“Give me pen, paper, and wifi and nobody gets hurt,” reads Ari Liloan’s caption on Instagram. The Filipino/Italian illustrator based in Berlin has forever dabbled in art and many of its malformed afterbirths before finally taking a shot in editorial illustration – a shot she doesn’t regret taking.
Talking about her complicated journey with Ballpitmag, Liloan said that “It’s a pinball in a pinball machine kind of tale. I never landed on one thing and stuck to it. Failed here, got rejected there, lost interest in that – the common odyssey of people with no passion but way too many interests.”
But with collaborations with BMW Austria, Mercedes Austria, and T-Mobile – it seems that Liloan has finally landed. Her style is a colorful hybrid of 1930 golden-age surrealism and 2019 vector art dilettantism. “I like bright colors telling me terrible things,” she writes on her website, adding that her favorite subjects to draw center around timeless topics such as power, money, science, death, love, and fried chicken.
“I avoid inspiration,” she says. “At least in terms of visual influence. Not hopping on Pinterest reduces the chance to use arbitrary metaphors and color schemes that have little to do with the commission. Reading the client brief carefully is enough and should be the main source of inspiration. However, when I feel stuck, I religiously nap or take long walks. (There’s no religion dedicated to that, but I think there should be.)”
Take a look at some of her more playful pieces:
