We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jun Zhou a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jun, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
My mission is to educate kids with games and illustrations. The idea comes from my teenage years. In high school, I found myself doing better than others in math and science because I built my logical and graphic thinking through books I read as a kid. I saw some of my friends struggle with school subjects. They had difficulty understanding abstract theories because they needed pictures in their mind. So I value children’s education a lot because I benefit from it. I want to help kids build their logical and graphic thinking by creating educational picture books. I spent time thinking about how to educate kids effectively. I read many papers and wrote an article to discuss kids’ education. The answer I figure out is paper games. The inspiration comes from a paper I read. It is said that playing positively affects children’s enthusiasm and interest in learning. I thought I couldn’t educate kids well if I went against their nature. After that, I read other papers about how games could help educate kids.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am an ambitious illustrator, motion media designer, and children’s comic book artist with a game design background. Now I make games for kids and help them learn math with joy. I chose the digital game design field to start my career because of this feeling of mission. Still, after being tired of spending too much time on the game engine instead of drawing, I switched my direction to a more aesthetic field: illustration. Now I focus more on the visual arts and doing paper games.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
I would say yes. Learn the design principle as soon as possible when you enter the art field. Method and concept are always more important than technic.
We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.
It was a fun story. I have a friend who is very successful in illustration. One day she told me that an editor asked her for some illustrator recommendations. They needed an artist with a game design background. You see, the position is a 100% fit for me. So I sent my portfolio to the editor and got a couple of phone calls. Now I am the illustrator for their maze session in their children’s magazines, and the work has brought me international awards.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://junzhou.art
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/junzhou_draw/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/junzhou1997
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/junzhoudraw/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/junzhou_draw
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoTu3J37Qyyf0XyRllps-ew