Illustrator Anna Kövecses’ naive and minimalist compositions

Date
10 April 2017

Hungarian-born illustrator Anna Kövecses has been a long-time favourite of ours with her digital collages made up of “organic minimalist shapes, bold colours and a touch of naivety”. Now working and living in a small seaside village in Cyprus, Anna first started illustrating after becoming pregnant with her daughter at 20. “I decided not to go to university and started reading books on art and design, experimenting with making logos. After a while I realised I needed a larger canvas so I made up imaginary illustration projects like poster and books cover and also illustrated an entire alphabet book for my four-year-old daughter in 2013,” explains Anna.

These self-initiated projects led to real commissions and Ann has been creating work for numerous magazines, brands and agencies, but she’s careful to find time to experiment and produce personal projects. “Editorial projects have always been strong corner stones of my work. They’re usually quite quick, give great freedom of interpreting an article and provide a wide and interesting palette of subjects like politics, social studies, medicine and culture so that I don’t stick into the single role of being a children’s illustrator,” says Anna. “I also love the fact that my art reaches a wide range of people, even those who’re not really interested in design itself. But still my artwork makes an impression on them, even if it’s in an unconscious way.”

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Anna Kövecses

To create her images Anna usually starts sketching in a notebook. “After choosing my favourite ideas I switch on my laptop and start to make things happen on the screen. I always try to be as simple and intuitive with my shapes as possible, I realised that over-thinking and perfectionism tend to kill the charm in the end,” she explains. “Choosing the right colour palette on the other hand is quite crucial to me so I can spend long hours with setting up different colour combos and looking for interesting results. I have a bad habit of sticking to good old schemes so as often as possible I’m reminding myself to be more experimental.”

Her recent portfolio update showcases work for Refinery29, Milk magazine, fashion label Nanushka and Mosaic magazine and there’s a mix between abstract patterns and compositions with more complex, more narrative-led scenes. “I love to focus on small details of our everyday lives, like a vase on a table or love between a mum and child. I’m not really looking for brilliant visual solutions, deep wisdom or clever use of shadows,” says Anna “I guess I’m just trying to make simple and often unnoticed details of our live be noticed and make you realise that even sitting at home and doing nothing can be beautiful.”

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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Anna Kövecses

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About the Author

Rebecca Fulleylove

Rebecca Fulleylove is a freelance writer and editor specialising in art, design and culture. She is also senior writer at Creative Review, having previously worked at Elephant, Google Arts & Culture, and It’s Nice That.

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