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In the spotlight
Huba is a Lahore-based visual designer, illustrator and animator creating bold, playful worlds rooted in South Asian culture. Her practice moves between illustration, graphic design and art direction, reimagining familiar characters, stories and visual references through her distinctive “Desi Bloom” language. Her work is vibrant, expressive and unapologetically desi, while always looking for a new way to see what feels familiar.
What’s your story?
I was a soft and quiet kid, but I always had a lot to say. Growing up as a woman in Pakistan, there weren’t always many spaces to express those thoughts, so I became very observant. I paid attention to people, their emotions, behaviors and the things they didn’t necessarily say out loud. As I grew older and started finding my own voice, I realised that my opinions did matter, and that realisation shaped the way I approach design today. I naturally put myself in other people’s shoes and think about what they might feel, understand or connect with.
I found something very similar in Pakistan’s visual culture. We have so much to offer, but for a long time I felt that our visual language wasn’t being given the space it deserved on a global design stage. That stayed with me. I didn’t want to simply make “Pakistani-looking” work; I wanted to explore what a contemporary Pakistani visual language could actually be.
Working as Design Lead at Generation, one of Pakistan’s leading fashion brands, became a huge part of that journey. I was given the freedom to experiment and really explore what Pakistani visual culture could look and feel like today. It allowed me to move beyond making individual pieces of design and start thinking about identity, how we could build something recognisably Pakistani while still feeling modern, bold and relevant.
That experience shaped me in a much deeper way. It taught me to look beyond the surface of things and to understand what lies underneath before translating it visually. That’s something I carry into everything I make. I think there is always more to people, cultures and ideas than what we see at first glance. And perhaps that’s the biggest thing my own story has taught me: even the quiet ones have a lot to say.
Your work spans illustration, graphic design, photography, and more. How did you find your creative voice across these different mediums?
NCA was where I really began experimenting. Studying Visual Communication Design meant being exposed to its many different branches, from typography and photography to experiential design and 3D work. I was constantly exploring different ways of communicating an idea.
That instinct carried into my professional work at Generation. Working across different departments such as, graphics, photography, textiles, art direction and more, taught me how each part of a campaign comes together to build a strong visual identity. Because I was involved across so many stages of the process, I got to experiment with photography, art direction and even modelling, while also understanding how the creative pipeline worked from one department to another.
But illustration became my favourite. As someone who was quiet at an early age, I think it became the perfect medium for me to express all those different layers. I love how immediate and personal it can be. I can take an idea straight from my head and build an entire world around it. It gave me a language that felt very instinctive to me, and eventually became the medium I felt most connected to.
Your work has a distinctive visual language. How would you describe your artistic style, and what ideas, emotions, or stories do you hope your work evokes?
I’d describe my work as conceptual, playful and expressive; a visual language I like to call Desi Bloom. I love starting with an insight rooted in Pakistani culture and reimagining it through a contemporary, often whimsical lens.
I like taking familiar cultural references and giving them an unexpected personality, whether that’s a Pakistani mermaid, a cupid, or a bold, sassy modern woman. I want the work to feel familiar yet surprising, and to make people smile, relate or look at something they already know in a slightly different way.
A big part of that is creating space for women to see themselves with more personality, freedom and expression. I want my work to feel unapologetically desi, but never confined by what we traditionally expect “desi” to look like.
Looking back, which project or piece in your portfolio feels most meaningful to you, and why does it stand out?
There are two projects that feel particularly meaningful to me, for very different reasons.
The first is my Fire Mermaids artwork, which I created for what was, essentially, a sale campaign. Sale campaigns can often become quite predictable, usually just a block of red with a discount slapped on top, and I wanted to challenge that. Since these ads are reaching women at a moment when they’re already highly engaged with fashion and looking for a good deal, I saw an opportunity to give them something more visually exciting.
The artwork brought together two opposing elements; fire and ice, which felt very representative of me and, in many ways, the duality I see in Pakistani women. There’s rage and softness, strength and playfulness. I used melting ice roses to represent shedding old identities, alongside bold, fierce mermaids and playful accessories. I love that I was able to take something as commercially ordinary as a sale campaign and turn it into something with a much stronger visual and emotional narrative.
The second is my breast cancer awareness campaign. Breast cancer is such a difficult and uncomfortable subject to talk about, and I wanted to make the experience of engaging with the message feel as approachable and friendly as possible. The campaign turned fitting rooms into a safe, private space for women to pause and check themselves, using the familiar act of checking the fabric and details of clothes as a reminder to check their own bodies too.
