From dreamy illustrative scenes to dynamic photography, meet top talent from JSR's roster

Date
11 January 2017

London creative agency JSR represents accomplished and emerging artists in the fields of photography, illustration, CGI and moving image. From its wide-ranging roster of talent, It’s Nice That has hand-picked a few exciting creatives you really have to meet.

Carla Lucena

With its sugary pastel tones and dreamy imagery, the work of graphic designer and illustrator Carla Lucena is nostalgic but with a clean, contemporary edge that makes her highly commissionable. That canny approach was most likely influenced by her background working for the likes of Ogilvy & Mather and McCann Erickson, creating campaigns for big names such as Coca Cola and Perrier. She was also recently selected for Lürzer’s Archive’s list of the 200 best illustrators worldwide 16/17.

Since she set out on her own, Carla has been using her skills in richly coloured and polished vector illustrations to create artwork for The Sunday Times Travel Magazine, British Airways, EMI, Molton Brown and Estrella Damm. For British Airways, she was asked by ad agency BBH to illustrate a campaign for a new flight connection with Peru, inspired by vintage travel posters. Her illustrations draw on the colour palette of Peru’s heritage textiles, depicting iconic scenery, flora and fauna from the country in beautifully retro style. Another commission for luxury hotel Martinez expertly conveys the sun-soaked, peachy architecture of Cannes.

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Carla Lucena

Satoshi Minakawa

Satoshi Minakawa had established a strong reputation in commercial photography in Japan before he left for London in 2005 to study for an MA in Photography at the London College of Fashion. Now, he cleverly fuses the two. Splitting his time between Tokyo and London, Satoshi shoots for advertising agencies, sports and fashion brands, including Vogue Japan, Nike, Asics, Timberland, Audi, Land Rover and Guinness, and he recently shot for Issey Miyake’s AW16 collection.

Alongside his commissioned work, Satoshi has a striking collection of personal projects that caught our eye. From powerful and dynamic portraits of dancers mid-jump, to surreal scenes and conceptual experiments with light and movement, there’s breadth to his subject matter with a dramatic style that ties together his portfolio.

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Satoshi Minakawa

Raid71

Chris Thornley, otherwise known as illustrator and art director Raid71, harboured a long-time passion for comics and graphic novels that can be seen in his work. Now, whether it’s for film posters, editorial commissions or brand campaigns, Chris brings a filmic quality to his pieces. His illustrations are jaw-droppingly intricate and multi-layered, capturing the overwhelming detail of a cityscape or natural panorama. Still, however busy they may be, the compositions are carefully put together to tell the story and draw the eye with perspective and clever use of colour.

The artist has worked for Lego, Gap, Levis, Hearst, Hasbro, Mercedes-Benz and Little White Lies, to name a few. Raid was also named on Lürzer’s Archive’s list of the 200 best illustrators worldwide 16/17.

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Raid71

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