The World Inside a Giant Erlenmeyer Flask

Cecilia Gutiérrez García is an illustrator and designer from Seville, Spain. Her work combines traditional drawing techniques with bold digital colors. In her free time, she likes to read, browse the El Jueves market, and swing dance.

In her Zócalo Sketchbook, she puts nature under the magnifying glass—depicting it dripping out of pipettes and filling up test tubes. By using the tools of science to explore the natural world, she gives us one of the great gifts illustration can offer: making the familiar new again. “The way we humans see and …

tktk | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Flowering Fish

Zhiyu You is an illustrator and visual artist born in China and based in New York. Combining painting techniques and digital drawing, You’s artistic vocabulary is developed from her Chinese …

Fantastic Beasts | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Fantastic Beasts

Collette C. Curran is a concept artist and character designer who designs and illustrates for video games, clothing, children’s animation, and pinball machines. Born and raised in Southern California, she is a …

The Whitewashing of Mexico City’s Hand-Painted Signs

A Ban on Colorful Rótulos Is Making for a More Generic Streetscape

This April, the government of Mexico City’s central Cuauhtémoc alcaldía, or borough, mandated that all its rótulos—the hand-painted signs decorating street vendors’ kiosks—be erased. The colorful optical illusions, diverse typographies, …

Bite-Size Shanghai

Mi Young is a Chinese Canadian illustrator currently based in New York City. Young, who often draws from her own experiences as a global citizen, loves to explore characters and their interactions …

Looking Deportation in the Face

The Fence Between Tijuana and San Diego Reminded Childhood Arrivals of Their Exile—Until They Used It to Share Their Stories

 

 

The archive, it keeps growing. Another story. This time, Jorge. Yesterday it was Angel, the day before that, Ruben, Andy, Hector, Alex.

I first met Jorge in June 2017, at …