Illustration in 2025 has reached a dynamic and transformative stage, where the boundaries between fine art, commercial design, and digital experimentation have become increasingly blurred. The past year brought forward a remarkable wave of creativity, driven by both individual expression and global conversations. As artists responded to environmental change, cultural identity, technological growth, and social upheaval, their illustration work captured the collective spirit of a year defined by uncertainty, innovation, and introspection.
2025 has proven to be a year where illustration took on new roles. It became more than a visual language—it turned into a powerful form of communication across disciplines. Editorial teams, publishers, advertising agencies, independent brands, and even governmental organizations increasingly turned to illustrators to convey layered narratives, capture emotional nuance, and reach broader, more diverse audiences. In this part of the series, we explore the first six of twenty-five standout illustration projects that exemplify the very best the year had to offer.
The Power of Visual Narratives
One of the defining characteristics of illustration in 2025 is its deepened connection to storytelling. The best works this year do not rely solely on visual impact. They combine compelling imagery with conceptual depth, often reflecting personal or social narratives that demand a closer look. Artists used illustration not only as a tool for visual expression but as a method of telling untold stories, making invisible experiences visible, and preserving intangible moments that would otherwise be lost in a fast-moving digital world.
Illustrators moved away from polished, commercial aesthetics toward more tactile, emotionally honest visuals. This shift was evident across genres—from children’s books and graphic novels to advertising campaigns and editorial spreads. In a culture saturated with images, these artists managed to create illustrations that lingered in the viewer’s mind.
Project 1: “The Quiet City” by Marisol Tang
Marisol Tang’s “The Quiet City” was one of the most emotionally arresting projects of 2025. It imagines a deserted metropolis in the wake of environmental collapse, presenting a hauntingly atmospheric vision of urban silence. Illustrated as a long-form visual narrative, the project blends traditional architectural line work with digital textures to depict streets, buildings, and interiors emptied of human presence.
Each illustration is soaked in cool, muted tones—grays, faded blues, and soft beige hues—evoking a sense of stillness and loss. But rather than being purely dystopian, Tang's work suggests a quiet reverence for nature’s return. Ferns sprout through concrete. Light filters softly through abandoned windows. Her visual storytelling balances desolation with renewal.
What makes this project particularly significant is how it merges speculative fiction with documentary realism. “The Quiet City” has been used in academic settings to prompt discussion on urban planning, sustainability, and the psychological effects of climate change. Tang’s approach places her among a new wave of illustrators whose work transcends the art world and enters the realm of social commentary.
Project 2: “Cycle of Light” by Kofi Agyei
Ghanaian illustrator and animator Kofi Agyei created “Cycle of Light,” a short animated visual poem constructed from hand-painted illustrations. Each frame was first created in watercolor and then digitally composited to form a flowing meditation on time, memory, and seasonal change.
The project centers around a cyclical journey: from day to night, from youth to age, from life to death. Agyei uses symbolic imagery—trees that bloom and wither, birds in flight, shifting skies—to evoke the eternal return of life’s rhythms. There is no dialogue, only music and image, and yet the emotional resonance is profound.
What distinguishes Agyei’s work is its seamless blend of analog and digital. By starting with hand-painted materials, he retains a warmth and texture often absent in purely digital illustration. The animation format extends the narrative without losing the essence of static art. “Cycle of Light” was shown at multiple international animation festivals and has been incorporated into mindfulness education programs. It stands as a model of illustration as both personal expression and collective experience.
Project 3: “After the Fire” by Delphine Morales
French illustrator Delphine Morales produced a visually stunning and deeply researched series called “After the Fire,” focusing on forest regeneration following wildfires in Southern Europe. Unlike traditional nature illustration, Morales approached the subject with a lyrical, almost surreal tone. Charred branches are rendered with aching delicacy. New growth glows in soft greens and pinks, painted with colored pencil and layered with translucent gouache.
Each piece functions as both a scientific observation and an emotional response. The illustrations are accompanied by brief captions that share facts about plant resilience, soil restoration, and ecological succession. This educational component was created in collaboration with environmental scientists and featured in both print and digital exhibition formats.
