julian thom, illustrator in vancouver, helen siwak, folioyvr, vancouver, bc, yvr

Meet Julian Thom, our featured artist and the first illustrator to grace the cover and pages of Folio.YVR. As you move through this issue, you will encounter a Vancouver-based creative whose sketchbook has become a visual catalogue of pattern, silhouette, and structure long before it ever reached these pages.

Julian holds a BA in Design: Illustration from the Ontario College of Art and Design and an MA in the same discipline from the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland. You may already recognize his work through local brands such as Aritzia and Hills Dry Goods, where his holistic design philosophy, drawing on nature and found media, has found a public audience.

As you look closer at the pages ahead, you will notice a reportage-heavy illustration style at work, one where iterative sketches form the foundation for larger paintings and drawings. Found media becomes surface and substance both, layering texture and history into each piece and building a bridge between you and the artist. At the centre of it all is Julian’s fascination with how people, places, and architecture shape one another, an idea you will see echoed throughout his contribution to this issue.

Home

Julian Thom, Featured Artist: Pattern, Place, and Found Media