What made that project especially meaningful was the response afterwards. Multiple breast cancer organisations reached out to collaborate and take the message further. It showed me that when an idea is rooted in a genuine human insight, design can move beyond being something you look at and actually become something people engage with.
Are there works by other artists or designers that have particularly inspired you, and why?
I’m really inspired by work that manages to feel deeply rooted in its culture while still feeling completely contemporary. Boomerang Studio is a great example of that for me. I love how they use South Asian characters and give them so much personality. They’re expressive, playful and recognisably desi, but placed in worlds that feel modern, whimsical and unexpected. That balance between cultural familiarity and contemporary storytelling is something I’m constantly drawn to.
Reza Abedini was one of the first designers whose work really stayed with me. He played such an important role in shaping a contemporary Iranian graphic language, and I’m fascinated by his bold, almost destructive compositions, intense typography and chaotic layouts, but also by his ability to create incredibly controlled compositions. His work has been a huge inspiration for how I approach Urdu typography and layout. It made me think about how much of our own Pakistani graphic design language has been diluted or lost through globalisation, and how much potential there is in reclaiming and reinterpreting it for today.
I also really admire Lucia Pham. Her work feels modern and ethnic at the same time. It’s incredibly bright, bold and energetic, but also organised in this beautifully chaotic way. I love the personality in her illustrations and how she creates entire worlds that feel playful without losing their visual structure.
What’s a piece of work you wish you had created yourself?
What about it resonates with you?
One piece of work I genuinely wish I had created is JKR’s KFC rebrand, particularly the Bucketverse illustration work. I loved how they brought together illustrators from different parts of the world and allowed each artist’s cultural background and visual language to become part of the brand.
I would have loved to represent Pakistan, specifically Lahore, in that project. It feels very close to the kind of work I aspire to make, taking something globally recognisable and giving it a local personality through illustration, characters and storytelling.
It also reflects where I see my own work going: building contemporary, playful, bold worlds that are rooted in our culture but don’t feel confined by it. I want to make Pakistani illustration that can sit confidently on a global stage while still feeling confidently ours.
Learn more about KFC Bucketverse campaign here: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/jkr-kfc-graphic-design-project-150626
Thinking back, what advice would you give your younger self?
I’d tell my younger self that finding your own voice is one of the most important things you can do. It’s easy to look at how other people work and assume that their process, methods or path should work for you too, but everyone finds their own way of making things.
I’d tell her to trust her instincts, experiment until she finds what feels natural, and not measure her process against someone else’s. There isn’t one right way to be a creative. Your voice comes from figuring out what works for you and having the confidence to own it.
What would your dream collaboration look like, and who would it be with, living or not? What excites you about that pairing?
My dream collaboration would be with Nazia Hassan. I would love to build her entire visual language, ranging from posters, album artwork and merchandise to animations and music videos.
She represented Pakistani music on a global stage while creating an identity that felt fresh and modern for her time. I’d love to reinterpret that spirit through my Desi Bloom visual language (playful, bold, colourful and rooted in South Asian culture).
I’d want to create an entire visual world around her that carries the energy of her music, while bringing it into a contemporary space. It would be such a fun opportunity to take something iconic from our past and imagine what it could look like today.
What role do you think art and design play in shaping culture, conversations, and the way we see the world?
I think art and design are much more powerful than we sometimes give them credit for. They influence what we notice, what we remember and even what we consider normal.
Especially in a place like Pakistan, visual culture carries a lot of meaning. The things we see in advertising, fashion, packaging, social media and public spaces, alleys, all contribute to how we understand ourselves and each other.
Design can reinforce existing ideas, but it can also challenge them. It can make a conversation feel less intimidating, make an invisible issue visible, or simply show people a version of themselves that they haven’t seen represented before.
That’s the part of design that interests me most, when it moves beyond aesthetics and actually becomes part of culture.
What project, or idea, are you most excited to explore next? What’s next for Huba?
I’m most excited about expanding Desi Bloom into a world of its own, not just as a collection of illustrations, but as a recognisable visual universe with its own characters, stories and personality.
I want to keep developing it, exploring new formats and collaborations, and eventually take it onto a global stage. My goal is for someone to see a character, a colour, a world or even a small visual detail and know it belongs to Desi Bloom. I want to build something that can grow beyond me and become its own little world, one that represents South Asian culture through a visual language that feels fresh, relevant and distinctly mine.
As for what’s next for me, I’m giving myself more room to experiment and create work that feels representational of the culture and communities I come from. I want to follow ideas without needing to know exactly where they’ll lead, collaborate with brands that challenge the way I think, and keep building a practice that allows me to evolve. I’m entering a phase where I’m less interested in defining myself by a title and more interested in seeing what I can create and what conversations it can spark at a global level.