I work with brands that need more than nice-looking illustrations — what they usually need is a system that holds together across a product, a campaign, and everything in between. I lead the creative direction and do the craft myself, which means things stay coherent from brief to final asset.

Alongside client work, I maintain a practice as an artist. My personal projects are research-led and driven by curiosity exploring cultural history, visual metaphor, and the tension between digital and handmade. This side of my work moves across digital illustration, animation, and mixed media. I'm drawn to projects that take time to understand where the research is part of the work.

My path here was a little roundabout — linguistics, art history, a decade in brand and communications before I committed fully to illustration and creative direction. In 2024, I completed Brand Strategy & Design at Central Saint Martins. None of it feels like a detour now. Understanding how language works made me better at visual narrative. Knowing how brands are built made the structural side of this work feel natural. And the research habit from academia never left — it just moved into sketchbooks.

kato@heykato.studio