What is Illustration? Studio AKA has the answer
In a lovely-looking film for the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration’s rebranding, director Marcus Armitage explores how illustration has shaped our lives throughout history.
Credits
powered by-
- Production Company Studio AKA
- Director Marcus Armitage
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Credits
powered by- Production Company Studio AKA
- Director Marcus Armitage
- Producer Nikki Kefford-White
- Editor Nic Gill
- Animator Matthew Armitage
![](https://d17mj1ha1c2g57.cloudfront.net/v1/eevdlzviDwqF7H9dT66nZHsUtoU/1024x576%23/80/shotsmag/production/clips/87759dd3-0ff4-4040-aadb-6b1a233f0f26/1680519386529.jpg?v=1&quality=80&format=jpeg)
Credits
powered by- Production Company Studio AKA
- Director Marcus Armitage
- Producer Nikki Kefford-White
- Editor Nic Gill
- Animator Matthew Armitage
Us humans love a good picture. Whether it's primitive paintings or elaborate packaging, engaging images have helped form stories, impressions and connections for millennia.
It is this instinctive connection with images that Studio AKA director Marcus Armitage explores brilliantly in his new branded short, What Is Illustration?
Created to promote The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the film transports viewers 40,000 years into the past to see how cave drawings allowed early humans to learn and brings us to the present day with maps, street signs, and picture books, all conjured in Armitage's energetic style; composed around simple cut-out paper shapes, creating backgrounds on which tiny characters interact with the many different forms that illustration can take.
“The aim was to create something fun, engaging and informative that the Quentin Blake centre for Illustration could really use to help show how influential illustration is to our lives, explains Armitage. "It was a real revelation for me, as you realise just how surrounded we are by illustration and how we can easily take it all for granted.”
“Illustration is a familiar part of our daily lives," adds Olivia Ahmad, Artistic Director at Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, "but it can be hugely powerful too: it plays a big role in shaping our world.
"Marcus has demonstrated that brilliantly with a perfect balance of warmth and clarity. We’ve loved working with Studio AKA and we can’t wait to share their film with people of all ages in the run-up to opening the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in Clerkenwell.”