Design
Top 40 Indian Illustrators to Follow!
In the world of innumerable artists and their brilliant artwork, inspirations are everywhere. Follow the top 40 Indian illustrators and be a go-getter!
With digital art and illustrations picking up rapidly in the market, its time to be updated with it and know some of the masters performing it beautifully in their own unique styles.
Read through the list of best 40 Indian illustrators, know their styles and get inspired!
The senior designer for MTV India, Aaron Pinto is a multi-talented young lad, commonly known as Kidsquidy. He is not only a graphic designer and an illustrator, but also a drummer for two Mumbai based metal bands, Providence and Gutslit.
A true lover of music and an ever-ready challenge acceptor, he works with different bands helping them recreate visions to go hand-in-hand with the type of music they make, designing the brand merchandise for them and their album art work as well.
A graduate from NID in Animation Film Design, Manasi Parikh now experiments with illustrations, animations, textiles, painting, sculptures and spaces.
Fascinated by the fact that how everything in the world is woven together to create the existing social fabric, she loves understanding stories around her and documenting the same through her drawings.
Art and drawing for Manasi never called for a conscious effort to make things relevant, it all just fell into place, organically. She proposes that one should let the inner-self flow through illustrations.
A graduate from NID Ahmedabad, Abhishek Singh is an artist, graphic novelist and an animation film designer. He has worked for animation projects with Cartoon Network, a series of Virgin Comics and UTV in collaboration with Shekhar Kapoor and Deepak Chopra.
He believes in the fact that an illustration is all about a story and the story-tellers. For him, the character is the plot and the plot is the character. You can discover a character to tell your story by knowing his insights and following his tips here.
An illustrator, character designer and a concept artist, Aditya Chari, a B.F.A graduate from Sir J. J School of Art, has been on the team of many different movies for character designing. Not only is this, he has created artworks of varied kinds ranging from photoshop and demo portraits to nudes and rapid sketches.
Aditya has designed and made illustrations for major brands and big advertising companies like, Forbes, Mudra, O&M, MTV Asia and Leo Burnett to name a few. With a count of more than 1500 portraits tagged to his name, he is also the author of two art books, Portrait techniques made easy and Figure study made easy, used as study guides by students.
Exposed to many different cultures, Alicia Souza is a freelance illustrative designer residing in Bangalore. Loving to draw and never stopping, Alicia successfully and very easily transformed her passion for art into her profession of illustration and comic art. Her work has appeared internationally in children's books, magazines and news-papers.
After having worked for many different brands of reputed honor like Google, Yahoo, Tanishq and The Times of India to name a few, Alicia moved on to set up her successful quirky business venture to create a happy business that makes you smile wide!
Anand Radhakrishna is a freelance Mumbai-based illustrator. For him, the artwork is not about picking up a style and sticking through it, instead, he makes his artwork as a journey of surprises and discoveries.
His passion for storytelling in any medium got him to explore traditional mediums to express the mysteries and to enlighten the darkness that people and the world carry with them. His inspiration comes from masters like Moebius, Alphonse Mucha etc.
Having grown an interest in visual and pictorial forms while a student at the Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai, freelance Illustrator and Designer, Anant Kulkarni, went on to work with various publications and later taught as a professor at the same prestigious institute from where he graduated.
His art follows a simple ideology of engaging visual communication through basic shapes. Transforming objects into forms using geometrical shapes, he keeps his audience engrossed in the visuals, maintaining their curiosity.
Capturing local flavours in the complexity of a muted colour palette, Arshad Sayyed is a Mumbai-based designer and illustrator, graduated from Sir. J.J School of Applied Arts. Following his belief, "To fill every heart with art", Arshad has been successful in setting up his own venture, Wallcano, specialising in environmental graphics, space branding and graffiti.
He feels that for a designer it is important to stick to the roots while following the aspirations and moving closer to ones' dreams.
A fresh graduate from Sir JJ Institute of Applied Art, Ashish Subhash Boyne is an Illustrator and Graphic designer based in Mumbai who started freelancing while still at college. According to him, the world is full of opportunities, one just needs to know which and when to take one.
He has his own mantra for a bright freelance career and ascertains the fact that showcasing everyday stories in a refreshing manner can open doors to a 'not so every day' life!
Graphic designer, illustrator, and lettering artist, Chaaya Prabhat is an artist based in Chennai. She has worked on picture-book and digital illustration projects with numerous companies including Penguin UK, Hachette, Facebook, and Google. Her talents have received several laurels from Behance and Adobe.
