Ibrahim “Ibbi” Yussop

For Ibbi Yussop, learning how to build a personal aesthetic outside of the expectations of the industry and Brunei culture has taught him the importance of sincerity when it comes to design. If anything, this sincerity has equated to a playful, fun-loving style – drawing inspiration from wooden toys, mid-centry modernism and Eastern European graphics. From continually learning to always-making (despite the outcome) and community-led projects, Ibbi talks through how to make it as a creative – on your own terms.

What I do

My creative practice
I’m a Brighton-based, independent illustrator and graphic designer. I can never seem to decide between the two, or the order in which I mention either practice. I specialise in art direction and try to make things playful and sincere by bridging illustration and graphic design, from package design to posters, stationery and campaign identities.

Outside of client work, I’m also in an illustration collective called Miniminimini, where I sell original artwork with friends. Occasionally I attend art markets like Brighton Illustration Festival, where I had the pleasure of being this year’s Brighton guest.

Influences and inspiration
A lot of my work is inspired by wooden toys, mid-century modernism and Eastern European graphics; I collect a lot of printed materials, like stamps and art books – things that are somewhat immune to the mysterious algorithm and fleeting, trend-driven content. I’ve built a little specialised library since moving to the UK, with many of my books not available back home in Brunei. Some of my favourite are Match Bloc, Grafis Nusantara, Showa Modern, Design For Children and most recently, The Works of Taku Tashiro – found during a trip to Japan.

In terms of practitioners, I’d say Alex Tomlison, who runs Pigeon Post, and Vanissa Foo; I find their work sits nicely between illustration and graphic design. Some of my favourite works by Alex are his shipping and postal-themed bird designs, like the Postowl Service and Pigeon Post patches (which I have sewn on my overalls). Meanwhile, Vanissa’s Humana Hotel zine is full of beautifully designed and printed materials.

Growing up in an environment where graphic design felt like it had to be commercial, professional and serious to be accepted, I always look up to projects that prove that play has a place in the industry as much as it does in people’s lives. Dan Woodger put it really nicely during his talk at the University of Brighton: “Create fun, silly things. Fun, silly things make the world more fun and silly”. I think that’s something I keep in mind when tackling work.

My training
Most of the things I do on the computer were self-taught, so Photoshop, Blender, After Effects, etc., were learned over 10 years of looking things up every time I had an issue. To this day, I’m still discovering better and more efficient ways to do things.

In 2019, I started a course in Graphic Design at the University of Brighton; then the big lockdown happened. I took three gap years, during which I found a remote job as a game artist, before continuing my course and graduating last year. University taught me that there’s a lot more to the practice than churning out logos and branding guidelines. I worked more closely with multiple print and production processes, making sure to use the risograph printer as much as I could.

Favourite recent project
Royal Brunei Culinary’s 2025 Batik Boxes (Kek Batik or Batik Cake is similar to a tiffin cake, popular during Eid or locally celebrated as Hari Raya Aidilfitri in Malay). They reach out to a different local illustrator or artist every year for the boxes. The brief was three cohesive package designs centred around local architectural patterns and motifs in Brunei – this was well timed as I had been doing a small side-project called Arkib Corak (Pattern Archive in Malay) documenting the found patterns across the country not long before.

It was a great opportunity to push for something playful and meaningful, celebrating and contemporising a lot of ‘traditional’ patterns, both well-known and overlooked. The boxes were really well received, with my interview reel the most liked post out of all the yearly boxes they’ve done to date!

A day in the life
Good coffee that I brew and pour at home (remember to support your small independent local roasters everyone!) I occasionally go out with friends to have a little sketchbook session, or to window shop, browse local flea markets and rummage through books, old leaflets and trinkets for inspiration. Sometimes I go birdwatching when I’m by the park and feed the pigeons.

If it’s a stay-home deal, I enjoy spending time listening to music and realising the song I’m listening to could be a really cool soundtrack to some made-up movie scene in my head that I’ll try to animate in Blender or After Effects and leave unfinished for eternity. Or I’ll find something online that I really like, get inspired by it, tell myself “I want and can do that too!”, and start a brand new project in the span of 10 minutes – and have that unfinished for eternity as well. Or, I’ll play Helldivers 2.

A starter pack for my job:

'Coffee Time' illustration

How I got here

Starting my creative journey
I have always liked drawing since I was little, going through stacks of printer paper; I distinctly remember my mum always reminding me to draw on the other side. In hindsight, I think I just really liked making things and turning ideas into something tangible. I spent a lot of time with knock-off block toys, since LEGO was really expensive back then for us. I also had a photography and videography phase when I got my first camera, and a script-writing phase. I think all of those instances were a sign that whatever I ended up doing had to be creative. I then went on to study graphic design, after almost opting for architecture.

To this day, I’m always trying to understand and learn new ways to turn ideas into reality, what goes into making something ‘good’ and how I can do the same. I visit my local community workshop from time to time to try woodworking, and I even purchased a sewing machine to try out sewing. All these interests and lessons end up becoming a part of my wider creative toolkit – or what I like to call my playground.

Landing my first few jobs, clients and/or commissions
My first few gigs were marketing posts on Instagram. I used to make digital comics and original art around Bruneian culture after picking up a drawing tablet in 2016. The creative industry in Brunei was, and relatively speaking still is, in its infancy. Arts education is super limited, so not many people were making or exposed to original artwork then. Lots of artists and creatives had to rely on using certain topics to cater to a wider audience, often using local Bruneian humour, language, iconography and food.