“After the Fire” has received praise not just for its technical excellence but for how it redefines the role of illustration in environmental advocacy. Morales’ work invites viewers to slow down, observe, and imagine recovery, not just destruction. Her illustrations stand as reminders that hope can be drawn, quite literally, into every landscape.
Project 4: “Hyperfolk” by Luca Neves
In a year that saw a rising interest in folklore and speculative fiction, Luca Neves delivered a bold, electrifying take with his project “Hyperfolk.” The series reimagines traditional Brazilian folk tales through the lens of science fiction and cybernetic aesthetics. Using bold neon palettes and glitchy visual motifs, Neves created a set of illustrations that feel both ancient and futuristic.
Characters from rural legend—forest spirits, trickster gods, and mythical beasts—are recast as beings in a post-technological world. The juxtaposition of sacred folklore with digital abstraction results in images that are both familiar and alien. Neves’ visual style includes layered vector shapes, jagged lines, and shifting pixel textures that mimic data distortion.
The project gained traction across social media platforms and was featured in digital art magazines for its fearless blend of tradition and modernity. “Hyperfolk” also sparked debate about cultural preservation and transformation, encouraging viewers to rethink how folklore can evolve within digital contexts. In doing so, it demonstrated how illustration can bridge cultural history and imaginative speculation.
Project 5: “Homebound” by Zahra Anwar
Illustrator Zahra Anwar created one of the most personal and resonant projects of 2025 with her zine-style collection titled “Homebound.” Through a series of illustrations resembling diary pages, she charts her life moving between Pakistan, the UK, and Canada. The series deals with homesickness, identity, belonging, and resilience—common themes for the diasporic experience.
Anwar’s illustrations feature small domestic scenes—kitchen tables, street markets, bedrooms—with minimal text. Her palette shifts from warm earth tones to cooler shades depending on the emotional tone of the scene. The drawing style is loose and impressionistic, reflecting memory rather than exact documentation.
What gives “Homebound” its emotional power is its authenticity. The viewer is invited into Anwar’s private world without sentimentality or spectacle. The project was widely shared among online communities and immigrant advocacy groups and was eventually picked up by a publisher for wider distribution. In an age of global mobility and fractured identities, Anwar’s illustrations offered something rare: a quiet, steady presence.
Project 6: “A Machine’s Memory” by Kento Hayashi
Japanese illustrator Kento Hayashi closed the year with one of the most conceptually intriguing projects: “A Machine’s Memory.” Using a unique workflow that blended AI-generated visuals and hand-drawn overlays, Hayashi sought to explore the question of memory in the digital age. He trained a custom AI model on his childhood sketches, then used the outputs as a base layer for a series of final compositions.
The result was a body of work that felt disjointed yet nostalgic, mechanical yet deeply personal. Glitches, fragments, and distortions appeared alongside careful pencil shading and expressive line work. Hayashi’s final illustrations were neither purely AI-made nor purely handcrafted—they existed in the in-between.
The project sparked widespread discussion around the ethical and creative implications of AI in illustration. Critics praised its transparency and philosophical depth, while audiences found themselves unexpectedly moved by the collision of machine and memory. “A Machine’s Memory” was exhibited in both physical galleries and virtual reality spaces, capturing the hybrid spirit of 2025 illustration.
The Year’s Visual Legacy
These six projects offer a glimpse into the diverse, innovative, and emotionally intelligent world of illustration in 2025. They reflect not only technical mastery but also a willingness to explore difficult questions, embrace hybrid processes, and challenge traditional formats. Whether drawing from personal history, environmental awareness, speculative fiction, or digital experimentation, these illustrators have expanded the possibilities of what their medium can express.
As we continue this four-part series, we will explore additional projects that showcase how illustration shaped the fields of branding, editorial design, fashion, and interactive media. Together, these works paint a picture of a year where illustrators helped us make sense of a complicated world, one image at a time.
