Who you should follow this International Women’s Day

This International Women’s Day, we hand the blog over to Illustrator and BA (Hons) Illustration graduate, Erin Aniker.

For International Women’s Day 2022, I wanted to highlight some of my favourite women-identifying creatives, some of who I also studied with during my Illustration course and time at NUA, who have gone on to become illustrators, designers and creative small business owners who I look up to.

1. Jess Nash

Jess is a super talented illustrator who I studied with at my time at NUA!

We’ve worked on and off together since graduation hosting lots of exhibitions, panel talks and events for an artist collective that has now come to an end but was still an amazing journey and Jess is such an incredible illustrator in her own right!

She’s created some amazing illustration work for Penguin Books, Vans and gal-dem amongst many others.

2. Faiza Hussain

Faiza was one of my housemates throughout my time at university! She studied textiles at NUA and has gone on to found her own hand-made candle company with the most beautiful fragrances, packaging and label designs!

3. Laurel Pettitt

Laurel is an amazing illustrator who I studied with at NUA and whose work I’ve been following online since graduating as we live in different cities now.

But I love watching what Laurel’s working on and creating from a distance through her Instagram updates and she makes the best comics strips about everyday moments in life which always make me smile when I read through them.

4. Yasmin Falahat

My old studio mate who makes THE most beautiful ceramic pieces, mostly inspired by fruit and figs and they’re just completely delicious and make you want to eat them!

She also makes these super fun and cute cat ceramics too which always make me smile when I see them. Everything she makes is by hand, by herself in her studio and she works really hard and so much love goes into each artwork.

She also posts lots of soothing process videos on her socials which I can def recommend watching to de-stress!

5. Nadina Ali

A really talented graphic designer, workshop facilitator and illustrator who creates really bold, uplifting work often with a powerful message behind it too!

6. Sarah Boris

I actually included Sarah Boris in my dissertation at university during third year about women in graphic design and illustration and later ended up becoming friends with Sarah and also working with her on some projects!

She’s an amazing graphic designer and artist in her own right with a beautiful eye for bold, graphic Typography and strong colour palettes!

7. Ragavee Balendran

A really talented graduate and Illustrator who I met at a workshop I was hosting in Shoreditch a few years ago and have kept in touch with since!

We’ve even worked together and I’ve commissioned Ragavee for a few illustrations for an old artist collective I was part of – she is happy to turn illustrations around super quickly and I’m always blown away by the speed she works at and the beautiful illustrations she comes up with.

8. Gizem Vural

One of my favourite illustrators, I love her use of colour, shape, pattern and form to create these beautiful, textured illustrations.

Erin’s #IWD2022 work

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