Communication Design School of Design
Adela Chan
I am an illustrator and visual artist interested in exploring culture, identity, and social change through my work. I focus on how traditions and stories shape our understanding of the world and how they evolve over time.
I enjoy working with both digital and handmade techniques, including watercolor, printmaking, clay, and mixed media. I love experimenting with different materials and styles to find the best way to express the themes I care about.
Through my work, I hope to engage viewers and encourage them to reflect on the connections between history, culture, and personal experience. For me, illustration is a way to tell stories that go beyond words and invite conversation.
The Silence Beneath Red Lanterns
This project reinterprets the traditional Chinese legend of the Nian Beast through a contemporary lens, presented in the form of a red envelope set. Each envelope features an illustration from a sequential narrative that traces the evolution of Chinese New Year customs—from the mythical origins of the Nian to the diminishing traditions in modern society. The eight illustrated scenes explore themes of fear, resistance, and cultural transformation, highlighting how collective rituals once rooted in shared identity have gradually given way to individualism. Through a fusion of folk motifs, symbolic color palettes, and modern visual storytelling, this work invites reflection on what is lost when traditions fade, and how myth can still hold power in today’s changing world.
The 51st State
This project takes the form of a fictional newspaper—an object that pretends to inform, yet quietly distorts. Through hand-drawn illustrations, manipulated headlines, and imagined narratives, I explore the absurdity and violence behind cultural erasure, colonization, and media framing.
What begins as a satirical take on the idea of Canada becoming the “51st state” gradually unfolds into a deeper reflection on Indigenous displacement, historical amnesia, and the soft power of cultural imperialism. The visuals borrow the language of news, but resist its authority, allowing illustration to interrupt, subvert, and reframe the familiar.
I am interested in how storytelling—especially when disguised as fact—shapes public memory. In this work, I use irony and visual contradiction to ask: who gets to write history? And what happens when it’s drawn instead?
Film Poster: The World of Apu
A screen printing poster produced for the film: The World of Apu
The inspiration comes from collage, combining the most memorable scenes from the film to convey its tragic tone and the inner world of the protagonist. By combining collage elements with sketchbook notes, the design presents the complex emotions and the characters.
