We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Lulu Yo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Lulu, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Currently, the most meaningful project is my visual thesis during the MFA program -Two Stories, a graphic novel with two fictional thriller stories of the memories of a trip of the couple, Geoff and Mary, from each point of view.
In Geoff’s story, he hurt a raven and suspects that Mary is possessed by the raven and disappeared. In Mary’s story, she became invisible several times because of Geoff’s negligence and finally left. These two comics are bound as two books facing each other. Readers can read Mary’s story with a 180° rotation after reading Geoff’s story.
The inspiration came from my previous relationship in which I found two individuals may have opposite understandings of each other. I tried to blur and break the boundaries between virtual and reality such as dreams and imagination… Audiences won’t be sure whether the stories came from two lovers until almost finished reading because Mary’s looks and sequences of events are different in both stories.
In the beginning, I’m torn between doing a project that was more effective for job hunting and this graphic novel, and finally, I’m glad that I chose it. Not only because it has got recognition from some international competitions, but more importantly, it is the first graphic novel I created, which explores the narrative method and expresses the ideas I have had for years. I hope it can provide the audience with an interesting reading experience and arouse their reflection and resonance about intimate relationships.
Lulu, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hi, I’m Lulu Yo, a freelance illustrator born in China.
I like to create narrative illustration in editorial, book, or packaging illustration design. In terms of themes, the two diametrically opposed preferences of cuteness and warmth, and horror and dark humor appear in my works. I am not satisfied with simple expressions or presentations, so I often ask myself in the process, is there a more exciting entry point or form? I love finding those tiny shining creative ideas in the project and exploring them in form or content. Besides, Using visual narratives is something I’m good at, and their rhythm comes to me naturally.
For my personal creations, I often explore emotions, intimacy, and alienation in intimate relationships. Take personal experience and perception which I think is the most direct and truest inspiration as the starting point, and then find some commonalities with others. I hope that audiences can feel the flow of emotion or atmosphere in my works, so as to generate a kind of resonance.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
This website：https://litebox.info/ is a resource that helps establish consistent wage transparency across the commercial art disciplines of Illustration and Cartooning. On this site, you can find information about how much artists are paid for specific jobs and whether they are paid on time. And also helps us reference industry standard price for our work.
How to find art directors is also what I expected to know in the early days. Here I share my experience. In addition to looking for contact information on the official website of the relevant magazine company or publishing house, I have also established a database in Notion (a very useful all-in-one app) to collect artists who have marked AD on personal websites, Instagram, or other social media, etc. Then search for AD’s email on RocketReach or Apollo. This method is very functional, you can find the art directors that have been active recently based on their recent posts.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
When I was a beginner in illustration, I often had difficulty in taking action because my artworks were not as expected, thus I wasted a lot of time and also lost some opportunities because of a lack of self-confidence. After these years of study and growth, I have roughly summed up the following points that may be useful for those new to the industry.
1. Treat yourself like someone else.
As artists, our aesthetic standards are always higher than what we can produce, so it’s perfectly normal to be dissatisfied. When you pull down the social media of outstanding illustrators to the bottom, you will find that their works in the initial stage are also not satisfactory. Treat yourself as someone else, such as your student, or your friend, so that you can escape from the anxious state of “self” as the cage, and transform into patience. Believe in the law of one thousand hours, as long as you move forward on the right path, quantitative changes will usher in qualitative changes.
2. Regular self-analysis.
When I built my personal website, it was the first time I had a relatively complete sorting out of the characteristics of myself and my work and found such was very beneficial for clarifying thoughts. After regular summarization, you can discover the commonalities and characteristics of your artworks that were not aware of, and also your own strengths and weaknesses. What can be done next is to increase the volume of some works, dig deeper into favorite themes, or carry forward the style characteristics and advantages.
3. Research other artists.
Analyzing others is also a very effective method. For example, if you want to get a job in advertising, find an illustrator who is successful in this field and research how he made it.：What kind of promotion did he do, what projects he made before getting the job, how his art and style attract those clients…
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.luluyo.art/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luckyluluyo/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lulu-yo-370a3021a/
- Other: Behance：https://www.behance.net/luluyo