Wanting to know more about how to be successful in the children’s book industry, as an illustrator, I went to an online lecture that featured Dapo Adeola who illustrated “Look up”. They talked about the journey that Adeola and his team had gone through to get “Look Up” to where it is now.

I noted down some of the key points and useful advice I found in this lecture below.

• An online portfolio that shows your unique style and interest in children’s literature. Social platforms such as Instagram are commonly seen as one of the best ways to be noticed by people in the industry. Personal websites to show off your portfolio are also a great way to showcase your work to potential clients.
• Understanding how the industry works and how you can become involved.
• Good communication with agents, authors and publishers and working with them to allow everyone to be on the same page.
• Have a continued interest in learning how to create interesting artwork and character design. Being able to look for new inspiration but still adding your own flair to your artwork.
• Having good knowledge on digital editing such as using photoshop/InDesign to understand how a book is made.
• Having a team that understands how you work and allow you to have creative freedom in making your artwork. This can be seen with any famous duos such as Roald Dahl/Quentin Blake and Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler.
• Getting an agent as an initial first step is not talked about often. It is good to build a relationship of trust with your agent so that you can learn from each other as you progress in your career.

Success is something that can be different for many people and for illustrators it is not always a linear path to their career. Children’s book illustration, while not very complicated, requires being active in the industry and promoting you work through social media effectively. Having a great passion for picture books themselves makes working in this area rewarding. Above all, effectively communication and liaison with client, authors, agents, and publishing houses is key to building a successful career in the long term for the talented illustrator.

Dapo Adeola always had an interest in art and drawing since he was 7 years old. For a long time, like many others, he did not know what an illustrator was or that he could be one as a future career. He continued to do art and design, graphic design and advertising but did not gravitate to any of these subjects. He feels that some of what he learnt informs his work today but sadly he did not pass on the course he studied. For a long time, he felt unfocused with no sense of direction for what he wanted to do. He did go through a foundation course from the strength of his drawings. This allowed him to explore different aspects of art.

His dissertation was about teaching children through picture books. He wanted to retell the story of the Tortoise and the Hare as a counting book. Although he was not doing well on his graphic design course, things started to become clear to him as he was encouraged to explore illustration and started to educate himself through online resources on how to learn to create characters.

Eventually, through Instagram, he met Nathan Byron who wanted to write a story about a young astronaut named Rocket. It would become a three-part series, the first one called “Look Up”.
Adeola’s advice was “to start off, draw what makes you happy”. Dapo Adeola. – industry insight, on children’s book illustration.

He believes that “real job satisfaction comes from being self-indulgent when it comes to art. It is a demanding, time and energy-consuming job. So, it’s best to focus on you truly enjoy.”

A Successful Career in Children's book Illustration