interview with an illustrator
Emily Woodard
on designing for Alexander
McQueen and her love of
fables, Victorian London
and collecting Punch
annuals & feathers . . .
u SB What drew you to illustration? Emily: I’ve designed
material for as long as I can remember. My mother had a studio
and I remember as a child using all her expensive paints and
pens to create odd pictures. But it wasn’t until I was 19 years
old, sitting on a beach in Fiji that it suddenly came to me that
illustration and design was what I wanted to do as a career.
u SB Do you have any formal design training? Emily: Yes, a
degree in Graphic and Media Design from London College of
Communication. u SB Where are you from originally? Emily: A
small, picturesque boating town called Fowey in Cornwall. u SB
Where do you live now? Emily: London, drawn by my University,
the galleries, the museums, the eerie Victorian streets, the
history, the ghosts, the parks. u SB What’s your studio like?
Emily: It’s a small room in a turn of the century redbrick
building opposite London Fields, in Hackney. u SB What is
your biggest inspiration? Emily: Walter Potter’s collection of
curiosities, along with Arthur Rackham, Edward Gorey and the
more recent Mark Rydon and James Jean. u SB How do you get
your ideas? Emily: From stories told to me when I was a child,
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