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Illustrator Profile - Hannah K. Lee: "Being an interesting person makes you an interesting artist"

By Robert Newman   Thursday June 23, 2016

Hannah K. Lee is a Brooklyn-based illustrator and zine creator who also works as a senior designer at Nautilus magazine. She draws her work by hand, “with all kinds of tools,” and then adds color digitally. Lee has illustrated and designed an elegant and artful series of zines, and also creates vibrant lettering and typography. Her advice to artists staring out: “Finding your voice is far more important than finding a style.”

MY LIFE:

I’m a first-generation Korean American from Los Angeles. Being a child of immigrants has been a character-building experience indeed.

I studied literature at a liberal arts college in LA for a year, and then transferred to Parsons to pursue illustration in New York City, where I currently live. As of Fall 2015, I’m back at the Parsons Illustration department as an adjunct instructor. As of this Spring, I'm also the senior designer at Nautilus magazine.

MY WORKSPACE:
For my illustration, I work alone at my home studio, but I think it’s time to get a space to work bigger and experiment messily. For my design work, I'm at the Nautilus offices in the city, where I work collaboratively with an amazing team. It's been mutually informative and stimulating to have both!

HOW I MAKE MY WORK:
I draw everything by hand, with all kinds of tools—brushes, calligraphy pens, markers, pencil—and mostly color the images digitally.

My background is in illustration, and I also pursue lettering and typography. I don’t have any formal training as a letterer besides a 7th grade calligraphy class and some continuing ed classes I’ve been taking to fill in the gaps. I was also really into graffiti in high school.

When it comes to drawing letters, my skill set as an illustrator obviously comes in handy, but what I think is really important in order to understand and work with letterforms is a certain level of obsession with organization. The letters need to make sense in relation to each other, and you need to also consider certain formal rules before deciding whether you want to adhere to them or discard them completely. I enjoy working within those constraints, and figuring out how it integrates with my illustration work

Before attending art school, I wanted to be a writer of some sort, and my continued interest in language certainly informs my lettering projects. I’m conscious of word choice and the content of what I letter.

Some of my recent type and lettering projects include: Litany Against Fear, from Dune by Frank Herbert, “Happy New Year” for Google Calendar, and the cover of The New York Times Book Review.

MY FIRST BIG BREAK WAS A ZINE:
The comics and zine community is where I’ve met some of my best friends and collaborators. When I was living in San Francisco I traded my first zine at a small press fair with Ryan Sands, who introduced me to the Risograph machine and its printing techniques, and generously gave me access to his in his small studio in the Mission District. Ryan’s since started his own comics publishing imprint, Youth In Decline, for which I’m very excited to be the book designer.

As for commercial illustration work, I sent that first zine to a few blogs and got some internet buzz for it, which subsequently led to my first op-ed assignment for The New York Times.

I remain an avid self-publisher. Zines, comics, and other personal work is an important space for me to explore my identity and expand on my interests. I approach each zine as a self-contained mini art-book and strive to make each one a focused meditation on a theme. The subject matter ranges. I’ve addressed being broke (Shoes over Bills), packaging aesthetics (Mascots), creative neurosis (Everyone Else is Younger and More Talented), and intimacy (Close Encounters).

I consign and wholesale my zines to a few boutique bookshops in LA, New York, Seoul, and Tokyo, and I also table in a few small press fairs and expos every year. Not that I make any profit from this; it’s a labor of love. Being a part of a community that’s this inclusive, intelligent, thoughtful, critical, and creatively honest is a reward in itself, and I’ve grown tremendously as a person and an artist by participating in it.

My zines have also been acquired by the libraries of the MoMA, the SF MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Milwaukee Museum of Art.

MY CURRENT INFLUENCES:
Calligraphic specimens, illuminated manuscripts, Medieval religious art, contemporary religious paraphernalia—especially Catholic—signage, Milton Glaser, Saul Steinberg, Picasso’s ink drawings

MY MOST ADMIRED CREATIVE PERSON:
Annie Koyama, indie comics publisher and friend. I’m working on a book for Koyama Press right now that compiles my previously released zines along with new material. She’s an exceptionally kind, sharp, well-informed, and hardworking woman who inspires everyone around her to be great.  

MY CREATIVE INSPIRATION:
One of my teachers once told me, “If you’re going to rip someone off it’d better be old and obscure,” so I avoid looking at the work of my contemporaries for inspiration. I’ve been trying to be out in the world more, and not so chained to my desk. Journaling has also proven itself to be a good tap into my own creativity.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE OF WORKING ALONE:
Keeping a schedule and controlling my vices.

A MEMORABLE ASSIGNMENT FROM THE PAST YEAR:
A pair of mock book cover designs for a design class I took for fun this summer. It was for Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You. I enjoyed using illustration and type in tandem to solve a design problem.

DREAM ASSIGNMENT:
A series of posters for a concert hall, on which I could do whatever I wished.

MY FAVORITE ART DIRECTOR:
Matt Dorfman at The New York Times, who trusts his illustrators’ vision and gives them free rein. I appreciate his willingness to accommodate weird or unexpected ideas. I once offered a word-based illustration for an op-ed about Americans with restrictive diets eating in France. The focal point of this idea was the phrase, “Contains No Joie de Vivre,” referencing the language of food labels. The final was a stripped-down nod to package design and executed in calligraphy, I don’t think very many art directors would have let me venture so far away from a traditional illustration like that. He is also a delight to correspond with.

SOME OF MY FAVORITE ILLUSTRATORS:
I most enjoy work that conveys the artist’s personality and sense of humor. Kaye Blegvad’s work is incredibly smart and bawdy; I love the wit and warmth of Hallie Bateman’s comics and illustration; and Sophia Foster-Dimino’s work shows so much emotional depth and while demonstrating playfulness.  

HOW I PROMOTE MYSELF:
Internet presence has taken precedence over all other forms of promotion. I still send out postcards quarterly, but what gets me the most work is finishing a project and promoting it on social media, or getting it on a blog. Competitions and annuals seem more like a way to maintain visibility to your peers within your own industry rather than a successful means of promotion as it once was.

ADVICE FOR SOMEONE STARTING OUT:
Finding your voice is far more important than finding a style; and being an interesting person makes you an interesting artist, not the other way around.  

See more Hannah K. Lee illustrations, new work, and updates:
Hannah K. Lee website
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Instagram: @hannahkleeee
Twitter: @hannahkleeee
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