We check in with fun Antwerp-based illustrator and designer Sam Vanbelle

Antwerp-based designer and illustrator Sam Vanbelle knows their way around shapes. Take any one of the illustrator’s vibrant, playful images and before long you’ll have deciphered a circle, a rectangle, a host of triangles taking the form of a round head, the body of a car and the pointed collar on a shirt. There’s something of the primary school exercise book about their style in that respect, but with their developed approach Sam picks out the minute details of their cheeky characters and uses these – the picture on a keyring or a recognisable shoe – to elevate the image. The artist is also a dab hand with hand-drawn type, animated GIFs and infographics, as clients Monocle and Wall Street Journal will testify.