Bridging Art and Commerce in 2025
As illustration continues to evolve, its integration into commercial platforms has reached a new level of sophistication. In 2025, illustrators played increasingly vital roles in branding, packaging, editorial publishing, fashion design, and product development. Unlike earlier decades, where illustration was often seen as decorative or secondary, this year confirmed its position as a primary driver of communication and visual identity.
What separates this year’s top commercial illustration work from typical client-based design is the ability to blend individual voice with brand goals. Instead of compromising artistic authenticity, many illustrators found ways to enhance the visual language of companies and publications while maintaining a strong creative signature. This part of the series looks at six projects that demonstrate how commercial and editorial illustration can be as meaningful and inventive as fine art.
Project 7: “Ink Bloom” by Lena Park for Florera Skincare
Lena Park’s collaboration with the organic beauty brand Florera Skincare was one of the most visually striking product design campaigns of the year. Tasked with creating illustrations for their spring line of botanical serums, Park delivered a series of hand-painted floral motifs rendered in sumi ink and digital watercolor overlays. The illustrations were applied across packaging, in-store displays, digital ads, and limited-edition prints.
Rather than adopting the sterile, minimalist approach common in high-end skincare, Florera embraced the imperfect elegance of Park’s brushwork. The illustrations added a sense of craftsmanship and earthiness that aligned perfectly with the brand’s ethos of sustainability and tradition. The campaign was praised in design circles for elevating packaging to the level of fine art and contributed to a spike in sales during the first quarter of the year.
More than just beautiful visuals, Park’s work told a story of process and heritage, connecting contemporary beauty rituals with ancient botanical traditions through the language of illustration.
Project 8: “Common Threads” by Malik Rosario for Form & Function Magazine
In early 2025, Form & Function Magazine commissioned Malik Rosario to illustrate a long-form essay on intergenerational design practices in Latin America. Rather than produce simple spot illustrations or decorative page breaks, Rosario proposed a visual essay of his own—blending textile-inspired line work with figures, landscapes, and domestic settings.
The result was “Common Threads,” a series of full-page illustrations that functioned as both accompaniment and commentary on the written article. Rosario drew heavily from embroidery patterns and woven textures native to Central and South America, building compositions that mimicked the structure of handmade cloth. His figures were rendered in loose, looping lines, giving the impression that they had been stitched into the page.
Readers praised the emotional richness of the imagery, noting how the illustrations brought a tangible sense of continuity and care to a piece about inheritance and material culture. The project marked a turning point in editorial illustration this year, setting a new standard for immersive, thematically integrated visuals.
Project 9: “Soft Machines” by Mei Zhou for Locus Robotics
When Locus Robotics approached Mei Zhou to illustrate their upcoming innovation brief, they expected technical diagrams and clean infographics. What Zhou delivered instead was a poetic interpretation of robotics as an extension of organic systems. Her project, titled “Soft Machines,” visualized biomechanical concepts using abstract botanical forms, mimicking the flow of plant life and cellular processes.
Zhou created a series of illustrations that reimagined robotic limbs and AI networks as blooming systems—networks of vines, circuits, and arteries intertwined. Soft gradients, subtle motion effects, and an ethereal palette turned the dry subject of industrial robotics into something elegant and almost surreal.
Rather than present machines as cold and separate from nature, Zhou’s illustrations encouraged viewers to see a synthesis between the biological and mechanical. The brief, initially intended for internal stakeholders, became a public-facing document after positive reception. The illustrations were later adapted into motion graphics for a product launch video, helping Locus redefine how technology is visually communicated.
Project 10: “Threaded Realities” by Sofiya Rojas and Atelier Sato
A standout collaboration in fashion and illustration came from Peruvian-Japanese illustrator Sofiya Rojas and avant-garde fashion house Atelier Sato. Their project, “Threaded Realities,” was a multimedia installation combining wearable pieces and illustrated panels to explore the relationship between memory, material, and migration.
Rojas created a series of large-scale textile illustrations printed on silk scarves, jackets, and gowns. These visuals included maps, fragments of handwritten letters, plant motifs, and ancestral symbols—all collaged together in a rich, flowing style that defied linear reading. The garments acted as moving canvases, and each item in the collection included a QR code that linked to an online illustrated journal expanding on the visual stories.
