Travel Book Seoul

Raphaël Urwiller and Mayumi Otero, the two artists behind Icinori, capture the beating heart of the South Korean capital, immersing themselves in its customs and performing arts, its layers of history and moments of everyday life. They illustrate the many details that make up the life of the city: residents' rhythms, the movement of the street, traders, shopping, cosmetic surgery salons, street food. "Seoul is an organic city, with astonishing creative energy and great visual elegance, as seen in its powerful design and sophisticated signage. Good taste is everywhere, sometimes a bit crazy, but universal. It is a mix of the baroque and the modern," say the duo. Icinori is a studio of designers, visual artists, screen printers and publishers founded in 2007 by Raphaël Urwiller and Mayumi Otero while they were still students at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg. Since then, they have been traveling, exploring, observing, illustrating and drawing together with a breath-taking attention to detail, displaying the sort of meticulousness that typifies only the most passionate of artists. They have published around 30 books and their work has featured in leading newspapers and magazines including Le Monde, Les Inrockuptibles, The New York Times, Forbes and The New Yorker. The Louis Vuitton Travel Book collection is an invitation to real and virtual voyages. In its pages, the illustrations of renowned artists and promising young talents tell the stories of the cities and countries they have visited. The creative worlds on show are highly diverse: during their travels, these artists from various corners of the world were free to choose their mode of expression, from painting and illustration to collage and manga.