I'm Rumin Wu, an illustrator/graphic designer
graduated from Arts University Bournemouth in MA illustration, with several years of professional experience designing brands, packaging, and print across Taiwan and China. Currently based in UK, my practice specialises in expressive textures created through a mix of hand-drawn and digital illustration.
I’m into subdued and sensitive colour palettes with scratchy pen drawings. Inspired by animals, stationery, groceries, and ‘lovely’ things, my work covers a variety of contexts such as editorial, stationery, packaging, puzzles, surface pattern and more.
Awards & Exhibitions
Shortlisted Entry, The Batsford Prize 2022
We all live on earth-Taiwan Chapter, Oct 2022
Snapshot 22, Arts University Bournemouth, Bournemouth, 2022. Day Dream, Taipei Taiwan, Oct 2018
Featured in Military Village Color Reference Book Contact rumindraw@gmail.com
With the help of modern technology, the way people communicate is no longer limited to face-to-face contact, but more often they use chat and video on their mobile phones, which has changed our habit of communication.
By showcasing a series of three narrative illustrations, from far to near, people are looking for signals across the city. Inside the building, people have immersed themselves in the messages of their mobile phones.
Zoom in to the two windows filled with text boxes: there are two people who are physically close but still prefer to use mobile phones as the only way to communicate with each other. Is the text box of the mobile phone limiting our communication?
How can we make people feel the warmth and kindness through these text boxes? These are the questions that we have to face in this generation.
“Signal” was shortlisted in the Batsford prize.
In the distant future, the earth has not seen any rain for a long time. So many places have become deserts.
Humans are ready to migrate to Mars by taking the government’s spaceships. But there are no wild animals on the passenger lists of spaceships…
Picture Book
Wild animals can’t find any food in the desert. They start their journey to find some food. They are leaving their home. The animals move to the city.
There are no human beings on the road… The animals have been through a long journey, already starving for a long time… Finding food from the street.
The animals start to live in the buildings as shelters. They start searching for the things that humans left, like clothes. Trying to wear them like humans.
On the street, the animals are wearing people’s clothing. The animals find a way to live in the city. They help each other. They are the new citizens now.
Finally, the rain comes.
Far away from the city, the forest has almost disappeared, because of the rain, the planet starts growing. Without humans, step by step the earth is recovering by itself. We only have one planet.
Escape the Multiverse
Do we ever feel that life is becoming too stressful? Would it be less regrettable if we knew the outcomes of different decisions made in parallel universes? Following the cards around the multiverse, we will always find a universe that suits us.
These 14 picture cards can be placed in any order to create a sequential narrative. Almost infinite combinations provide endless storyscaping possibilities.
I designed the illustrations for the 14 cards and the whole package. The story is inspired by the multiverse. Each card has its own tale and universe. When you're having a bad time, want to escape to somewhere, imagine yourself exploring the potential of other worlds, give yourself time to journey between them, and experience various lives from the multiverse. Release stress from your life.
14 illustrated cards can be placed in any order to create a seamless scene. Almost infinite combinations of cards provide endless storyscaping opportunities.
With many games to play and millions of stories to tell, each turn of the card is a new adventure.
Where will the story take you?
A zine to express the feeling about escaping. Sometimes we feel lost in our lives, maybe self-doubt or someone said something which hurts our feelings. And we want to escape from the world or this universe. What I am drawing is to express some of my inner feelings. The inner me wants to travel around all the beautiful scenes and find my inner peace. When facing difficulties, it always feels stressful, but we can feel how big the world is and how small we are by travel. And something you struggle with means nothing anymore. I know we can't always travel somewhere, especially during the pandemic, so if we can't physically go somewhere, why not put the beauty scene in our minds? Imagine hiding somewhere in the corner of the world without any pressure or problem. Just enjoy the moment.
To make our hearts strong enough to face the difficulties of life.
There are no must-visit places.
Hidden in the corner of the city.
Animals / People
There are many scenes in life, whether it’s the streets you walk through or foreign scenes in movies, and even the universe a little further away. Each different environment weaves a different look into the world, whether it’s a person or an animal. The scenery will become part of the memory.
Four various design methods, including satin printing, embroidery, foil stamping, and 52g Bachuan paper for the interior, are used to create each of the four 2020 diary notes. Each cover features summer flowers, literary florals, stationery in two colours, and a fairly straightforward numbered version in order to appeal to a different demographic. Based on my personal experience and conversations with the product managers, I added various creative functional pages to the notebooks in an effort to expand their functionality.