The exhibition drew significant attention during the spring fashion cycle, not only for its aesthetic innovation but for the way it integrated narrative illustration into wearable art. Critics praised the project for advancing the idea that fashion can be a form of storytelling, and that illustration can exist beyond the page, merging identity, history, and design in meaningful ways.
Project 11: “Voices in the Frame” by Ari Levin for Public Archive
In the world of documentary storytelling, illustration is often used to fill visual gaps when footage or photographs are unavailable. In “Voices in the Frame,” Ari Levin collaborated with the nonprofit news outlet Public Archive to produce a series of illustrations documenting the oral histories of political refugees.
Levin’s approach was subtle and respectful. Instead of literal portraiture, he created symbolic tableaux that represented the essence of each story—a window with curtains blowing in the wind, a pair of shoes left at a border fence, a map carved into a child’s school desk. His linework was clean and monochrome, allowing the emotions to emerge quietly.
Each illustration accompanied an audio clip and transcript, and together they formed a deeply moving interactive feature. The project earned awards for digital storytelling and prompted new conversations about how illustration can serve as a form of journalism, not just support for it. Levin’s work reminded viewers that when used with care, illustration has the power to represent human experience with nuance and dignity.
Project 12: “The Taste of Memory” by Ren Okabe for Kinari Confectionery
Japanese illustrator Ren Okabe teamed up with Kinari Confectionery to rebrand their line of traditional sweets using a series of emotionally evocative illustrations. The theme of the campaign was nostalgia and sensory memory—how taste can trigger childhood recollections and feelings of home. Okabe was given complete creative freedom to interpret this idea visually.
His illustrations feature dreamlike kitchen scenes, quiet rural landscapes, and small objects associated with family gatherings—teacups, kimonos, tatami mats, childhood shoes. Rendered in a soft pencil style with faded pastels, each illustration feels like a page from a dream. Rather than focus on the product itself, the visuals suggested the emotion it might unlock.
Kinari used the illustrations across its new packaging, storefront designs, and in a short animated commercial. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and the campaign became a case study in emotional branding. Okabe’s ability to connect memory with product experience showed how illustration can communicate on levels that photographs or logos cannot reach.
Commercial Illustration as Cultural Bridge
These six projects exemplify how illustration in 2025 has matured into a powerful cultural and commercial force. Rather than being confined to galleries or children’s books, today’s illustrators are shaping how companies express themselves, how stories are told in media, and how audiences form emotional connections with products, services, and narratives.
Illustration is no longer treated as a secondary element or an afterthought in visual communication. It is central to the way we understand brands, policies, personal histories, and scientific discoveries. From printed packaging to digital storytelling, from fashion installations to interactive web features, illustrators are proving that their work is not only aesthetically compelling but also intellectually and emotionally essential.
A Renaissance in Fantasy and World-Building Illustration
In 2025, illustration reached new creative frontiers as artists dove deeper into fantasy, science fiction, and speculative storytelling. Long considered niche genres, these fields have now emerged as fertile ground for some of the most ambitious visual projects of the year. Advances in digital tools and 3D workflows have made complex compositions more accessible, while an appetite for immersive narratives in books, games, films, and virtual spaces has created greater demand for expansive visual worlds.
Illustrators are no longer just tasked with embellishing a scene or character—they are responsible for building entire ecosystems. This year’s standout projects explored everything from invented civilizations and ecological utopias to alternate histories and mythological hybrids. These works reflect a growing global interest in speculative storytelling as a lens for examining the present and envisioning the future.
In this part of the series, we look at six more exceptional illustration projects from 2025 that showcase the imaginative and technical range of artists shaping fantasy and speculative illustration.
Project 13: “Driftwake Atlas” by Myra Castelló
One of the most talked-about releases of the year in speculative literature was Driftwake Atlas, a richly illustrated book combining narrative prose, world-building notes, and visual lore. Myra Castelló, the Barcelona-based illustrator behind the visuals, created more than 120 pages of detailed maps, relic sketches, and character portraits for the book’s fictional archipelago—a group of floating islands powered by kinetic air currents.
