How do you avoid overcomplicating an editorial illustration? Ana Miminoshvili has mastered the art

For editorial illustrations, the brief is the article. The first step for Georgian illustrator Ana Miminoshvili is research, to gather as much information as possible and narrow it down to basically one sentence. That sentence becomes her memorable images for The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Spotify, GQ and Die Zeit, constructed inside of Photoshop with “a sprinkle of Illustrator”, she tells It’s Nice That. “But the most important part, especially in the editorial work, is sketching. I always sketch with analog tools, I have different sketchbooks for different types of work,” she continues. “With editorials I start with just putting down the keywords, it might not seem like a big deal, but it’s super helpful to my process.” Once Ana has a list of keywords, it’s then onto drawing, outlining in black fine liners and reworking them in Photoshop. Illustrating book reviews are her favourite – she can take an entire literary world and condense it in a way that book cover designers do: tell a story in a way that only images can.

Ana’s work sumptuously blends many elements together. From grainy gradients to digital glosses, it looks like the perfect mix between analogue and digital tools coming together to make something that sits right in between – futuristic in its colours and classical in its approach, much like how line artists would send their work to colourists, except Ana takes on all the major shifts. Her work, which covers topics such as climate change, queer identities and death, touches upon deep feelings and brings them to the surface. In one illustration, a woman looks out of an airplane window which is hourglass-shaped – transience and the passing of time come together to communicate an emotional uncanny valley we often find difficult to express. In another, a tombstone is visited by a pink origami bird – Ana keeps the fantasy low, the colours realistic, but the textures clash in such a considered fashion. “My goal is to always be straightforward and not overcomplicate things,” says Ana. “According to my mom, I’ve been drawing since before I even started talking.”