Profile – KiKi

KiKi
Illustrator / Sustainable Columnist

From Japan and based in Berlin ・Germany since the summer of 2016. She studied character design – Illustration & Animation at Kyoto University of Art and Design. After graduating, worked for 3 years as an assistant to the manga department of Kyoto University of Art and Design. Currently, I am working as an illustrator in magazines and books, have also a series of columns on sustainability and vegetarianism in several media.

My illustrations are greatly influenced by my childhood memories in a small Japanese village rich in nature where I was born and raised. I learned about Intuition, sensation, and many colors formations there and met characters hidden in nature.

Linkedin / instagram

※As a sequela of sudden deafness that developed at the end of 2021, I have a recruitment phenomenon (Deafness in the high register/ auditory hyperesthesia) in my left ear, so sometimes difficult to listen. When talking I may ask again.

My story

We don’t have any transportation, one hour drive to the nearest store by my father’s car. Anyway, my home town is a really small village with really beautiful nature. When I was a child, it was great entertainment to play endlessly with paper, color pens, and the fantasy world of my head.

Since there was no high school closeby, I left my home to go to the one in another city. I had to be independent of 15 years old and drawing illustrations with the fantasy world of my head became mental support for me.

Clients

Embassy of Germany -Tokyo, Japan / Süddeutsche Zeitung Familie – Munich, Germany / Tandem APP – Berlin, Germany / ELEMINIST magazine – Tokyo, Japan / BE-PAL magazine – Tokyo, Japan / veggy magazine -Tokyo, Japan / etc…

Awards

World Web Article Award 2019 / writes publisher prize
– Tokyo, Japan. As a supplementary prize, my essay joined a book and published in 2020

Kyoto University of Art and Design Graduation show 2012 / Character design department Outstanding Student Award
– Kyoto, Japan

Press

TANDEM TALES: FROM LANGUAGE EXCHANGE TO ART EXHIBITION

Current column series

Young Germany / Client: Embassy of Germany -Tokyo, Japan
Official web magazine of Embassy of Germany in Tokyo.

Currently my column: “Sustainable Life in Berlin”

ELEMINIST / Client :trustridge Inc. – Tokyo,Japan
ELEMINIST is a guide for a sustainable lifestyle. ELEMINIST means “Enjoy Lifestyle & Minimal”, it’s coined word.

Currently my column: With the theme of a sustainable lifestyle,
I’ll write about my experience living in the city of Berlin
how this common with my experience growing up in a small village in Japan.