Castelló’s illustrations blend watercolor washes with highly detailed ink linework. The world she depicts is full of floating markets, bio-luminescent forests, wind-powered cities, and creatures adapted to aerial life. Her style draws influence from historical cartography, Japanese woodblock prints, and contemporary concept design.
What sets Driftwake Atlas apart is how the illustrations don't merely accompany the text—they are part of the story. Readers are invited to decode symbology, study architectural diagrams, and explore field journals penned by fictional explorers. The project was a favorite at indie literary festivals and has been optioned for a visual adaptation in augmented reality, suggesting a growing trend of narrative-visual integration.
Project 14: “Echo Fields” by Theo Naledi
“Echo Fields” is a multimedia illustration project created by South African artist Theo Naledi for an experimental music video and accompanying visual EP. The project presents a post-apocalyptic savanna where memory itself is harvested as a resource. Naledi's role was to develop the visual identity for this surreal concept, producing both still illustrations and looping animated sequences.
Using a vibrant yet ghostly palette of purples, ochres, and acid greens, Naledi painted vast open plains interrupted by memory towers—organic structures grown from collective emotion. Characters wear translucent fabrics embedded with mnemonic patterns. Animal motifs reappear in strange forms, symbolizing lost ancestral knowledge.
Naledi’s style combines Afrofuturist visual codes with dream logic. The illustrations don’t aim for realism but for emotional coherence. Each piece feels like a fragment of a memory, drifting between beauty and decay. The project debuted on multiple music and art platforms and became a touchstone for discussions around decolonial world-building and emotional futurism in visual storytelling.
Project 15: “Flesh & Flint” by Rina Kadowaki for Thorne Studios
Japanese-American illustrator Rina Kadowaki collaborated with the indie game developer Thorne Studios to design the visual universe of their upcoming game, Flesh & Flint. Set in a mythic Stone Age world where creatures evolve from mineral spirits, the game required a complete reimagining of prehistoric aesthetics—something Kadowaki accomplished with astonishing detail.
Her illustrations for the project include environment paintings of petrified forests, weapon concepts carved from crystal and bone, and hybrid creatures that blur the lines between fauna and geology. Kadowaki developed a textured, painterly style using custom brushes made from scans of fossils and minerals. The result is a deeply tactile visual identity that feels ancient, yet otherworldly.
The concept art has circulated widely beyond gaming circles, gaining recognition in academic discussions on mythic archetypes and speculative archaeology. Kadowaki’s world-building stands out for its internal logic and cultural depth, proving that illustration in gaming continues to be one of the most fertile spaces for experimental visual storytelling.
Project 16: “Allegory of the Machine” by Ishan Khurana
Ishan Khurana’s series “Allegory of the Machine” explores a future where artificial consciousness experiences dreams and creates mythologies of its own. The project, first exhibited at a conceptual art fair in Berlin, consists of ten large-scale digital paintings rendered in hyperreal detail. Each piece illustrates a moment in an invented mythos, blending sci-fi aesthetics with Renaissance-style composition.
Khurana’s illustrations are haunting and grand in scope—androids seated in cathedrals of code, robotic animals partaking in rituals, synthetic rivers flowing through broken temples of data. The visual density in each piece invites close inspection, revealing hidden symbols and inscriptions. Thematically, the work asks what a machine might worship or fear, and whether spiritual longing is unique to biological beings.
This project resonated across both art and tech audiences, with tech ethicists, futurists, and critics all weighing in. “Allegory of the Machine” shows how speculative illustration can bridge philosophical inquiry and artistic expression, pushing viewers to imagine the internal worlds of entities yet to exist.
Project 17: “Skyward Prophecies” by Elina Haavikko
Finnish illustrator Elina Haavikko was commissioned to create a limited edition tarot deck inspired by Arctic mythology and climate disruption. Titled “Skyward Prophecies,” the deck includes 78 unique illustrations that merge traditional tarot symbolism with indigenous Sámi cosmology and speculative futures.
