Weber. They each shared a small slideshow of work ranging from professional to personal and each definitely had their own flair and style. All of what they said was inspiring, as well as what they showed. My favorite of the four was Yuko whose art I have shown above (for Target). Her work seems to have a lot of energy and motion in it and I just really liked HER as a personality. She talked about her refinding her favorite book from childhood recently and flipping through and realizing that now 30+ years later that the subjects she chooses to paint are definitely derived from the books she loved as a kid. It made me wonder if I were to go through my favorites book as a kid, if I would find some resemblance to what I design now and what I am drawn to in design and art. As I sat listening to the four of them talk about their backgrounds, what drives them, what they think about clients and art directors, what they love about this INCREDIBLE job they have and that they DO realize how lucky they are, I was again humbled in knowing that I also do what I love. Maybe some of the clients aren't ideal all of the time, maybe the projects don't go how I want them to, but I get to be creative...at work! For a living! Rejoice, creatives, rejoice in doing what you love everyday and getting paid for it!