Faculty of Design

Illustration

Xintong Zuo

Book The River

"River" is a series of hand-drawn illustrations co-created with my father, inspired by his childhood memories and our shared hometown. The work translates personal memories and poetry into a visual narrative, exploring themes of family, identity, and cultural belonging. Created using Procreate and digital watercolor textures, the series combines Eastern aesthetics with a storybook style aimed at a broad, intergenerational audience.

“"The River" series is a collaborative project between my father and me. This body of work captures the childhood memories of two generations and our hometown. His family home was built on the banks of a great river, which has now been completely buried due to modernization. He wrote a poem for his hometown—a key that I use to connect to the distant and beautiful home he remembers, before the era of China’s industrialized, exploitative development”