The yearly ‘Illustration’ books are a great insight into up-and-coming and modern illustrators and artists off the year, and this year’s book is no different. This 2021 edition highlights 150 artists over this year’s 320-page book, showcasing a range of artistic styles from pop designs to sketches to abstracts. With the book set for release on December 7th, the cover for Illustration 2021 has been released alongside an extensive list of the artists set to be featured in the book.
This year’s cover has been handled by the artist Little Thunder, a Hong Kong-based cartoonist who you’ve probably seen before due to the popularity of their art on places like Instagram. In fact, until November 9th at Shibuya PARCO, the artist currently has an exhibition in partnership with Le Monde Tokyo titled Scent of Hong Kong. A number of other artists drawing in a variety of styles from UZNo to najuco to Nagi to Mirin and more have been revealed as an exhaustive complete list of artists has been unveiled ahead of the book’s release.
As pre-orders for the book open, a preview of select artist’s contributions and the general layout of the book have been released that helps to showcase this variety in style. The art of Nakajima Kano gives off a more down-to-earth sketch style centered on human portraits in everyday situations, which differs from the heavy facial close-up sketches from Kyukonigo, Kotoh Tsumi, who recently did art for Yoasobi, and the vector pop animal art of umao. In this regard, the book does a great job of highlighting the variety of artists and the work they create, with each artist contributing their own commend on their work as pages featuring them point you to their social media profiles and the digital creative tools they use like the iPad Pro, Photoshop and Procreate.
Whether an artist yourself or someone who appreciates the creativity on show, this book looks to be a great purchase. Illustration 2021 releases on December 7th.