M ALIK A FAVR E
“You are only limited by your imagination.” MALIKA
FAVRE
Table of Conte n t s
Abo
u t Malika Favre 6 C u r rent Works 10
Re c
u r r i ng Themes 12
Neg
a tive Spaces 18
Edit
or ial Works 20
About Malika Favre
Malika Favre was born on December 1, 1982. Favre is a French illustrator and graphic artist based in London. Her works style could be characterized by pure minimalism within Pop art and Op art, where it sometimes described as ‘Pop Art meets Op Art’. She combines simple illustrations with geometric patterns and has developed a unique style of illustration by using positive and negative space and colours, elegant layouts, especially of the female body and the curves.
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“When the shapes tell the whole story, we don’t need colors anymore.” oui oui baguette
Current Works
Currently, Favre is working predominantly on editorial pieces. She explains, “I do mainly magazines and collaborations these days. I have moved away from advertising and have decided to go back to what I did in the beginning, which is editorial.” She finds that the quality of the work is much better, and the briefs are much more interesting. Favre describes, “you get more creative freedom, especially the magazines I work with, like The New Yorker. You are sent an article, and that’s it—you don’t get told what to draw or what to do.” With all this freedom, she has created many recent pieces, such as “Frida,” “Red Sparrow,” and “Coding 101” all for The New Yorker.
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Recurring Themes
Malika Favre describes her style as very colourful, bold, and minimalist. “A lot of my personal work is quite abstract as I use a lot of patterns. Another thing that I keep coming back to is erotic [imagery] and the human figure, but now I’ve realised I also love architecture. It’s important to constantly source new inspiration and bring new things into my practice.”
Recurring Themes
She adds, “when I joined Airside [previous employer], I didn’t have a personal style as such but I think I had like a personal sensibility to simplicity and really bold colors. . . those five years actually really allowed me to develop my own voice, but without intending to so with no pressure and suddenly I had a really nice working atmosphere and just slowly and organically, it allowed me to become a fully formed illustrator. I’ll be always thankful for that.”
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“I stayed there for five years and I think that’s where I really, truly found myself.”
Negative Spaces
Favre enjoys playing with negative space, and she is very into simplifying things down to a minimum. As she puts it, “it’s a very graphic approach to illustration, telling a story in the simplest way possible. Using grids and structures allows me to start being free. When those are in place, for me, whatever I do is going to work because of that backbone.” The following pieces, one from “Modern Noir” and two from “Le Crazy,” utilize dark shadows in contrast to the lighter highlights, evoking deep emotions in viewers.
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Editorial Works
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Citations
“Malika Favre.” Communication Arts, 20 Oct. 2017, www.commarts. com/features/malika-favre. “Malika Favre Interview.” UMd, umd.studio/journal/malika-favreinterview/. Savi, Vesna. Moorhouse, Guy. “Malika Favre.” Malika Favre, www.malikafavre. com/. “Pop Art Meets Op Art by Malika Favre.” PopArt Studio, PopArt Studio, 23 Apr. 2018, www.popwebdesign.net/popart_blog/ en/2018/04/malika-favre-op-art/. YouTube, 25 Oct. 2016, youtu.be/XS1EEKvBjV4.
Malika Favre’s first work
Josephine Tov
Fiona Young