Haavikko’s illustrations are digitally painted in a restricted palette of icy blues, soft reds, and muted silvers. Each card portrays figures that are half-human, half-animal, embodying archetypes like The Seer, The Exile, or The Bloom. Instead of suits, the cards are grouped into four celestial paths, each governed by a natural force—Wind, Ice, Light, and Time.
The deck quickly sold out its initial run and was celebrated for introducing spiritual and ecological themes into contemporary illustration. Haavikko’s blend of historical motifs with visionary design made the project a favorite among tarot enthusiasts and design scholars alike. Her work exemplifies how traditional frameworks can be reimagined to address current environmental and cultural themes.
Project 18: “The Stillwater Project” by Omar Castillo
Omar Castillo’s “The Stillwater Project” is a personal visual essay set in a fictional town where time has fractured into isolated zones. Each house, street, and landmark exists in its temporal loop—some stuck in the past, others fast-forwarding into unknown futures. Castillo created the entire town through isometric illustrations that combine eerie architectural precision with dreamlike distortion.
Presented as a digital scrollbook, “The Stillwater Project” allows viewers to explore the town by scrolling horizontally, encountering narrative fragments and visual oddities along the way. The artwork is rendered in muted tones with occasional flashes of saturated color, symbolizing moments where timelines intersect.
Inspired by magical realism and psychological allegory, Castillo’s project was widely praised for its innovation in both form and concept. It was featured in digital art exhibitions and used as a teaching resource in visual storytelling courses. The project demonstrates how illustration can construct non-linear narratives with layers of meaning and spatial complexity.
Imagination as Method
Across these six projects, we see how illustration in 2025 is serving as a laboratory for imagination. Rather than merely decorating existing stories, these artists are building original worlds with complex ecosystems, histories, and metaphysical systems. They are using speculative imagery to explore questions of technology, ancestry, environment, and belief.
This branch of illustration also challenges conventional formats. From scrollbooks to animated loops, tarot decks to architectural visual essays, these illustrators are redefining how we consume and experience visual narrative. Their work invites participation, decoding, and emotional engagement on a level far deeper than passive viewing.
As world-building becomes an increasingly valuable skill across creative industries—film, gaming, literature, virtual design—illustration is cementing itself as the foundation for immersive experience design. It is the first draft of possible futures, a blueprint for what could be.
In the final part of this series, we’ll examine how illustrators in 2025 used their work to directly engage with communities, education, activism, and public space. These projects reflect illustration’s growing role not just as a form of creative expression but as a tool for social impact.
The Expanding Role of Illustration in Society
In 2025, illustration stepped outside the gallery, the screen, and the printed page to become a direct force in public discourse and civic engagement. Illustrators collaborated with schools, museums, grassroots movements, and municipalities to create visual experiences that not only communicated ideas but also cultivated community, equity, and empathy.
This year, illustration proved its strength as an accessible language—a visual tool that crosses literacy barriers and cultural differences. Whether it was through murals, educational materials, campaigns for social change, or participatory projects, artists used their skills not just to imagine new worlds, but to help shape this one.
In the final part of this series, we examine seven projects that showed how illustration in 2025 could inspire dialogue, connect generations, and activate public space in meaningful ways.
Project 19: “Our Stories on the Wall” by Dunia Seriki and the Johannesburg Children’s Collective
Illustrator Dunia Seriki’s partnership with the Johannesburg Children’s Collective resulted in one of the most impactful mural projects of the year. Titled “Our Stories on the Wall,” the project invited children from underserved neighborhoods to narrate personal experiences, which Seriki and her team translated into vibrant mural illustrations across several public schools.
Working with over 200 children, Seriki developed a visual storytelling process that centered the children's voices. She treated each child’s input as a scene within a larger visual narrative, transforming walls into storybooks filled with family rituals, animals, city dreams, and folklore. The aesthetic was bold and colorful, using simplified forms that mirrored the expressive quality of children’s drawings.