Chaaya’s colorful illustrations are often inspired by artworks found within the leaves of books and also derived from her acute observation of the world, nature, and wildlife. Read about the pros and cons of working as an independent illustrator in India according to her.
Based in Bangalore, Febin Raj is a 26-years-old illustrator who graduated from the College of Fine Arts Thrissur and hails from Kerala. His affinity towards art began at a young age. This ardent love for fine arts only deepened when he was introduced to watercolors, which he believes has the ability to capture his emotions perfectly.
His minimal landscapes and unique color palette are often inspired by the beauty of nature. He travels extensively, and these are often reflected in his artworks. He is currently working as a Visual Designer at CasaOne.
Participating in state-level drawing competitions and winning trophies worked wonders for Gajanan D. Nirphale and served as his inspiration to earn a degree in Applied Arts and jump into the field of illustration.
Being a part of different publication houses like DNA and Zee Media boosted his confidence in experimenting with different styles across a wide range of projects like building storyboards, character designing and portraits.
An optimist by nature, he takes up challenges and considers them to be advantages as they help him up his skills in this fast-growing world, both personally and professionally.
Harshvardhan Kadam conceives, perceives and executes his experiences through visuals. He has illustrated characters for graphic novels and children's books and has also served as an Art Director for animation and live-action films for various production houses across India.
His artwork and illustrations are not just limited to books and papers but goes out to reach the community through one of most effective means, which is mural and wall art.
A graduate from the National Institute of Design, Lavanya Naidu is an illustrator and animator. She has had the opportunity to have been a part of the designing team at Google, Ted X, Cartoon Network and the likes.
An optimist about almost everything in her life, the same is reflected in her artwork as well. She wishes to spread the positive energy and induce happiness through work. She believes in taking up the work one is passionate about and allows for a persons' growth, both professional and personal.
Founder-director of LOCOPOPO Design Studio, Lokesh Karekar is a visual artist specializing in illustration and design. Having worked for design firms like Grandmother India and Alok Nanda, he likes experimenting with new tools and techniques like paper-art, collage, clay-modelling and others.
Lokesh's LOCOPOCO Studio believes in discussing the idea rather than too much referencing. The focus is on identity design, to create images and illustrations for a simple and luxury design.
With his career beginning as a computer operator, Lovely Kukreja did not give up hope and pursued his passion as a commercial artist. Now, with over twelve years of experience in Game Art and Content Management, he runs his own gaming studio, White Mice Media. He is also an independent art and design consultant with a specialisation in childrens' books illustrations.
In addition to his gaming studio, he paints different aspects of Indian mythology and sells merchandise products. While illustrating, he follows the principle of 3M's: Meditation, Motivation and Manifestation.
Meero Seth is a trained graphic designer from MIT Institute of Design, Pune. Her excellent skills in the field of illustrations got her an opportunity to intern at one of the in-demand brands, Chumbak. Presently, she is working in a Motion Graphic Design studio, Breakfast of Champions.
She follows trails of fun, curiosity, happiness and playfulness when working on her illustrations and feels that emotions are the most important factors to consider while creating balanced colour palettes. Her style is all about mixing the right colours.
A designer, visual artist and illustrator, Mira Malhotra is a NID, Ahmedabad graduate who started her boutique studio, Kohl, in 2013 which reflects Indian culture and heritage in all of its works.
Following the idea of 'Glocal', she merges the local content with a global treatment to contemporarize it, yet allowing the design to openly speak Indian. The thought that cultures cannot be preserved in glass cases, got her moulding them in a way that they remain to continue in a time-relevant manner.
Graduated in Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J.J Institute of Applied Arts, Mohan Sonawane has received various awards for his excellence in the field of illustration and graphic designing. His desire and passion for the field got him to develop his skills as a concept artist and also as an illustrator.
Spreading his knowledge of art with the world, he has shared a step by step tutorial on how to create a portrait with perfection.
Muhammed Sajid is currently based in Bangalore and working as a Creative Designer at Dunzo, He obtained his Bachelors of Fine Arts from Trivandrum Fine Arts College, Kerala. His works are inspired by culture and nature and as drawn to nature since greenery is tied to his childhood and home.
As a versatile artist, Sajid quickly adapts to various mediums and can work with ease in both traditional and digital. Sajid feels illustrations can be used to explain things we don’t really talk about!
