Yuko Shimizu is an award-winning Japanese illustrator based in New York and instructor at School of Visual Arts. Her work has appeared on the pages of the New York Times, TIME, and Newsweek, on the covers of DC Comics, Penguin, Abrams and Random House books, on the Gap and Nike T-shirts, and on Pepsi cans.
Her new monograph Living with Yuko Shimizu was published in spring 2016 (ROADS Publishing). A Wild Swan, her collaboration with Pulitzer-winning author Michael Cunningham, came out in 2015 (FSG). She was chosen as Newsweek Japan’s “100 Japanese People World Respects” in 2009.
10 things I have learned after art school
Being a freelance creative is pretty much about making mistakes and learn from it… repeat, repeat, repeat. There are definitely mistakes each of us have to make, and there are also ones that others made for you so you don’t have to.
Among all the things I learned in 15 years, I narrowed them to 10 most important things to live by, and I would love to share that with you. And oh, because you probably don’t know what illustrators do, so I share a bit of that as well.