A couple of months ago, we launched a competition to find a new design for our coveted Tote Bags. With hundreds of entries and a very difficult decision ahead of us, the team gradually whittled our favourites down until a final winner was chosen. This was Yuki Pan, for her beautifully intricate design which depicts seasonal produce sliced and diced using different chef’s cuts.
Supported by a background in architectural drawing, Yuki excels in detailed illustrations anchored with hidden narrations and interwoven storylines. Here we speak to her about her design inspiration, her recent work, and what she gets up to in her free time.
Katto (K): What's your background - have you always been interested in illustration?
Yuki (Y): I’m originally from Singapore and I come from a family of artists and craftspeople so I’ve always been interested in arts and everything creative since I was young. When I finished my undergraduate in architecture I knew I wanted to pursue a creative career in London and started working as a graphic designer. I love stories and storytelling - I’ve always been drawn to illustration and animation as a visual narrative and my favourite way to do that is working with external collaborators to bring their stories to life.
K: What was your inspiration for our tote design? What was the process from idea to final design?
Y: After reading the brief and the story behind Katto, I had an idea to showcase the art of kitchen tools without explicitly showing the tools. There’s a series by Epicurious called ‘Method Mastery’ that goes through every method to cut and prepare different ingredients that I wanted to evoke in the final design, showing the range of ingredients and preparation methods that makes cooking a creative outlet on its own.
I started off with sketching different types of cutting methods to see what could be visually interesting once reduced to monochrome lines. At that point I still wasn’t sure how I wanted to compose the design and experimented with arranging different cut vegetables when I was preparing meals to use as references - I really practised my knife skills that week!
Test sketches by Yuki
From this research I narrowed down a list of vegetables I wanted to show and used that sketch as a basis for the final artwork, although I did end up shuffling elements around more once I’d finished drawing the individual elements that make up the final design.
A composition sketch by Yuki
K: Beyond winning design competitions (!), what other projects are you currently working on?
Y: Earlier this year I started learning to work with clay and I’ve been playing with methods to apply my style of illustration to clay and sculpture, which has been a steep learning curve but fulfilling so far! Otherwise, I’ve just finished a series of illustrated single covers for a singer and frequent collaborator and I’m currently in the middle of an animation project for a very exciting client.
K: What does your dream career or partnership look like? / Where do you see yourself in five/ten years?
Y: My dream project is a massive outdoor mural! In the future, I’d like to be able to expand my design practice and open my own studio with capacity for much bigger, longer projects.
K: Do you have a favourite restaurant at the moment?
Y: Decimo - a spanish-mexican restaurant on the top floor of the Standard - the food is delicious, the atmosphere is lovely, and the interiors are utterly gorgeous.
K: What's your favourite thing to cook at home?
Y: I’m an avid home cook and I love trying new flavours and techniques all the time, which was what inspired the research and the design for the tote bag. I love noodles in broth of all kinds - pho, ramen, beef noodles, etc - it’s very satisfying to have a hot bowl of soup after all of the work to prepare the ingredients that build up the flavours. I’ve never made the actual noodles from scratch before but maybe I will eventually!
To see more of her design work, click here, or keep up with her on Instagram @yuquiche.