Maki Yamaguchi

Maki Yamaguchi – Designer

Japanese award-winning illustrator based in NY. Old-school painter/drawing artist specializing in editorial and middle-grader books.

Overview

Hello!
I'm Maki, a Japanese freelance illustrator/artist based in NY, with 10+ years of experience. Illustration is my passion and I love editorial and book projects because they bring me new things to read and learn. I believe all written work is given life already, and my job is to create visuals that help them fulfill their purpose: to communicate with readers.

Trained in a hardcore fine art school by hardcore fine artists, I prefer to use watercolor, acrylic, pencil, ink.. all those classic media, and can go from very detailed, accurate, encyclopedia-like sketches, to much looser, expressionist paintings. My images are bright, vibrant, and quirky, and I always strive to exceed clients' expectations. My goal is to create unique, outstanding visuals to help the words communicate better and resonate longer in readers' memory.

Through more than ten years of my career as a freelance illustrator, I've had opportunities to collaborate with clients all over the globe with wide range of professions -publishers, editors, writers, designers, business owners, musicians- for wide range of projects -editorial, books, websites, company logos, labels, packages, T-shirts, and so on. I enjoyed each one of them and I'm thrilled to see what our collaboration will bring me next!
Services
Fiction
Children's Literary Fiction Short Story
Non-Fiction
Cooking, Food, Wine, & Spirits Nature Travel Writing & Publishing
Awards
  • Society of Illustrators: Illustrators 58 & 63
  • Society of Illustrators of LA: Illustration 58 & 60
  • AOI World Illustration Award 2017: Shortlisted
  • 3x3 Magazine 2021: Honorable Mention
  • Communication Arts 2023 & 2017: Award of Excellence
  • Tapirulan Illustration Contest 2022 "Tilt": Selected for exhibition and 2023 calendar
  • American Illustration: AI42 Selected Winner
Certifications
  • BFA -Cooper Union School of Art

Work experience

Self-employed

Jan, 2010 — Present

TinHouse Magazine -Cover illustration for Volume 18, Number 4, Summer Reading issue
The Writer's Chronicle -Cover and inside illustrations for October/November 2016 issue
LDS Living Magazine -Inside illustrations for May/June 2018 issue
ContentsPower Corp (Korean) -Inside illustrations for children's workbooks (unpublished)
Y's Publishing (Japanese) -Inside illustrations for NY Benri Cho 10th anniversary issue
Y's Publishing (Japanese) -Inside illustrations for The Edomae Sushi book
Casper Skern (Danish) -De Glemte Guders Land
and more.

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