Nithin Rao Kumblekar began his career as an Art Director for an advertising agency and started freelancing full-time from 2010 onwards. He is a graduate of Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat, Bangalore. He has illustrated for several national and international campaigns for companies such as Hollard, Intel, IBM, Lenovo, Pepsi, Brittania, Vodafone, Expedia, to name a few.
Primarily a digital artist, Nithin captures texture and emotions brilliantly. In his tutorial, he explains his thought process of how to bring festivity to your ideas. He has worked in several advertising agencies such as McCann, Ogilvy, and Triton
Pavan D Rajurkar is a Freelance illustrator and graphic designer residing in Mumbai, India. He graduated in Applied Arts from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Arts, Mumbai, and obtained his Master’s in Animation Film Design from NID, Ahmedabad. He has worked in JWT, Interface, RK Swamy, BBDO, DDB Mudra, Radio Mirchi, and several others in Mumbai and abroad.
His contemporary artworks are the result of constant experimentation and exploration as he strives to find new styles and mediums to enrich his illustrations. When it comes to the debate of the century; traditional vs. digital, he believes both are like the two sides of the same coin.
Parvati Pillai discovered her passion for illustration during her Bachelors of Animation which got her working for Chumbak and Tinkle. She pursued her Masters' from Finland which opened up many doors for her to be a part of publications and brands like Google and its likes.
She believes in the fact that trying out new styles and forms of illustration are key for a designer to grow at one's craft. She is ever-ready to take up challenges and perform story-telling through different styles of illustration.
Pooja Bhapkar is an illustrator and graphic designer, experienced in branding and packaging, who now works in finding motion graphic solution with a UK based studio.
If understood in depth and detail, the Hindu mythology is informative and scientific. According to Pooja, history and mythology relate to our present and it is an illustrators' task to modernise the traditional in a creative form, for it to become a story to be understood by everyone.
Prateek Vatash has specialized in 3D and 2D techniques and combines them together to form vivid and vibrant artworks. The use of bright neon colors and incorporating unique textures offer a distinct style to his artworks. He is a graduate in Visual Communication and Graphic Art from Srishti Institute of Art, Prateek shares an interest in various fields such as typography, architecture, and interior design.
He is currently based in Bangalore and has worked with several renowned companies across the globe such as Apple, Adobe, and Wacom, to name a few. His works have been exhibited in several galleries nationally and internationally.
Design entrepreneur, artist and Motorcycle nomad, Prakash Thombre captures a whole lot of views during his travel-times and later uses them as references to create the masterpieces seen in his portfolio.
His 25-year career spans an array of various media & industries, blending UX design, visual design, branding and technology to create compelling user experience across form factors.
He believes in finding spontaneous narratives in real life personalities and loves developing them on his canvas.
A self-taught painter, painting since she was only 11, Pracheta Banerjee is a young, Kolkata-based illustrator and comic book artist, currently pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Multimedia at St.Xavier's College.
Obsessed with the eerie side of beauty, which leaves a heavy and mysterious impact making one curious about the unknown, her works are inspired from Greek Mythology and basic human emotions. Always exploring ways to convey stories through her works, she feels that the Dark Causes Delight to Create Eerie Beauty!
Graduated in Communication Design from Abhinav Kala Mahavidyalaya, Priyanka Karyekar is an illustrator and designer based out of Pune. She believes that for an artist to truly evolve, one must follow the 3 H's which are the Head, the Heart and the Hands, symbolically representing ideation, empathy towards people and skills to execute ideas respectively.
She uses a concept-based approach for her artwork as she theorizes that there needs to be a strong concept behind every illustration.
Rahul Arora is a Mumbai based freelance digital illustrator. Believing in the fact that being versatile is a game changer in digital art, his spectrum of working typologies in the field of design is pretty wide, varying from illustrating for advertising to character designing, story-boarding, environment designing and comic books illustrations.
Keeping his clients in the centre of any project, Rahul feels that the designer is responsible for conveying the idea of the client through the creation of styles matching the needs of the clients; thus the style of the designer is a reflection of the clients' sensibility and vision!
Ranganath Krishnamani is the founder of Liquidink Design Studio and Bangalorean at heart. He has worked with several brands and studios and has led design teams at Adobe, Redbus, Oracle, and Symphony Services.
