Chris Riddell

Don't be over sort of prescriptive in what you do, but look for permission.

Look for those moments where something visual can add clarity.

to the mind's eye can be a sort of, you know, a focus or a zoom lens maybe for the mind's eye so that the reader will take something more from the text or have an enhanced sort of sense.

What you don't want to do is do the opposite, which is, you know, be too showy and too in the way and, you know, sort of demonstrate your fabulous technique whilst, you know, the words are sort of

left stranded on the facing page.

So I think it's a subtle sort of form, or should be.

And there's something else, I think, that enters into the illustrator's craft, and that is our own sort of visual language.

And it's sometimes an overly interpretive approach can get in the way of sort of, you know, appreciating the feel, the mood of a book.

You know, there's a sort of certain type of sort of photorealism that isn't always helpful.

And that's something I've learned from sort of admiring some of our great illustrators, such as Ronald Searle, who was just brilliant at sort of his own visual language

And also Quentin Blake, again, a wonderful exponent of exactly that.

Lee Hopps, I think, is one of your great illustrators who never gets in the way but has his own visual language that enhances the text.

And I think that's what I'm always looking for.

I don't want to sort of get in the way too much.

But at the same time, I know the value of illustration within a book.

It adds joy.

and excitement, and you're standing in the bookshop, you take all the library, and you take the book off the shelf, and you open it, and if there's an illustration there, it's almost like being greeted and invited in.

And then you can sort of start the reading experience with that sense of there's something happening here.

This is going to be something I'm going to enjoy.

And I think that's what illustration can do.