I have designed bookmarks in different materials, from metal,wood, fabric to letter press, and I have gained understanding of the properties of each and the design considerations that must be made.
I used to think I couldn't draw the same characters for too long, but after doing the stickers, I found a lot of things to explore in drawing characters, like developing their potential.
A selection of classic characters with related thematic symbols to make them fun to wear.
The tote bag has always been an accessory item that I like to collect for myself. I always feel that a tote bag represents a person's personality or mood of the day, so I think everyone should have a few tote bags on their shelves that they can take out with them at any time.
I have always loved vintage wrapping paper and have made different wrapping papers to suit different themes.
I like to combine typography with product design, such as wrapping paper or this memo board clip. When designing this memo, I thought of many scenarios that people would use, such as meetings or casual doodling, so I created different functional sections for the memo pages.
When creating ten tea bags, I had many ideas. I felt that I could go with a geometric style. Each one is made of geometric shapes, but I felt it was a little monotonous, so I added some interaction with animals. According to the taste of each tea, I thought about ways to combine the character with the flavour. Some people can distinguish the flavour of the tea through the pattern at a glance, while others are hidden in the design. I think the picture is quite interesting.
The packaging is designed to be more portable and light to carry, like candy. The packaging is made of paper, and the pattern is created with sweets in mind using associated colours.
I created six characters for this Christmas series. I think the most enjoyable Christmas activity is exchanging gifts. All of the characters in the series are looking forward to Christmas.
I thought of words sent to a distant place while travelling. Each cover has a heart-warming sentence on the front. There is space left on the back for writing and stamps. Thus, travellers can share their memories and feelings with friends using chocolate tea pack postcards.
If 12 kinds of colours express different beautiful moods, what kinds of colours will result when they meet unexpectedly? “How vivid the heartbeat is”; the idea for the packaging comes from these beautiful words. I imagine the picture as a heart, coupled with the colour of the ink. The overall style is simple, and the only conspicuous colour is the colour block formed by the ink.
Mushrooms are an unusual grow-yourown crop that's increasing in popularity. Growing gourmet species like oyster and shiitake mushrooms in addition to the more common button mushrooms is possible with the help of mushroom growing kits, which provide simpler growing techniques.
Our team has designed a fun mushroom growing kit. In a humorous and fun way, making mushroom farming in the office a hip thing to do. Take off the lady and gentleman's hats, cut open the space bag and wait for the mushrooms to sprout, with a special two tear line design due to the growing period.
The layout of the poster content was adjusted to fit the size of different social media platforms, from banners, social media posts to website exposure.
Link
Light Hostel website
Taking the standard color of Light Hostel as the background color of the webpage, most of the customers of Light Hostal are the young generation, and the color matching and layout are more lively, while the official website is a drop-down page with up to three layers.
From the homepage, you can link directly to each branchs' subpage from the menu. The cover pages are divided by local features and colours.
The same drop-down page, with a hand-drawn sense of space for each room type, allows visitors to make more intuitive choices.
When I imagined the underwater pictures, I thought of adventure. When I first conceived the idea, I also thought about painting a scene in a forest, but I had painted animals in forests before. This time I wanted to take on the challenge of showing the world in the sea. Curious (the dog) goes on an adventure instead of us. While painting this, I thought of the movie Finding Nemo, filling the sea with various creatures and colours.
After painting this picture, I don’t know why I felt that this corgi should be called Curious . It may be like a human being - we are all exploring the world, full of curiosity. I really enjoy exploring the world, because there is so much to explore, from the bottom of the sea to the universe itself.
I have always wanted to create a world where animals and people coexist peacefully. I used to like the settings in the comic book Polar Bear's cafe . I wanted to show animals having jobs and living a normal life.
Inspired by Where's Willy . At the beginning, I wanted to draw many people hustling and bustling in the street. The city is based on Taichung City, but also includes fantasy elements relating to the United Kingdom. In the picture, there are characters like the Beatles and Sherlock Holmes. Because I had to paint many people, I also included myself and my friends in the picture.
I planned to design something for children to help them learn about the planets in our solar system through a puzzle. The cosmic creatures just represent some of the designer's strange ideas. I painted the background colour with watercolours to create a sense of light and shade. After scanning the image into a computer, layer by layer, I wanted to include animals having an adventure in my painting, so I drew a Shiba Inu exploring the space.
