Below is a short extract from the article by Peter Lyle in Varoom 11 on Japan’s influence on British illustration, with images from the mentioned artists which don’t appear in the magazine.
A kind of Westernised Japanism has been a potent force in commercial British and American illustration since the 1990s.
In the club and fashion ads of Graham Rounthwaite, images of clubbers from the illustrator-art director’s native London were stylised in a Japanese-influenced style to render them otherworldly and impossibly cool. Another London illustrator who has risen to prominence more recently, Richard Wilkinson creates rich imagery in exquisite colours reminiscent of early 20th Century Japanese illustrated magazines, and his girlish feminine heroines are indebted to those of revered animation director and one-time Tezuka acolyte, Hayao Miyazaki. Ella Tjader’s illustrations prove the enduring power of Beardsley-style 41lines, but infuse them with colour and style that connects them to contemporary hipster tattoo culture. In the commercial work of New York design house Thunderdog, a quasi-Japanese style has been applied to toys, walls, tattoos and corporate identities for clients as all-American as Ford, Pepsi and Dell – proof that Japanism, as a stylistic tendency, is now fully integrated into our visual and commercial culture.
Ella Tjader
Graham Rounthwaite
Graham Rounthwaite
Richard Wilkinson
Thunderdog
Thunderdog
Thunderdog