Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimazu Yuko Shimizu

Award winning Japanese illustrator based in New York City and instructor at School of Visual Arts.

Mexico Bound…

Amarillo Poster
Day light savings time has started, but it feels like there is no end to New York winter. I am flying out to Mexico tomorrow. To Xalapa, a town I have never heard of, but looked really nice on limited information I got from internet search.Amarillo Centro de Diseño, a design organization located in this town had invited me to have a talk and a show for Mexican illustrators and designers.  If anyone who is reading this happened to be near by, please come by. Here is the info.

Amarillo asked me to create a poster to announce the talk. I wanted to make “Japan meets Mexico” theme, but wanted to avoid the common stereotypes. So, no sombrero, no cactus, no pyramid, no tacos and, sorry Marcos, No Chihuahuas. At the end I decided to go with, one of my Mexican obsessions: Lucha Libre. Amarillo means yellow in Spanish, so it totally looks like that’s my figher name, or something. Let’s leave it as that.

Posters are currently being printed one by one by hands of silk-screeners of Xalapa. I am very excited.

I will be back on Monday. I will let you know how it went.

Lucha
I downloaded bunch of Lucha Libre images for references and inspirations. Yes, including Nacho Libre poster!
Amarillo: Very Rough Sketch
Here is the pencil rough poster idea I created before proceeding to the next step.
Amarillo: Screen Anime
If you stare at this image for about 10 seconds, you are supposed to see the three color separation process I made for the silk screeners.
Amarillo
Amarillo space getting ready for the show. I get to see this space tomorrow. Beautiful tile work!