Illustration: Michael Kuo illustrates the weird, uncomfortable and awkward

Illustrator Michael Kuo seems to thrive on the kind of wriggle-inducing awkwardness that other people flee from. His work focuses on the mean, the naughty and the downright uncomfortable; from a gang of despondent-seeming petty criminals, a scantilly-clad woman on a string of weird dates with a bald hairy-chested man and a series based on people who do odd things under the cover of darkness. Bold, bright and colourful in a way that seems to defy his subject matter, his illustration borders on comic art. Particularly charming are his Bad Type illustrations which see letters composed of uncomfortable looking and violently-inclined people. Here’s to Michael for providing a space in the illustration world for the rude, the dirty-minded and the slightly awkward.