Review of the Year 2022: Top 25 Illustration

The It’s Nice That audience seems to be a sucker for illustration and graphic design crossovers, and this year was no exception, with the genre bending, multi-disciplinary work of Larissa Laban, Naughty Roll and Pamela Guest all seeing top spots. If there’s something else we learnt this year (although it’s something we’re pretty sure we already knew), it’s that people still love that luminescent style, and the irresistibly glowy work of Paulina Almira, Miguel Cruz, Yu Cai and Wenjing Wang certainly tickled your creative tastebuds.

While the hyper digital seemed to reign throughout 2022, other articles proved that analogue methods still struck a chord with Lea Woo’s papery textures, Yasuo-range’s Bauhaus-inspired pieces, Miranda Bruce’s punk poster pencil drawings and JaeHoon Choi’s inky comic book illustrations. Moreover, aesthetics of long-loved TV series made an appearance with Bryson Williams’ 60s and 70s cartoon style pieces, and Kanioko’s homage to The Simpsons – which both hit the nostalgia button. But, this year it seems that strange, zoomed-in perspectives really got people thinking. Lushuirou’s close-ups of hands and Carolina Moscoso’s wonderfully weird angles piqued interest, while Dadu Shin’s eerie, partitioned focus on spooky scenes – realised in entirely blue ballpoint pen – took the top spot.