Each month we invite a creative from Behance to curate our social feed for a week. Our curator for August is Josephine Rais, an illustrator and designer who creates vibrant illustrations for global clients like Nike, Adidas, and Facebook. Josephine shares the inspiration behind the moodboard she curated for her takeover and gives us a peek into her creative process.

Josephine Rais has a thing for colors: “I love colors. I wish the color worlds of my illustrations were real!” Josephine has developed her vivid combination of pink, purple, and orange hues over the years through experimentation. “My color palette has developed over the years, mainly by trying out different color combinations, until at some point I found combinations that work very well for me personally.”

She continues to evolve her palette, expanding to new colors and combinations, and her chosen home of Berlin serves as her muse: “Berlin has played an important role in the development of my palette. The city is so colorful, just because of the graffiti on every corner.”

Illustration for Kurt Geiger by Josephine Rais

Growing up, Josephine remembers creativity and artistic expression being embraced in her home: “My dad had a workshop in the garden where I built beds for my stuffed animals and dolls and also humans out of modeling clay — very creepy ones though. They even let me paint three huge dragons on the walls of my bedroom. As a teenager I was obsessed with the idea of drawing and creating my own anime film.”

Even so, art was only considered a hobby in her family and she was discouraged from pursuing it as a career. Instead, she chose to study industrial design, a field that would allow her to combine her creative passion with the potential of a “real job.” “But even during my studies I always had the feeling that I wasn’t doing the right thing,” Josephine recalls. “It took until the end of my master’s degree for me to find the courage to take the path as an illustrator.”

Illustrations by Josephine Rais

Since finding her way back to her true calling, Josephine has used illustration as a medium to create her version of the world: “My work is my reflection of the world and how I would like to see it: a colorful, happy, pop utopia.”

Josephine has created artwork for international clients like Adidas, Facebook, Adobe, and more, but she also emphasizes spending time working on personal projects. “Because of my personal work, I have developed so much. They are my playground where I challenge myself, try new things, fail and start again and just do whatever I want. My personal work is my balance and also the inspiration for new projects with clients and it is very important for me in my process as an artist/illustrator.”

Adidas Mother’s Day Campaign illustrated by Josephine Rais

One personal project that stands out for Josephine is a series called A Matter of Perspective. It was her first attempt at depicting subjects from extreme points of view. “I think it is very important to change the way you look at things every now and then and to question your own point of view,” she shares.

A Matter of Perspective by Josephine Rais

Behance is an integral part of Josephine’s creative process. In the early stages of a project, she looks for inspiration from other creatives and curates moodboards to communicate the visual tone and direction. Towards the end of a project, Behance gives her a chance to reflect on her own work and process: “Behance is most important for me at the end of a project, when I prepare the project for the platform. This is when I review my own creative process and learn helpful lessons for new projects.”

Josephine titled her moodboard A Better Place, and describes it as a “collection of illustrations, design, photography and art that takes me to another, (maybe) better world when I look at it.”

See Josephine’s moodboard on Behance

“This is one of the most satisfying projects I have seen in a long while,” says Josephine of the Equinox Collection by Shane Griffin. “They take me right away in this dreamy world of colors and leave the impression that nothing bad will ever happen. They awaken the immediate desire in me for nature to take back what is taken from it and to make the world more colorful again with all its power.”

Equinox Collection by Shane Griffin

Josephine included several typography projects in her moodboard, including fellow Berlin-based designer Daniel Stuhlpfarrer’s Kritik typeface. Daniel created this unique and seemingly paradoxical typeface specially for the 11th issue of the Protocol Magazine. “I love this beautiful typeface and especially its concept. Kritik combines extremes: composition and demolition, constructive and destructive, united through soft forms with hard edges and sharp angles,” remarks Josephine.

Kritik Typeface by Daniel Stuhlpfarrer

If there was a single project that summarizes what inspires Josephine, she would call out UV-朱’s 3D odyssey Color Fantasy. “If someone asks me how I would describe my inspiration and my creative process I would show them these visuals from, because it is how I picture it myself. I love the mixture of abstraction and realism combined in the 3D characters and how the outburst of creativity is based on the inspiration from the surrounding and the other way round. On top of that, the colors are amazing!"

Color Fantasy by UV-朱

Follow us on Instagram this week as we share more projects from Josephine’s moodboard and give you an inside look at her illustration process. You can see more work by Josephine on Behance.