The project not only beautified the school spaces but also gave the children a visible stake in their environment. Parents, teachers, and local leaders praised it for fostering pride, identity, and emotional safety. Seriki’s murals demonstrated how illustration can empower communities by making their stories seen and celebrated in public.
Project 20: “Pages for the People” by Luis Ferreira
In São Paulo, Brazilian illustrator Luis Ferreira launched a mobile library initiative that combined literature access with street illustration. “Pages for the People” transformed decommissioned delivery bikes into roving book carts, each hand-painted with thematic illustrations based on local legends, social justice history, and urban flora and fauna.
Each bike included fold-out panels that functioned as mini-storyboards and reading stations. Ferreira illustrated dozens of these panels, often based on interviews with community elders or activists. The project also distributed bilingual illustrated zines and hosted pop-up storytelling events in parks, plazas, and market streets.
What made this initiative unique was its dual mission: to distribute books and to tell stories that reflected the people receiving them. Ferreira’s visual storytelling brought art directly to the public without needing gallery walls or digital access. “Pages for the People” was lauded for its inclusive, bottom-up approach and became a model for similar programs across Latin America.
Project 21: “Caretakers of the Land” by Anjali Dey and the Assam Biodiversity Council
Anjali Dey, a natural science illustrator from northeast India, collaborated with the Assam Biodiversity Council to create an educational campaign focused on indigenous ecological knowledge. The project, called “Caretakers of the Land,” involved a traveling exhibition and illustrated materials designed for use in schools, community centers, and conservation programs.
Dey worked with elders and farmers from several indigenous groups to visually document sustainable practices such as rice terrace maintenance, seasonal planting, and forest stewardship. The illustrations emphasized interdependence between people, animals, and ecosystems. Her use of flat colors and symmetrical compositions made the work easily translatable into posters, books, and signage for wide public use.
The materials became especially important during regional debates over deforestation and resource extraction. By framing ecological wisdom through compelling visuals rooted in lived experience, Dey helped local voices participate more effectively in environmental decision-making. Her work reaffirmed the role of illustration in both education and activism.
Project 22: “What Justice Looks Like” by Devon Rice for The Equity Lab
In the United States, social illustrator Devon Rice developed a powerful campaign for The Equity Lab, a nonprofit focused on racial justice education. The project, “What Justice Looks Like,” visualized the principles of equity, abolition, and restorative justice through illustrated metaphors and scenarios that were distributed across schools, advocacy platforms, and civic workshops.
Rice’s work moved beyond slogans to show real, nuanced alternatives to current systems. One illustration depicted a playground where rules were rewritten collaboratively by children and facilitators, representing participatory governance. Another showed a classroom led by both a teacher and a community elder, symbolizing intergenerational learning.
The campaign’s strength came from its clarity and emotional resonance. Rice used a warm palette and dynamic figures to make difficult ideas approachable and hopeful. His illustrations became core materials in equity trainings and public education programs throughout the year. “What Justice Looks Like” showed how visual storytelling can help envision and communicate complex social change.
Project 23: “Hidden Labor” by Claudia Marquez
“Hidden Labor” is a powerful illustrated essay and exhibition created by Claudia Marquez, documenting the experiences of undocumented domestic workers in North America. Combining reportage, oral histories, and delicate pen-and-ink drawings, Marquez’s work was published in both digital form and as a touring installation across universities and community centers.
Each illustrated panel focused on a different aspect of invisible labor—caring for children, cleaning homes, cooking meals, enduring surveillance—and presented scenes from real-life testimonies. Marquez layered image and text in ways that encouraged slow looking and deeper empathy.
One particularly striking illustration showed a woman folding laundry while holding a phone to her ear, flanked by floating speech bubbles filled with worries about immigration raids and separated families. The composition invited viewers to see care work not as a simple task, but as a site of emotional, legal, and physical vulnerability.
“Hidden Labor” was widely recognized for its intimate, non-exploitative tone. Marquez gave her subjects dignity and depth, proving once again that illustration can be a powerful documentary form.
