Shenzhen-based illustrator and designer Heather Zhou creates a vibrant digital illustration series of sea creatures with distinct personalities, building a fantastical underwater world full of odd charm and childlike wonder that draws from marine biology, fairytale and the people around her.
There is a friendly and childlike octopus. A lobster who proudly shows off its colourful shell. A quiet yet determined jellyfish. A playful sea snake that exudes lighthearted flexibility. Each character in Heather Zhou’s Under the Sea series has a distinct personality drawn from observation of real people as much as from marine life, creating a world where familiar human qualities surface in unexpected forms.
The series has been a long-held vision that Zhou only recently felt ready to realise, and the process of making it reconnected her with something she had been carrying for a long time.
“In a world of chaos and anxiety, I find relaxation in reconnecting with my childhood and creating work that shares a sense of pure joy,” she says.
The underwater world she imagines is a metaphorical space, one where creatures exist without the constraints of gravity, where colour is vivid, charm is strange and endearing, and the mood is one of effortless contentment. Working on the series brought back the imaginative, daydreaming spirit of a child growing up in a small town finding escape through her own inner world.
The collection is structured in three parts: individual character designs, each developed through multiple sketches exploring poses, expressions and colourways until the right personality emerges; scene illustrations that expand those characters into a fuller fantastical world of corals, mermaids and underwater palaces; and pattern designs that explore how the characters might extend onto products. The progression from character to world to surface gives the series a completeness that goes beyond a single illustration style into something closer to a designed universe.
Heather Zhou is an illustrator and multidisciplinary designer based in Shenzhen, China. Her practice blends poetry, playfulness and order across brands, products and spaces.
Website: xf-zhou.com Instagram: @heather_zhou_
Under the Sea. Digital illustration series. All illustrations: Heather Zhou.
