Peilin Li is an illustrator and designer at BUCK, based in Los Angeles. She has worked with major clients like Disney, Huawei, and Farfetch, and her work has been recognized by prestigious organizations such as the Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, Communication Arts, and the World Illustration Awards. Her experiences have sharpened her storytelling skills, leading her to combine illustration's emotional depth with graphic design's visual structure to create layered, intentional work.
Beautiful World
Image credit: Peilin Li
This illustration was created for Nongfu Spring and is based on Peilin's own idea of a Beautiful World. She revisited a drawing from her childhood, which was always filled with imagination—strange plants, unusual animals, and little fantasy worlds. She imagined stepping into that world and playing music with the creatures inside it, reworking the drawing in her own style as if having a conversation with her younger self. She used green as the main colour to explore how different shades can coexist in one image, creating a mood that feels playful, warm, and slightly mysterious.
1980s New York
Image credit: Peilin Li
This illustration captures the streets of New York in the 1980s. Peilin is drawn to the small shops along the streets—their unique storefronts, crazy posters, and neon signs glowing at night. The 1980s is a decade she's especially attracted to, with its bold fashion, wild electronic rock music, and love for neon lights. In this piece, two characters race through the streets in a pink convertible, while people on the sidewalks laugh, play, and interact. The illustration brings together the energy, chaos, and vibrant spirit unique to 1980s New York.
Spring
Image credit: Peilin Li
This illustration was created in spring and inspired by flowers blooming on Peilin's balcony. They made her slow down and notice the softer, warmer side of everyday life. She painted a scene of four women enjoying afternoon tea together, using pink and green as the main colours to reflect the freshness and vitality of spring. Flowers appear throughout the image, in the background, foreground, and even in the patterns on the women's clothing, so the figures blend naturally into their surroundings. This intertwining of people and nature captures small, beautiful moments from everyday life.
Winter on the Balcony
Image credit: Peilin Li
Winter on the Balcony was inspired by snowy winter nights. When it snows, Peilin likes staying at home alone and quietly watching the city through the window. The outside world feels distant and hushed under the snow, while indoors feels warm and intimate. She painted a girl standing on a balcony, watching the snowfall, using the warm indoor light against the darker, snowy night outside to capture a sense of quiet, solitude, and comfort. This illustration is about holding onto that slow, peaceful moment that winter nights often bring.
Modern House
Image credit: Peilin Li
This piece was inspired by Peilin's years of living with different roommates. It shows multiple moments happening at once inside a shared home—someone spending time alone, someone staying busy, all under the same roof but each moving at their own pace. The illustration is about the small, real details of shared living: the closeness from sharing a space, the occasional distance, and the warmth and unspoken understanding that form over time. By placing different rooms side by side, she captures how quiet, chaotic, humorous, and comforting moments can all exist together in everyday co-living life.
Ultraman
Image credit: Peilin Li
This piece is Peilin's attempt to reinterpret Ultraman in her own style. She drew inspiration from the visual language of Japan’s Showa era, using pink and orange as the main colours and incorporating silkscreen and riso-like textures to enhance the retro feel. Composition-wise, she chose an exaggerated low-angle view to give the character a stronger sense of power and drama, echoing Ultraman’s presence as a heroic figure. The image feels nostalgic while still reflecting her personal visual language.
Chastity & Lust
Image credit: Peilin Li
Peilin has always been drawn to relationships that feel opposing yet deeply connected, which led her to use Chastity & Lust as the theme. To her, chastity and lust aren't two completely separate extremes, but two states that exist within everyone. She chose two symmetrical female figures as the main subjects, with a mirrored composition to reflect that idea. Their different outfits represent chastity and lust, but each figure carries subtle details from the other, and their hands are intertwined to emphasise how these two forces oppose, influence, and depend on each other.
Twins
Image credit: Peilin Li
With this piece, Peilin wanted to create an illustration with a slightly unsettling feeling, inspired by the look of oil portrait paintings. Rather than showing anything clearly eerie, the image avoids specific horror elements. Instead, she focused on conveying a sense of emotional unease through the characters themselves. The two young girls are shown with subtly frightened expressions, which become the main emotional anchor. By limiting the palette to black and white, she removed visual distractions and invited viewers to focus on the expressions and the quiet tension beneath the surface.
Studio Dream
Image credit: Peilin Li
This illustration is Peilin's imagined version of an ideal studio. It’s a space set within nature, where she can create alongside friends, with two mischievous cats always nearby. She focused on moments caught in motion—a cat leaping onto the table and sending plates flying, water boiling in the background with bubbles rising and rolling. By freezing these small bursts of movement, she wanted to show a creative space that feels a little chaotic, but full of life and energy.
Find out more about Peilin Li.
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