Project 24: “Draw the Vote” by Samira Gul
With low youth voter turnout an ongoing issue in many democracies, UK-based illustrator Samira Gul designed a civic engagement campaign titled “Draw the Vote.” The initiative aimed to encourage participation through illustrated infographics, animations, and posters tailored for younger audiences.
Working with election commissions, student unions, and digital platforms, Gul created visually concise guides to voter registration, ballot formats, and local political processes. Her illustrations were friendly and minimal, featuring a recurring character named Dot who walked users through each step of the voting process.
The campaign was deployed across social media, print, and even on digital bus stop billboards in several cities. Analytics showed measurable increases in awareness and first-time voter registrations in areas where the campaign ran. Gul’s work demonstrated that when designed with clarity and empathy, illustration can make bureaucratic systems feel navigable—and even inviting.
Project 25: “Where We Belong” by Amina Kaba
Amina Kaba’s public art project “Where We Belong” transformed the sidewalks and alleyways of Marseille’s immigrant neighborhoods into story trails. Using stencils, wheatpastes, and chalk, Kaba illustrated stories collected from families about migration, love, language, and resistance. Each narrative fragment was tied to a location—an apartment building, a school gate, a bakery—where that memory had taken place.
The project operated as both urban mapping and collective healing. QR codes embedded in the illustrations allowed passersby to access fuller audio versions recorded by community members. Kaba’s style, blending Islamic geometric patterns with soft portraiture, gave the work a quiet strength.
“Where We Belong” made memory visible, anchoring intangible cultural histories in the very spaces where they unfolded. The project was eventually documented and archived online, ensuring the stories remained accessible even after the physical illustrations faded. It stands as a testament to the role of illustration in reclaiming public space and affirming identity.
Visual Storytelling with Purpose
These final seven projects illustrate how, in 2025, illustration became more than a visual delight—it became a form of service. Whether empowering children to see themselves on the walls of their schools, helping communities tell their histories, or making civic systems more accessible, illustration showed its unique ability to combine clarity, beauty, and purpose.
Artists in this field are not just observers or stylists. They are educators, bridge-builders, activists, and translators of complex ideas into universally understandable images. As global challenges demand more empathy and creative problem-solving, illustration has proven itself not only capable but essential.
Looking across all 25 projects in this series, it is clear that the best illustration work of 2025 was not defined by a single style or format. It was defined by intention. Whether speculative or documentary, commercial or community-based, these projects used the language of image to illuminate, inspire, and connect.
The future of illustration is not only bright—it is expansive, deeply rooted, and boldly imaginative.
Final Thoughts:
If there’s one truth that emerges from looking across the best illustration projects of 2025, it’s this: illustration is no longer confined to the margins. It has evolved from a supporting visual form into a central narrative force—one capable of holding complexity, delivering emotion, and building entire worlds, both real and imagined.
This year, illustrators stretched their work across industries, platforms, and cultures. They merged analog and digital techniques, told stories rooted in both local memory and speculative futures, and turned their skills toward everything from climate education and public art to personal mythologies and global game design. Their work didn’t just respond to the world—it reimagined it.
We saw illustration not only as a tool for delight or storytelling, but also as a mechanism for empathy and access. In classrooms, murals, zines, and online campaigns, illustrators helped simplify complexity, soften hard truths, and spotlight voices often left unheard. These artists didn’t wait for permission to define what illustration could do—they expanded its function with each project.
Perhaps the most striking development was the collapsing of boundaries. Between personal and public, fiction and fact, image and interaction. Illustration in 2025 became less about style alone and more about experience, about what it feels like to live in another person’s story, whether that story takes place in a neighborhood, a mythic realm, or a digital future. And that empathetic bridge—the space between artist and viewer—is where the real power of illustration now lives.
As we move forward, the challenge will be to sustain this momentum. To make sure the illustration remains not just visible, but valued. To ensure that artists are compensated, credited, and supported as their roles grow more interdisciplinary and impactful. And to continue cultivating a global illustration culture that welcomes difference, nurtures experimentation, and rewards risk.
The 25 standout projects of 2025 are not the end of a journey—they are a snapshot of a discipline in motion. One that is more inventive, more purposeful, and more essential than ever before.