Interview with designer Anne Cobai
These bold and colourful illustrations are the work of Perth based illustrator and graphic designer Anne Cobai. Her passion for music and popular culture shines through in her work, with many influences including contemporary music, tattoo culture, rockabilly, vintage pin-ups, iconography and Renaissance art.After a few years of trying to get her name out there, Anne’s persistence is shining through – as she says – in the improvement she’s seen in her own work. Anne prefers to work digitally with vector art as it allows her to experiment with different colour palettes, have close attention to detail – all with maximum impact.
You may have seen Anne’s work in the Semi Permanent Book, Desktop or AMMO Magazine.
Follow Anne’s latest work on her website and blog, and check out the awesome prints and iPhone cases in her online store.
How have you got to where you are today?
I studied graphic design at uni, and I now work full-time as a graphic designer. In my spare time I freelance and illustrate.
I only started illustrating in my spare time as a way to keep creative, and I didn’t even try to get my work out there. But slowly I started to show my work through my website and then by blogging.
I haven’t done any official courses in illustration – I’ve just kept at it, and over time have seen a big improvement in my work.
In a few words, describe yourself…
Young, creative, quirky.
What are you spending your time on at the moment?
Two exciting illustration projects. The first one is an illustration for an album cover of an amazing local musician. It’s really cool because I love music and I want to do more music-related graphics in the future.
I’m also working on an illustration for a magazine in America, they have a really open brief so it’s a super-fun project. Also, I just finished setting up my online store with Society6, and I ordered an iPhone case with my Señora Muerte illustration. It turned out really good, so I was stoked!
Do you have a ritual for getting into the creative mindset? Or a creative process?
My creative process just involves me sketching ideas on scrap pieces of paper until I find something that’s worth developing into a refined illustration. Once I have my idea, I then take some reference photos of faces and bodies and I start drawing the illustration on the computer. I usually spend quite some time on choosing the colours as they are important to my illustrations. You can see how I approach choosing colours on my blog.
What or who inspires you?
I get inspired reading about people who get to spend everyday doing what they love. Not just artists, but anyone who has doggedly pursued their dreams until they reach them.
I recently read a really inspiring book by Ruben Gonzalez, an Olympian athlete, who basically said that people are almost guaranteed to achieve any goal they set, as long as they don’t give up. Ruben wasn’t a gifted athlete and only took up the brutal sport of luge when he was 21, yet he has competed in four Winter Olympics.
What are you most proud of?
I feel really proud and happy whenever someone likes my illustrations enough to buy a print to hang on their wall.
I recently had a bunch of t-shirts screen-printed with my Cross My Heart illustration, and I held a giveaway on my blog for someone to win one. The person who won the tee was from The Netherlands, and they sent me some photos of them wearing the tee. That was the coolest thing knowing that someone on the other side of the world is wearing one of my designs!
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I always knew I wanted to do something art-related. There was a brief period when I wanted to become a detective, but after carrying talcum powder with me to dust for fingerprints and waiting for neighbourhood crimes to investigate, I realised that it wasn’t so exciting. I’ve always loved drawing and making things, so a career in illustration and design was just a natural progression.
