Quiet Work

I bookmarked a bunch of Heng Swee Lim’s illustrations the other day. She’s from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and draws these small, careful things—planets with expressions, a cloud holding a rainbow pencil, a remote control drawn like it deserves a portrait. Nothing loud. Nothing straining for your attention.

What works about them is that she’s not trying to decorate anything. She’s just observing. A remote control is a remote control, but she’s drawn it in a way that makes you actually look at it, which sounds simple but isn’t. The restraint is what does it—the muted colors, the precise lines, the refusal to push anything further than it needs to go. You can tell she cares about getting it exactly right.

I can spend time with work like this. Something about the quiet doesn’t exhaust you.