Gradually, I started moving away from this and focused on developing a personal aesthetic, putting what I personally liked above what others did, regardless of whether people ‘got it’. I stood by my work. I like to believe this stood out in the local creative community; clients who stumbled upon my portfolio became interested, since what I was doing was not that common.

Ibbi's Eid Mubarak piece, 2026

Biggest challenges along the way
I think the most difficult challenge was trying not to be too precious about my work and unlearning what I thought I knew about graphic design. Designs for everyone are designs for nobody. A large chunk of that learning involved being paid to make things I don’t like or not being paid enough for the work, or both. I will forever keep those in the abyss of ‘projects not to put in the portfolio because I don’t want to ever do this crap again.’ What I started off doing and what I do now are very different.

I used to participate in logo competitions (I now no longer do this after recognising the ethical issues surrounding speculative work) and added lots of personal logo designs and fictional branding concepts to my portfolio. Agencies like Pentagram, Koto Studio and Shuka Design were the dream, and I’d spend lots of time doing case studies, but the reality sank in that the work didn’t align. A lot of the visual language and concepts I often pitched were simply incompatible with the clients I was getting; they were mostly corporate and lacked room to experiment. The most frustrating thing was being brought onto projects for my playful style, only to be told that my work was too experimental or playful.

The mental load was frankly unsustainable for the pay and what followed was a bit of an existential crisis. I stepped away from what I was doing to focus solely on illustration. No more branding and no more guidelines. I learnt to focus on smaller communities, movements and building personal connections; I built a new portfolio. Most of all, I learnt to be sincere. Eventually, it paid off – I finally found a comfortable style of work as an illustrator-designer.

My social media and self-promotion vibe is…
I think my vibe is very much, “Hey I made/discovered/worked on this thing last week, if anyone is curious!” I like making and sharing things, and if I have the time and am in the mood, showing the thought process behind what I’m working on. Social media is weird and I would not consider myself a content creator; thinking of documenting things for the sake of content is really tiring.

Three things I've found useful in my career:
Sites like It’s Nice That and AIGA’s Eye on Design (no longer active, but the archived articles are still valuable!) are great if you’re starting out. Creative work is very multifaceted, so it’s useful to learn and read about how work is perceived, what people have to say and how it affects real people or things. It also helps you to pinpoint and articulate what you’re interested in and how you can talk and think about your own work.

Rachel Emily Taylor’s Illustration as Heritage, Bruno Munari’s Design as Art and Briar Levit's On Design Feminism and Friendship have been interesting reads for me in understanding the relationship between my practice and an audience. Recently, I read In Conversation with Malaysian and Japanese Architects and Meanwhile Cities; these aren’t directly related to illustration and graphic design, but they gave me sincere insights into the thought processes behind work outside of big, established agencies.

Then, more generally, to know why things are done is more useful than knowing how to do things. It’s really important that when you follow a guide on anything creative, you understand the function behind every step. Once you contextualise every function, you can start making things that tutorials don’t exist for, and you can charge people for that.

My greatest learnings when it comes to making money and supporting myself as a creative:
Sometimes you do have to sacrifice charging your usual rate, or dare I say do something for free out of genuine passion – someone who will hire you might not ever have found your work if it weren’t for that one project you did in exchange for a cup of coffee. Don’t undercharge for projects or do things for exposure, but do it because you align with the person or their cause; sincerity is key.

I realise I get a lot of clients coming in because they saw my work somewhere else. I think it’s easy to rely on personal concepts and mockups, but they kind of just get stuck as concepts unless you have a big following or the mighty algorithm is in a good mood. Making work that gets published, travels and greets new people is more effective.

Lastly, talk with other creatives about money if you’re unsure about pricing or selling. When boothing and sitting next to other artists, illustrators and makers, I was surprised to learn how open people are about how and where they make their money, or where they print or make things to make their practice more sustainable. Every part counts.

My advice

My most useful career tips
In my opinion, half, if not more, of graphic design and illustration is the way you interact with people and their ideas; you have to be as sincere as you are confident. I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Rejane Dal Bello, and one of the most eye-opening things she’s said was, “You can work on your design for weeks, but the client will only spend a few minutes looking at it.” Put yourself in your client’s shoes – often they are not designers or illustrators themselves. It’s also useful to be involved in or to conduct genuine research into the projects you're working on outside of a creative role.

Next, shoot your shot. Seriously, sending an email or message to an organisation, event or individual that you want to work with does actually work. You won’t always get a yes or a response, but it’s never personal. Your chances are zero if you don’t try. 

Lastly, if you have friends who are also starting out, consider collaborating and pooling resources and skills. My friends and I formed a collective and shop called Miniminimini so that we could save on bulk packaging and shipping costs, and work together on areas that we’d have trouble with individually like copywriting or website maintenance.

Miniminimini online shop. Banner artwork by Eisen Wu, site design and logo by Ibbi.

What I'd say to someone looking to get into a similar role
Learn, learn, learn. Fall in love with all the new things you’ve learned – or don’t! Maybe there are things you don’t like, and knowing that is important too. Then make stuff and have fun while you’re at it. Make things from the heart. Talk about your work, then make even more things. Eventually, someone’s going to ask you if you could print that out for them to buy.

Look for illustrations or design projects you resonate with and ask how you can capture that feeling in your own practice. Find out what went into making them, who made them, what their favourite sandwich is, the movies they watch and the music they listen to.