Shelsey Birch is a freelance graphic designer from Australia. Her illustrations are quite gentle in tone, often depicting women wearing fantastical fashions in nice detail. Shelsey’s experiments with type are ravishing and definitely worth a look. Visit her website to see more of her work.

Lianne Harrison is from the Malvern Hills, and now works from London. Most of her illustrations use a collage technique, and she also makes great use of her handwriting to give her work a unique feel. She’s created book jackets, illustrated maps and some great editorial illustrations. Clients include GQ Magazine, Spiral Productions and The Vegan Society. She was shortlisted for The Penguin Design Award in 2009 and in 2011 her work was selected by The Association of Illustrators to exhibit at the London Transport Museum. Visit her website to see more…

Fernando Forero is a Columbian graphic designer working in Poland. He is a versatile creative, his talents spanning all kinds of things from corporate identity, typeface design and of course, illustration. His black books are a dark and absurd collection of characters from other worlds, so if you like a bit of fantasy art do have a look through these sketchbooks. I also really enjoyed his book covers, which bring together his experimental type layouts and illustrations.

Christina Jung lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA. She works in various styles, primarily using acrylics and screen-printing with a nice touch of hand-lettering thrown into the mix. Christina says:

“It has always made sense for illustration and graphic design to go hand in hand. A good illustration will be well-crafted and conceptually sound. A really great illustration will do all that and consider the placement of type.”

Good advice. See more of Christina’s work on her lovely website.

Hannah is based in Sheffield, UK. She has some interesting work on her blog, such as her Adam & Eve illustration ‘The Very First Date’. I also found her university project ‘The Man on the Moon’ to be a beautiful piece of work. She has an appealing visual style which could suit all sorts of work, from editorial to comics, children’s books and more. I’m sure there is a bright future for Hannah Wheeler in the world of illustration.

Dasha Tolstikova lives and works in New York. She is a doodler extraordinaire, creating all sorts of interesting work, such as her ‘Book of Lonely Children’ and her work in progress titled ’12: A Year Without Mom’, which looks intriguing and I’m sure will be a great piece of work. I’m not sure if her works are autobiographical at all, but she does pick interesting subject matter and you can feel some real truth coming through. Her style carries a child-like innocence, which is perfect for the type of subjects she draws. Her handwriting is adorable (quite an achievement if you consider she uses only capital letters).

Pedro Campiche, also known as AKA.CORLEONE is from Portugal. Pedro works as a freelance designer and illustrator and draws inspiration from graffiti.

“Painting walls and running from dogs also gave me the addiction to typography, colour, painting, drawing all day, planning things in advance, and mostly it gave me a chance to express myself without boundaries, something I try to apply to my daily life and work.”

Pedro’s portfolio is full of typographic experimentation, punchy colours and illustrations that are a little bit mad, a bit scary, a bit funny, and without question totally captivating. Pedro is Co-founder of Steppin Stone, a platform for illustration with an online shop selling prints, clothes, and interestingly a ‘lowbrow illustration’ magazine called Fine Rats.