His artworks are often inspired by heritage, culture, and the mundane life which he artfully captures in his sketchbooks and illustrations. Look at his original and vibrant illustrations in which he captured the look and feel of Coronavirus included pandemic. Krishnamani obtained his Masters in Fine Arts from Chitra Kala Parishat in 2000.
A character designer, illustrator and storyboard artist, Ritaban Das has an experience of working in the animation & gaming industry for almost 9 long years and is presently working as an Art Director at Sparky Entertainment, an animation studio in Chennai.
His work is mostly character-driven, where he blends in humour and graphic designing, wanting to convey a story with every character that he creates. Ritaban as a visual communication artist feels that it is important to portray a complete story or image to the reader and keeping this in mind he tries to narrate stories in a single frame.
An animation designer from Symbiosis Institute of Design, Rohan Dahotre is a Pune-based illustrator who has an experience of working in the animation and gaming industry for about 2 years and is currently working with Chumbak.
Greatly inspired by nature, Rohan adds depth and detail through shapes and patterns to animal photos to give it a new identity.
Through his illustrations, Rohan attempts at enhancing the magnificence of the natural world, hoping that people will understand and respect these creatures and their habitat.
Producing work which is the result of the intersection of contemporary illustration, graphic design and art, Sameer Kulavoor is a Mumbai-based designer and visual artist. He is the founder and director of Bombay Duck Designs, an independent illustration design studio and self-publishers.
Featured and interviewed by many different publications, he has been on the list of GQ India - 50 most influential men for two consecutive years of 2015 and 2016 and he also made it to Forbes India – 30 Under 30 in 2013.
Shashank Mishra is an illustrator and concept artist with over ten years of experience in the art industry. Upon graduating from the College of Arts and Crafts, Lucknow, Shashank began honing his skills in several mediums.
As an artist, Shashank maintains a distinct difference between personal and professional artworks. The professional illustrations often focus on the technical aspects and are service-based, attending to the needs of the clients, whereas, personal artworks are his outlet and voice, thus maintaining focus on the expression. Shashank is currently working as an Art Lead at Zvky Design Studio.
With a Commercial Arts degree from L. S. Raheja School of Arts, Mumbai, Siddhi Ranade explored new styles and developed a taste for stories while working with Ravi Jadhav Films. Siddhi's illustrations are an art of tale-telling expressed through the use of colors which he derives from the life of his subjects.
His take on the field is that an artist needs to be up-to-date with the industry and that the artwork.
A Visual Communication Designer, Shaivalini Kumar primarily works with illustration and typography. She specializes in "illustrated type", an avenue of type design which combines the fields of illustration and graphic design. She is a firm believer of the fact that extraordinary designs are created by finding magic in the ordinary and mundane!
Through her work, she has been able to connect and communicate with people, engaged in different fields, from all over the world and has also been featured in many different publications. Confident about her work, she believes that you can judge books by the cover!
Shreedhar Sutar is a digital illustrator based in Mumbai. Bold strokes and vibrant colors set his sketches apart. He is a graduate from Vasai Vikasini College for Diploma in Applied Arts and is currently working as a freelance artist specializing in sports illustrations.
Shreedhar draws inspiration from sports and culture. In his tutorial, he explains how he depicts the speed, movement, and vibrancy of games with grace and beauty.
Shreya Gulati is an illustrator and an animator who graduated from the Institute of Design, Pune and is presently working as the head of design at RKSV. She is a person who enjoys a variety of things like eating street food, ogling old English architecture and playing with stray cats and she also brings this versatility in her work.
For Shreya, inspiration is not something that is acquired but it is the objects, visuals, words or anything that influence a person and seep into ones' memory. She is of the opinion that versatility and having a unique point of view goes hand in hand!
Tanmay is a primarily self-taught artist and gathered his knowledge in art through years of intense training and strenuous practice. His innate unbridled curiosity fueled his inspiration and imagination in his tedious journey as a concept artist. He is currently residing in Prague, the Czech Republic.
His career began in the year 2010 in a start-up online game studio and creating a world from fantasies and bringing it to life through paint is part of Tanmay Mandal’s job description.
Graduated from D.Y. Patil College of Applied Arts & Crafts, Pune, illustrator Yogesh Bhusare dreamt of creating masterpieces and hitting it big early by working towards his design and product brand since the day he graduated.
Working with various companies, he picked up tricks of the trade and was successful in launching his design and product brand AWWSOME. Loving to try out different and new styles, Yogesh feels that experimenting brings you closer to your masterpiece.
