The next in our “The Interview with an Artist Series” is with Tokyo-based, award-winning illustrator Emile Holmewood, aka Bloodbros. His work has appeared in leading global publications from the New York Times to London’s Guardian/Observer, and in public spaces like Madison Square Garden. You can view more of Emile’s work on the Début Art website.

Debut Art: Could you share a bit about the brief and your process behind book cover for What is Strategy?

Bloodbros: The cover for What is Strategy? was done after the inner contents of the book, so the characters, feel,  colour  palette etc were already determined. At first, the brief was limited to the copy that had to be included, which was quite a bit – as there are three contributors, and the book title is already quite long. There were also quite a lot of cooks on this one too, so a hierarchy needed to be established on whose opinions mattered the most. My first approaches were to show ‘inside Porters head’. Later on, someone decided all the characters needed to be present too (another challenge as there are seven!) Despite best efforts it went through a lot of iterations, but we settled on the one that included all the characters with a nod to some of the concepts inside the book, depicted as icons. I’d was inspired by Beatles yellow submarine ‘Parade’ style imagery from the 70s.

DA: What is inspiring you right now? 

BB: Living in Japan, I’ve discovered a plethora of 70s,80s, 90s manga artists. One of my favourites is Shigeru Sugiura, who was active from the 30s and pretty psychedelic by the 70s!

DA: What editorial project are you most proud of this year?

BB: A recent job for mindbodygreen about brain health. I just liked the simplicity of the compositions.

DA: Who is the client you’d most like to work for? What’s your dream project?

BB: I have two and can’t choose just one! The first being LEGO, as it has been such a big inspiration since childhood, and informs my love of geometry and systems. The other is my favourite author, George Saunders. He writes short stories most of the time, and I’d love work with him and illustrate some of his characters and scenes.

Image 1: What is Strategy? cover illustration published by Harvard Business Review. 
Image 2: Daruma beer can packaging for New Hokkaido Beverage Company.
Image 3: One in a series of illustrations on brain health for Mindbodygreen.
Image 4: Personal project.