Commissioned illustration
Client: Penguin Random House
Publishing date: August 2021
Cover artwork illustration for the hardcover and audiobook editions of Skinship, by author Yoon Choi and published by Knopf, a Penguin Random House imprint. With jacket design by Janet Hansen.
This illustration holds a very special place in my heart. I did it around 2019, as a personal project, to experiment on illustrating emotions and feelings with texture and colors. The final image, representing a hug, played with the negative space and I chose not to give the figures any facial feature so they would be as diverse as possible.
The illustration soon became one of my most recognizable pieces and it was even requested for a solidarity campaign organized by the Spanish Red Cross in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Near the end of 2020, the design team at Penguin Random House, contacted me. They were designing the cover for one of their book launches, and wanted to know if I’d be willing to collaborate with them on it with this artwork. I immediately said yes, and after adapting the original illustration, they did their magic and created this cover.
I am really happy that my work is now on the cover of this book. Skinship: Stories, is the debut novel of author Yoon Choi, a collection of short stories about the life of Korean-American families, published in 2021.
You can buy it here at Penguin Random House.
Additional info:
Published by Knopf.
Aug 17, 2021 | 304 Pages | 5-5/8 x 8-1/4 | ISBN 9780593318218
Signed limited edition prints of the original artwork available for sale here.