Gosia Herba’s Illustrations Bring It On

Working full time as an illustrator for more than 10 years, Gosia Herba is clearly having the time of her life. “I would like to tell you how great the life of an illustrator really is,” she once said in an interview with Sense of Creativity. “Every day brings new adventures.”

Scrolling through her Instagram page (which to date has amassed close to 50k fans), a sense of adventure prevails—both with her chosen subjects and her experimentation with texture, color, and form. After leaning on a more realistic style of illustration, Herba decided to turn to a simpler style, based on synthesis and abstraction. “I aim to create colorful, bold compositions based on geometrization and simplification of forms,” she explains.

Her minimal style seemed to have struck a chord, and Herba is recognized for both her personal and commercial work, having published children’s books and graphic novels, on top of features in magazines and commercial work for music labels and ad agencies.

Her inspiration comes from Gothic paintings and medieval sacral sculptures, as well as Japanese prints and contemporary comic art. But mostly, it’s simple human interaction which she finds stimulating. “My hobby is cultural anthropology, iconography,” she jokes. “I read a lot of stories about humans, their rituals and practices which are often weird and funny. So I guess human culture is my greatest source of inspiration.”

Follow her Instagram page for more.