When it comes to her illustrations, Jing Wei relies on her background in printmaking but builds upon it. Formerly the illustration director for Etsy, the Chinese-born Brooklyn-based illustrator loves experimenting with different mediums and pushes herself to take creative risks (which are the best kind of risks).
“Once you get in the cycle of doing job after job, you lose that sense of play,” says Wei in an interview with The Great Discontent. “I want to stretch myself. In order to do that I need to stop, make time, and take risks to do things I haven’t done before.”
“It’s interesting to hear from other people that I have a very distinct style because sometimes I feel like it’s still all over the place,” she adds. “When you’re starting out, there can be pressure to make your work look cohesive. And that can sometimes cause you to make drawing or design decisions that are forced, purely for the sake of consistency. I’ve found that the more I got away from that thinking, the more my style has strengthened.”
“My style has also naturally evolved through embracing various mediums,” she explains. Having mastered block prints, she first made drawings that catered to the process. “I didn’t work digitally until three or four years out of college,” she admitted. “It’s still a fairly recent thing for me, but when I learned it, I really embraced it. That gave my work a completely different look and feel.”
Here are some of our favorite creations by her:
