Illustrators in the UK

Illustrators across the United Kingdom keep their own pages current on British Artists, and a children's book illustrator and an editorial illustrator are answering different briefs from the first sketch, each artist the one adding new work to a portfolio that stays entirely theirs, whether that means a handful of spot drawings made to answer one article by a tight deadline or a full set of pages carrying a single story across an entire book. Both count as illustration on this listing.

Editorial illustration reacts to a text that already exists, so an illustrator working for magazines and newspapers builds a single strong image around someone else's argument, fast, and moves on. Children's book illustration runs the other way: a character has to hold its likeness across the whole book, so consistency of drawing matters more than any single striking image. Concept and character illustration for games and animation sits between the two, built to be handed on and redrawn by other people.

No district. Illustration training runs through the same art schools that teach painting and sculpture, among them the Royal College of Art, the Slade, Goldsmiths, Central Saint Martins and the Glasgow School of Art, showing graduating students' work in summer degree shows. Illustration itself stays a dispersed freelance trade: illustrators work from home studios across the country, while the publishers, agencies and magazines who commission them concentrate in London. Illustrators join the Association of Illustrators, the trade body that represents the profession.

A book portfolio should hold a character's likeness steady across its drawings; an editorial one should show range across subjects handled fast. Before commissioning, ask what pace and register the illustrator has worked at before. British Artists keeps ownership simple: every profile is made and kept by the illustrator themselves, with contact details published on their own terms and reached directly. From a profile it is a short move to the illustration works on view, the events illustrators take part in, and the classes some of them teach.