Costa Rica-based illustrator and graphic designer, Adriana Esquivel, injects color and texture into her playful designs, creating colorful illustrations that ooze with humor and warmth. “I love using color and texture to set the mood of an illustration,” she once stated in an interview with Ballpitmag. “More often than not that mood is cheerful, but sometimes a little sarcasm slips in there.”
Inspired by both nature and culture, her illustrations are very character-driven, introducing a wide variety of goofy, sometimes wonky, characters. Each of her works begins with a vision Esquivel wishes to accomplish, which is then translated onto paper.
Her work is a mixture of digital and analog, with gouache, India ink, fineliners, and colored pencils among her tools. “I like how versatile digital illustration can be and how it allows me to have a giant toolbox at my disposal on the go,” she says.
And if she doesn’t have a clear idea, she turns to references. “It’s hard to predict how people will react to your work, but I hope it brings people joy,” she says. “I hope they feel good when they look at it and it bolsters their imagination.”
